My brand engagement fantasy: Hire a few real people.
In 1999, an extraordinary little book called The Cluetrain Manifesto was published. This is a seminal book in the history of digital marketing that predicted the consumer-led economy we’re in today two decades ago. The authors made two exceptional predictions about brand engagement:
- The internet would overturn the brand power structure. Marketplaces would be driven by human-driven online conversations.
- To succeed, brands would have to engage in those conversations.
The first prediction certainly came true. Companies may still be under the illusion that they “control the conversation” and the sales funnel, but that is simply not so. A brand used to be what we told consumers. Today, a brand is what consumers tell each other.
The second prediction has certainly not come true. Oh sure … maybe at the beginning of the social media era companies tried to join the conversation and engage but then they automated, cut staff and turned the idea of community engagement into a glorified IT department.
If you want proof of this, look no further than this tweet:
