Media 2025 | The Connected Society

Today, the term “media” can mean different things to different people.  Ultimately, however, media is mass communication regarded collectively. Media today can be the message, the medium, or the messenger; and to complicate things, the lines between them are becoming very blurry. 

Social Media is participatory and connected media.  One might argue that once all media is participatory and connected that the term ‘social’ is redundant.  Media is simply media.  The future of social media, therefore, is a discussion on the future of media itself. To that end, social will just be folded into the broader marketing discipline.

Social Media today is focused on driving real-time engagement, (unedited and unfiltered) live streaming video, Virtual Reality (VR), Artificial Intelligence (AI), Augmented Reality (AR), Internet of Things (IoT), social commerce, mobile wallets, metadata, search/visibility, data-driven decisions, content marketing and mobile devices.

Moving into 2018, more and more users are using messenger apps (e.g. Facebook Messenger, Slack, and WhatsApp) but there’s still a lot of growth happening in social networks. Social platforms, social customs, and communication standards are all in a constant process of evolution.

Transparency is the new black, and there is a clear shift from talking at the world to making the world talk. To wit, most branded content in the next years will come from consumers, and user-generated content will far exceed branded content.  The next wave of media apps will help filter the clutter.

Ultimately, everything that can be connected to the Internet will be by 2025 (i.e. homes, humans/ wearable tech, TVs, cars, jet engines, locomotives, lights, appliances, etc.) That said, people will care increasingly more about culture than products.  

MOVING AHEAD

The future of media is inextricably linked to technology. The promise of technology was always to improve the way people live and to make our lives simpler and easier.  Around the world, people are utilising technology to create new communities, engage across boundaries, make the world more inclusive, and change the way we interact.  This transformation is happening everywhere and in every culture, country, and industry. 

Integrated mobile devices like Google Glass and the Apple Watch are already taking major steps to eliminate the gap between “technology” and “life.”  What is clear is that we have quickly evolved from the age of industrialisation to the connected society.

The connected society transforms everything. Information and communications technology (ICT) and big data are also fueling the rise of a new economy in which new market actors – commercial, "indiepreneurial," and crowd-sourced – are empowered with new models of production and exchange, as well as automated, frictionless and highly personalised consumption. 

In this new economy, consumers become curators rather than receivers, products give way to services, and consumers adopt more and more complex roles as citizens, users, co-creators, specialists, and actors.  Collaboration, crowd funding, crafting and sharing are just some of the hallmarks of the modern, involved consumer. 

The connected society encourages a rise of meritocracy and the formation of a creative elite.  Within this order, merit is increasingly defined by a new set of emerging values, such as knowledge, transparency, fairness, quality of experience, authenticity, sociality, healthiness, and simplicity.  The ability to make informed choices, to a very large extent, will drive the consumers of the connected society.

Fast-forward to the future, and we should see global media usage continue on its upward trajectory.  By 2020, eMarketer projects that 2.44 billion of the world's population will be on connected networks. Media usage will be ubiquitous, seamless, and integrated into our daily lives in a multitude of ways.

The ways we both input and observe media will also shift. Holographic displays will be shifting into the mainstream and keyboards on desktops, laptops, tablets and smartphones will become increasingly irrelevant, as interactions on what was once called social media will largely be voice-controlled.

Driven by continued advancements in technology and rapid rollouts of commercial products, the future will be shaped by an information ecosystem that’s increasingly more intuitive, anticipatory, transparent and personalised. Some very fundamental human activities like learning, thinking, working, and being “present” with others will be transformed by these changes.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies such as machine learning and natural language processing will also play an integral role in shaping the future. Over time, the computer itself - whatever its form factor - will be an intelligent assistant helping you through your day. Your phone, for example, will proactively bring up the right documents, schedule and map your meetings, let people know if you are late, suggest responses to messages, handle your payments and expenses. Technology won’t just serve as tools for you, but they’ll even serve as your stand-in in some cases.

Even today, Google’s new messaging app, Allo, scans your texts; understand the context and supplies readymade human-like responses for you (“Cute dog!” and “That’s good!”). Not just when you were sent words, but even when you were sent pictures.  Just imagine how much more dynamic and robust these technologies will become.

As a result, Social Media will become far more specialised and personalised to the actual needs and interests of each audience member. By 2025, social media sites will have adapted their platform for each user so that it would appear by today’s standards that people live in their own universe.

Social Media platforms will compete to maintain their share of the audience.  Users of social media will gradually only expose themselves to the news that affects them. Future platforms will be even more equipped to predict exactly what users will need to keep them engaged.

Social media platforms will connect advertisers with potential customers by using multiple regression analysis and correlation analysis.  When a consumer behaves differently than the formula predicted, the formula will automatically adjust.  The connected society will know when you are tired, hungry, thirsty, stressed, or even low on Vitamin C. 

In the connected society envisioned in 2025 people will increasingly seek out a sense of belonging and social media platforms will provide “fireplaces” for people to gather around and topics for interaction, conversation and relationship building.  Products, services and brands will be instilled with meaning more through the crowd than through branding and marketing efforts.

Products and services infused with a social component of some kind can more easily move from product/service status to an experience. For the 2025 consumer, an experience will always be more original than the actual product or service. This means that consumers will be looking for original experiences delivered by humans and which are embedded in a social context, rather than searching for specific products and services. Subsequently, a value will be grafted onto products and services by how a network of users – or a network of peers – decides to use them.

Human beings are inherently social animals, and we are ultimately at the centre of our own universes. On average, people spend 60 percent of conversations talking about themselves—and this figure jumps to 80 percent when communicating via social media platforms.  As a result, our social media platforms will increasingly place us at the centre of our unique, personalised ecosystem. Parents in 2025 won’t be complaining about their children spending too much time texting.  They'll be complaining that their son or daughter seldom step out of their own self-made virtual-world.

Social Media in 2025 will be a ubiquitous enabler, producer and facilitator that shift the consumer from receiver to curator.  This is a natural evolution of a sharing economy and change in values, preferring services and access to function, rather than ownership. This means that businesses will have to engage and collaborate with users in different roles rather than as passive consumers.

Social Media will continue to create and connect new communities, engage across boundaries, make the world more inclusive and fundamentally change the way we live. As William Gibson espoused, (Neuromancer, 1984) this brave new world will be “a consensual hallucination experienced daily by billions of legitimate operators, in every nation.”

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Written by Andrew B. Giles. Andrew is the head of digital innovation and strategy at Goodbuzz Inc. You can follow him @Goodbuzz and on Facebook. 

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Goodbuzz is a digital agency based in Toronto, Canada. We help brands create and capture value from emerging trends in technology, society and the workplace. We prototype the future - and believe the best way to predict it - is to create it.  Follow us on Facebook or Twitter or if you have any questions contact us directly.

Asking The Right Questions

“If I had an hour to solve a problem I’d spend 55 minutes thinking about the problem and 5 minutes thinking about solutions.” ― Albert Einstein

I had an old, grizzled Creative Director at an agency I used to work at that frequently said to clients, “if we could all agree on what the question is we could probably find an answer to it.”  He was right in many ways.   

The right questions are the foundation of any solid work. The quality of a solution rests on the right understanding of the problem. This is no less true when it comes to digital marketing and design. The first step therefore in any project should be to ask questions and listen.

Digital marketing and design never have a one size fits all solution. Each business has different markets and people that they serve, different products they sell, and different ways they communicate. For example, a tech company, a dentist, and a restaurant are all going to use digital marketing in different ways.

One may want to reach a nationwide audience but really only serve particular types of people and occupations. Another might serve almost anyone but only in a local geographical area. The bottom line is that cookie cutter solutions, whether they come from a blogger, an e-book, or by observing other brands, aren’t always going to work. It’s important to ask the right questions (and many of them) before you start trying to provide the right answers.

So, you’re probably asking - what are some of the right questions to begin with?  Let’s start here.

Who are you as a company?  If you don’t know who you are, it will be hard to define any of the other questions. What is your area of focus? Do you make a particular product? Provide a unique service?

Who is my ideal customer?  Once you’ve answered the first question, it will be easier to answer this question. Who are you targeting? Are you using analysis to define your ideal customer or your gut?

How am I uniquely suited to serving my ideal customer?  What can you do that others in your space can’t?  There must be something.  What separates you from the competition? What will allow you to stand out from your competitors in your space?

Where does my ideal customer live, work, shop, etc?  Once you know who you are, who you’re looking for, and what unique value you bring to them, you need to figure out how you reach them? Will you need a website? Online advertising? Social media marketing? Maybe a Billboard?

Where do I want my business to be in six months?  How about a year?  Knowing how much money you want (and need) to bring in over the next six months will help you focus on the key areas you need to invest in to get there?  This focus will help you find the key levers that will allow you to grow and begin moving those levers.

What triggers my ideal customer to think of me? Is there a particular problem that causes your ideal customer to think of you? What brings you to the top-of-mind for them? Is it an email? A social media post? A physical loyalty punch-card in their wallet?

How much time and money am I prepared to invest into the solution? This is the key question that comes after all the previous questions. Once you know about yourself, your ideal customers, how to reach them, how to get their attention, and where you want to be in six months - you can then make sound decisions about how much you can wisely invest into your methods to ensure you still get a reasonable return on investment.

Certainly it’s an overused quote that is attributed to any number of people but it’s absolutely true - “the best way to predict your future is to create it.”  Need some help prototyping your future path?  We’re here to help.

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Goodbuzz is a digital agency based in Toronto, Canada. We help brands create and capture value from emerging trends in technology, society and the workplace. We prototype the future - and believe the best way to predict it - is to create it.  Follow us on Facebook or Twitter or if you have any questions contact Goodbuzz directly.

 

Building An Extraordinary Brand

Many clients think their logo is their brand. But a brand is much more than a graphic image. A brand is a set of associations that a person (or group of people) makes with a company, product, service, individual or organization.  It’s the way people feel when they interact with your marketing. It’s the promise your company makes to your prospects and to your customers. It’s your brand’s personality.

Branding is a way of clearly highlighting what makes your offer different to, and more desirable than, anyone else’s. Effective branding elevates a product or organization from being just one commodity amongst many identical commodities, to become something with a unique character and promise. It can create an emotional resonance in the minds of consumers who choose products and services using both emotional and pragmatic judgments.

So, ask yourself - what comes to mind when you think about your brand? What do you want to come to mind?  Whatever you want your business to represent, you need to consistently instill that idea in everything that is your business.

You achieve consistency by doing the same thing in the same way so it produces exactly the same result each and every time you do it. For your customers to be able to expect consistency, you must be able to clearly identify the elements that make up consistency in your business.  We all welcome (and crave) the familiar and we shun the unknown (and tend not to trust it.)  So, do your customers a favour and give them something to count on. 

Brand loyalty creates brand ambassadors and brand ambassadors help drive growth. So put your best foot forward and never leave first impressions to chance.  So, you want to build a brand that stands the test of time?  Take a page from organized religion as notable brands and religions have a lot more in common then you’d think.  Both share:

A Sense of Belonging

Psychologically, ‘sense of community’ is one of the major tenants of self-definition. Belonging to a group can involve language, dress, and/or ritual.  To be part of the group gives meaning and association with a larger group provides emotional safety and a sense of belonging and identification.   The influence is bi-directional.  Think: Nike, Apple, or Harley-Davidson Ownership; the individual shares mission with the larger group.

A Clear Vision

Both Religions and Brands are unambiguous in mission and intent (to reach heaven, achieve spiritual enlightenment.)  Like religions, successful companies and successful brands have a clear, and very powerful sense of mission.   Think: Apple’s Steve Job’s statement in the mid-1980’s, “Man is the creator of change in this world.”  

Power Over Enemies

Successful religions strive to exert power over their enemies (and have so since the beginning of time.)  Taking sides against the “other” is a potent uniting force psychologically.  Even more so if there is an identifiable enemy, as it gives us the chance to not only showcase and articulate our faith, but also to unite ourselves with our fellow believers.  A community united by a common enemy.  Think: Coke vs. Pepsi, Apple vs. PC, Us vs. Them.

Sensory Appeal

All great religions, (whether church, temple, or mosque) have unique sensory appeal.  The air, the incense, the smell of the wood, the ornate stained glass, and the sound of the organ or bell.  All integral parts of the otherworldly experience.  Whether annoyance or longing, sensory qualities evoke an emotional response.  Think: “Hello Moto” or Intel’s Sound Branding.  Maybe the smell of a new Mercedes, or the sleek, aesthetically pleasing lines of the iPod. 

Storytelling

Whether New Testament, Torah, or Koran---EVERY major religion is built upon a heft of history and stories (mostly gruesome and miraculous.) Most notably, the rituals (i.e. praying, kneeling, meditation, fasting, singing hymns, receiving the sacrament, etc.) are rooted in these stories (and therefore are repeatedly and unconsciously reinforced.)

Grandeur

Most religions celebrate a sense of grandeur and awe.  This ensures that one comes away from the experience as mere mortals dwarfed by something far greater than ourselves. Even today, no building in Rome is permitted to be higher than St. Peter’s Cathedral. At the Temple of the Golden Buddha in Bangkok is a nearly eleven foot tall, two-and-a-half ton Buddha made from solid gold (and valued at close to $200 million.)  Think: The Bellagio Hotel, Louis Vuitton’s flagship store in Paris, Apple’s store in NYC, Google’s offices.  All created their own Vatican and stir up notions of grandeur.

Symbols

The cross.  A dove.  An angel, or crown of thorns.  Organized religion is full of iconography and symbolism that act as an instant global language, or shorthand.  This is also true of products and brands.  A brand or product  (symbol) logo can evoke powerful associations, just like religious icons.  Think:  Lance Armstrong (Nike) “Live Strong” bracelets.  Originally given away for free, once they became a symbol of challenging adversity and charitable giving---Armstrong’s Foundation ended up selling some $70 million worth (and inspired a slew of copycats.)

Mystery

In religion, (where the unknown can be as powerful as the known,) mystery is a powerful force.   Think of the mysteries of the Bible, the Shroud of Turin, the Ark of the Covenant, the Holy Grail, or the da Vinci code.  When it comes to brands, mystery is equally effective.  Think: Coca-Cola’s or KFC’s secret formula.

A mischievous Unilever employee in Asia added the sentence “Contains X9 Factor” to a shampoo bottle label.  This last minute addition went undetected by Unilever, and soon millions of bottles were shipped out. As it would be too costly to recall, Unilever let it be.   Six months later, Unilever reprinted the label without the reference to containing “X9 Factor.”  To their surprise sales dropped dramatically and they received a slew of outraged mail from customers.  None even knew what “X9 Factor” was, but were offended that Unilever would dare consider getting rid of it.  In fact, many customers claimed the shampoo wasn’t working anymore, and that there hair had lost its luster.  It just goes to show that the more mystery and intrigue a brand can cultivate, the more likely it will appeal to us.

Rituals

When life feels uncertain and out-of-control, we often seek out the comfort of that which is familiar. Ritualistic patterns make us feel consistent, stable, safe, and grounded. Whether most of us are aware of it or not, we don’t want to tamper with the region of our brain that makes up our “implicit” memory (which encompasses everything you know how to do without thinking about it---from riding a bike to tying your shoelaces.)   Product rituals give us the illusion of comfort and belonging, while also helping us differentiate one brand from another.  Once we find a product or brand experience we like, it’s human nature to make it a ritual.  

Savvy marketers find and exploit the rituals associated with their brands. Products and brands that have rituals associated with them are much ‘stickier’ than those that don’t.  Think: The many ways to eat an Oreo cookie, Lime in the Corona, or the Starbuck’s ordering process.  It’s clear that people ritualize positive experiences and keep coming back for more.  

“The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of." ~ Edward Berneys

Rachel’s Organic Butter, for example, chose black for its packaging design so it would stand out from the typical yellow, gold and green colours (representing sunshine and fields) used by competitor products. The result is that the brand appears more premium, distinctive and perhaps even more daring than its competitors.

Defining your brand

Here are a few key aspects you should consider as you’re building your brand:

·      The big idea – what lies at the heart of your company?

·      Values – what do you believe in?

·      Vision – where are you going?

·      Personality – how do you want to come across?

If you can start to answer these questions with clarity and consistency then you have the basis for developing a strong brand.  Let’s take each of these in turn.

The big idea

The big idea is perhaps a catchall for your company or service. It should encapsulate what makes you different, what you offer, why you’re doing it and how you’re going to present it. The other ingredients are slightly more specific, but they should all feed from the big idea.

The big idea is also a uniting concept that can hold together an otherwise disparate set of activities. Ideally, it will inform everything you do, big or small, including customer service, advertising, a website order form, staff uniforms, corporate identity, perhaps right down to your answer machine message.

To pin down your own big idea you will need to look very carefully at your own business and the marketplace around you, asking these types of questions:

·      How can you stand out?
·      What is your offer?
·      What makes you different?
·      What is your ‘personality’?
·      What do consumers want or need?
·      Is there a gap in the market?

Once decided, the articulation of these ideas can be put into action through branding techniques such as design, advertising, events, partnerships, staff training and so on. It is these activities that set up the consumer’s understanding and expectation of your company; in other words, its brand. And once you’ve set up this brand ‘promise’, the most important thing is to ensure that your products and services consistently deliver on it.

Vision

Generating a vision for your company means thinking about the future, where you want to be, looking at ways to challenge the market or transform a sector. A vision may be grand and large-scale, or may be as simple as offering an existing product in a completely new way, or even changing the emphasis of your business from one core area to another.

Although corporate visions and mission statements can often appear to be little more than a hollow dictums from top management, a well-considered vision can help you to structure some of the more practical issues of putting a development strategy into action. If you’re clear on what you’re aiming at, it’s obviously easier to put the structures in place to get there.

Values

Like the word brand itself, the term brand values is perhaps a little over-used in design and marketing circles, but it does relate to important aspects of how people see your organization. It’s what you stand for and it can be communicated either explicitly or implicitly in what you do. But imbuing your company’s brand with a set of values is tricky for a number of reasons.

Firstly, everybody wants the same kinds of values to be associated with their business. A survey by The Research Business International found that most companies share the same ten values, namely: quality, openness, innovation, individual responsibility, fairness, respect for the individual, empowerment, passion, flexibility, teamwork and pride.

Secondly, it’s not easy to communicate values: overt marketing may seem disingenuous, while not communicating your values in any way may result in people not seeing what you stand for. And lastly, any values you portray have to be genuine and upheld in the way your organization operates. 

Personality

Once you have established your ‘big idea’, vision and values, they can be communicated to consumers through a range of channels. The way you decide to present this communication – the tone, language and design, for example – can be said to be the personality of your company.

Personality traits could be efficient and businesslike, friendly and chatty, or perhaps humorous and irreverent, although they would obviously have to be appropriate to the type of product or service you are selling.  And for smaller companies, the culture and style of the business can often reflect the founder(s), so its values and personality may be the same.

Here are a few examples of how you can start to control the elements of your company’s personality, conveying certain aspects to customers in different ways:

·      Graphic design: The visual identity – hard corporate identity or soft, friendly caricature?

·      Tone of voice: Is the language you use (both spoken and written) formal or relaxed?

·      Dialogue: Can your users or customers contribute ideas and get involved in the organization? Or is it a one-way communication?

·      Customer service: How are staff trained to communicate with customers? What level of customer service do you provide?

Using these key ingredients will give you a solid understanding of your organization’s brand, as well as strategies on how to present it to people.  Starting with the big idea, you can then go on to refine and set out your company’s vision, values and personality. And once these are all in place, you can think about hiring designers to turn your brand blueprint into tangible communications.

Starting From Scratch

If you’re launching a new business, you’re in a unique position to operate as what is often called a ‘challenger brand’. This means that you can take a look at a market sector from the outside, assess all the players, opportunities or gaps in the market and then launch your product with a brand that challenges and shakes up the conventions of the sector.

It’s hard to do this once you’re established as there’s more to lose, so think carefully about how brave and ‘rule’-breaking’ your product or service can be if you’re about to launch to market. At this stage you’re small and therefore responsive and adaptable, with no existing processes that have to be changed to create a new brand. In short: you’ve got one shot to do something exciting, relatively cheaply, so go for it.

THE BIG PICTURE

Our chief task is to break the ice, disrupt, and engage (ideally under the radar) by exploiting certain "triggers" to boost relationships with prospective customers.  Any successful method of persuasion uses triggers to elicit a certain response.  These triggers include power, trust, mystique, prestige, vice, alarm and lust.   Ultimately, we are part of a fascination economy where the consumer is constantly asking “why do I give a shit?”  We therefore need to draw irresistibly the attention and interest of (someone). Our task is to really to add value by informing, educating, and/or entertaining.

Curiosity and fascination are ultimately both instinctive drives that catalyze countless behaviours, including purchasing decisions.  Our task is to bring meaning to all types of otherwise meaningless scenarios by combining such triggers as lust, power, mystique, and trust in different proportions to reel in consumers and reinforce messaging.

• Instead of marketing and advertising being focused on "the individual", we must relate to people in interconnected groups.  
• Instead of attempting to persuade people to believe an ad message, we must try to tap into what it is that people already believe and care about.
• Instead of being focused on selling, the way to connect must be dedicated to driving “sharing.”  The brand is secondary.  
• Instead of controlling the message, we must learn to relinquish control and let the movement do what it will with the message.  
• Perhaps most radical of all - brands must learn to stop talking about themselves.
• Instead of making our brand relevant to an existing, trending topic - our focus here is on understanding the needs of the people who will benefit from what our brand does and sparking a movement that meets those needs.
• Ultimately it’s about creating a marketing model that is in harmony with what your consumers have been saying (and thinking) for years. “You want to sell to me, get to know me! Be part of my tribe! Care about the same things I care about, and I'll buy from you. But you have to come along side me first.”
  

Modern brands have real power if channeled into positive causes that benefit society and the brands themselves. Consumers now expect brands to make positive contributions to society. If they don't the consumers will vote with their feet, and wallets.  So break from the immediate past and assume thought leadership of the category.  Become idea-centric rather than consumer-centric. Create symbols of consumer re-evaluation.  

The status quo is dead so break with the past: assume nothing, take no one and nothing for granted, and constantly ask "What if?" and "Why not?"  Strive to create ideas that are engaging, provocative, self-propagating, and that create competitive advantages.  So strive for simplicity, common sense, and creativity - any approach that gains access to consumers' hearts and minds, develops ongoing relationships with them, and, most important, embraces them as partners in the process of developing and advertising.

Cut through the bullshit and show you brand is ultimately as human as they are.  This requires finding and leveraging a unique consumer insight the consumer already has about your product or service.  The most effective advertising involves consumers in two critical areas; one, consumers must  take part in the development of communication and two, consumers must be involved in the communication itself.  Simply put, creating dialogue with consumers will allow advertisers to know exactly what consumers actually want in a brand and product, and consumers should not be told what to think, but they should be given persuasive facts and allowed to make up their own minds.

Let us know if you need any assistance. We love this stuff.

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#Goodbuzz is a digital agency based in Toronto, Canada. We help brands create and capture value from emerging trends in technology, society and the workplace. We prototype the future - and believe the best way to predict it - is to create it.  Follow us on Facebook or Twitter or if you have any questions contact Goodbuzz directly.

The Truth About Your Brand's Truth

We all have experiences like this, but I distinctly remember being annoyed by the tagline a bank of mine once used, "Leading The Way.”  The suggestion, or at least my perception of the claim, was the bank wanted me to believe it was somehow leading me. I resented the claim and what I believed was the bank's arrogance and overblown sense of its role in my life.  I have an equal aversion to Christian Mingle’s “Find God's Match for You” tag line – but lets save that for another post.

We must remind ourselves that in the old (pre-social) marketing world there were a lot of bullshit promises that brands made. I was definitely a part of this at some point, so am equally guilty. But ultimately we did this in the old days because consumers did not have any choice. We paid to push messages in people’s faces.

Sure, the best marketers avoided ego-stroking brand claims in favour of target-centric, emotionally compelling messages, but the vast majority of ad messages in the old world trended heavily toward what could only be considered ‘arrogant’ claims. It was much easier back then because it took very little effort to say whatever we wanted to say.

What is clear however is that it takes a lot more work to understand what your target constituent truly is interested in, and what authentic role in a consumer conversation your brand can truly play today.  It's also kind of amazing to see how slowly we're all shifting our approach to the radically shifting consumer behaviour.  This despite the numerous examples and the new media reality we navigate today.

Consumers today must invite your message in. Yet most advertisers still continue to hammer on the proverbial front door to pitch their wares. Undoubtedly, a brand marketer has a much tougher job in today's invitation-only world – as a premium is now placed on true creativity, honesty, and authenticity.  

But the bottom line is that there is a real need to be true and authentic today. Yet many brands still think that they are either able to control their brand message or (at the very least) manage it through social media channels like Facebook, Twitter and beyond.

Soda companies, for example, will spend millions trying to convince you that they care about youth obesity by sharing healthy factoids about humanity, while fried food companies will try to calm your nerves with recipe suggestions. It's not manipulation so much as it is their newfound ability to be a publisher and put out into their world thinly veiled content as an engine of positive brand perception.

In some instances, it works, connects and populates. In most instances though, it’s a complete waste of time because it was never authentic in the first place. Brands have to accept that they not only don't control their brands (not a new concept), but that even attempting to find the truth (for those who would be inclined to search, dig and better understand the discourse) may as well be all but lost in a world where the manipulation of content is as simple as touching a screen. 

Can brands protect themselves? They can. It will however be costly, time consuming and - ultimately - not worth the hassle and headache. As such, we are entering (kicking and screaming) the age of truth in branding.  A place where a brand is not a unique set of shared emotions through general consensus, but rather an ambiguous mix of content and emotions that are not as clear or easy to define as it once was.

The point is that your brand today should only seek to extend truth, authenticity, and credibility. Emotive brand strategies are built out of what is already true about your brand.  We are not talking about a list of features and benefits either. Your brand truth actually is what focuses consumers on the human, social, and environmental outcomes of those features and benefits, as well as the way in which your brand does its business.

Identifying your brand’s truth is truly an exploration of what lies behind what is already evident and understood about your brand. It is your way of identifying the meaning that lies now hidden in what your business does and how it does it. This analysis flows from the truth, yet illuminates that truth in a way that is more personally relevant and emotionally important to people.

Over time, these meaningful truths become more and more evident in what you do, and they will naturally become more appreciated and admired by your constituents.  As Churchill espoused, "The truth is incontrovertible. Malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end, there it is." 

Bottom line - the more genuine and authentic your brand truth – the closer to the hearts and minds of your customers you’ll be.  Your brands truth is your promise and it needs to ring true, be based on more than facts, and be deliberately aspirational in nature.  So, make certain your brand promise is authentic to what you really and truly do, and ensure credibility through an unwavering devotion to this truth. Godspeed.

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Goodbuzz is a digital agency based in Toronto, Canada. We help brands create and capture value from emerging trends in technology, society and the workplace. We prototype the future - and believe the best way to predict it - is to create it.  Follow us on Facebook or Twitter or if you have any questions contact Goodbuzz directly.

Understanding And Effectively Using A Hashtag #

Hashtags are like keywords that can be used to organize messages on a social network. A hashtag is only a type of label or metadata tag used on social network and microblogging services which makes it easier for users to find information. To understand hashtags you need to understand social search.  For example https://www.hashatit.com/ 

Just imagine that there are a number of people who are searching on specific topics (without knowing anyone on Twitter.) How do they find out who is tweeting about the things that they care about?  They use social search engines (as demonstrated above.) Google also incorporates hashtag search but the social search example above ONLY searches hashtags.

Therefore, when we employ the use of hashtags we are really only tagging things that people are (potentially) searching for. Adding a hashtag therefore facilitates the searching and grouping of messages with their given hashtags.  The real power of hashtags comes from other people using the same keyword(s) so that by clicking on a hashtag you can get a group of other messages on that topic. 


Hashtags should make your messages easier to organize and find. The trick is to hashtag keywords that you think other people would use when looking for the content contained in your message. You can do a quick search for keywords prior to posting your message to see which hashtags are popular (called “trending”). 

People typically use hashtags to: 

• Identify places, things, or brands or events: #Hawaii #Ferrari #CoolEvent  
• Connect with like-minded individuals: #CatLovers #TVaddicts

There are really only two reasons we employ hashtags: 

• Organize content 
• Increase exposure

These are obviously compelling reasons to use hashtags on your personal messages. They are even more compelling when it comes to using social media to promote your business. 

Three common mistakes to avoid: 

• Hashtagging every word (i.e. #I #am #so #excited #today)  
• Hashtagging the same word more than once (i.e. It is my #birthday. Here is a photo of my #birthday cake, my #birthday presents, and my awesome #birthday party!)  
• Separating keywords. If your keyword is “black cat” your hashtag should be #BlackCat. If you write it as #Black #Cat this will give you two different keywords: “black” and “cat”.

The most effective use of hashtagging is when you first search http://hashtagify.me/ and see what is trending.  If you can add a (relevant) trending hashtag to a post you’re effectively then entering a much larger conversation (and will naturally have much higher exposure.)

Anything you post with the word Canada in it (for example only) should be #Canada. Use the hashtag search and search for #Canada – and the social search engine will aggregate everyone's posts using the hashtag #Canada.  In a business environment, for example, if you worked as a marketer for Dyson, you may be reaching out to people using #vacuumcleaners (or whatever the most relevant hashtag was related to vacuums. 

Imagine in the Arab Spring when Egyptians were trying to overthrow their government.  If the people were limited to sharing information ONLY with those they know and follow on Twitter – very little information could be shared and little could be accomplished.  But if they searched for and followed the hashtag most relevant to the uprising (#arabsping for example,) and everyone was posting updates, news, and information using the hashtag #arabspring – you can start to see just how powerful hashtags are to aggregating and disseminating information.

Lastly, and you can of course experiment as you choose, but I was also lead to believe that there should never be more than three hashtags in any post. Keep it relevant and logical based upon what topics you think people are searching for.  

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Goodbuzz is a digital agency based in Toronto, Canada. We help brands create and capture value from emerging trends in technology, society and the workplace. Follow us on Facebook or Twitter.  Or contact us at info@Goodbuzz.ca and let us know how we may be of assistance to you.