Branding, Social Media, and Learning to Lose Control

One of the defining realities of modern life is the surfeit of choices we experience. Every time we want to buy something, every time we want to experience something, there are usually more choices than we can accommodate. The importance of brand has risen as people search for good ways to differentiate products and experiences. Today I gave a presentation at the Hub Berkeley about brand, social media, and losing control.

The presentation came out of a lot of what I've been thinking and writing about lately. The conversation about social media is too often ghettoized to the details of things like how to get more followers on Twitter. I think though that the real power of social media is the way in which it is challenging not just company's brands, but the very way brand is established and transmitted.

Some key points of the presentation included:

• The notion that brand is about the feelings people associate with a company, organization, idea, or person, or to use Zefrank's language, the "emotional aftertaste."
• Brand matters more than ever because of the increase in consumer choice and the fracturing of distribution platforms
• The internet changes the experience of brands and gives individuals more power to remix messages, spread things they like, connect with other critics of things they don't and generally take control of brands
• Nonprofits have to create specific value for their stakeholders to engage with for them to successfully differentiate themselves from other mission-driven organizations

See the full presentation here:

And take a few minutes to watch Zefrank on branding as well:

(Photo: Liako)