Business Insight Zone

Reflecting on his own experience using Twitter and counseling clients in its use, Jeremiah Owyang offers useful suggestions here about how to establish that your corporate Twitter account is official:

Don’t get BrandJacked: Confirming Your Corporate Twitter Account

This puts me in mind of something that I had meant to discuss a while back, when I talked about American Airlines‘ unofficial, abortive attempt to use Twitter. Here’s the basic idea I’d like to suggest, to Jeremiah and anyone else interested in this issue:

In the social media, there are useful concepts that live somewhere
between fully approved, official use and “brandjacking.”

Here’s why I bring this up: when “Janet” set up a Twitter account and represented herself as Exxon Mobil — which Jeremiah covered in full — it was ill-advised but not malicious. She said nothing but good things about Exxon and its actions, and fielded questions and complaints from other Twitter users in a way that reflected well on Exxon. When the ruse was revealed, she never (that I know of) tried to take any vengeance on Exxon.

• Was it wise to misrepresent herself as Exxon? Heck, no.
• But did she “punk” Exxon with what she did? Also no.

I think of what “Janet” did as a form of “brandhacking.”

It’s clear that she misrepresented herself and misled the audience, which I hope we can all agree is not a good ploy. But that doesn’t mean we should put a blanket label of “brandjacking” on everything of the type — at least if “brandjacking” implies that every time someone unofficial represents themselves as speaking for a company, it automatically equates to A Very Bad Thing.

Social Media and Corporate Control

The issue, I think, is CONTROL. The term “brandjacking” tends to stoke the control fantasies of corporate hierarchies, which like to think that, if they don’t come up with something or give it their seal of approval, it’s a bad thing by definition.

As Jeremiah himself has shown us, many corporations have stumbled — sometimes badly — in trying to get a handle on Twitter and other social media. Worse, some have been heavy-handed in shutting down positive outlets of opinion that weren’t official. Looking toward the future, most companies need to do a MUCH better job of responding quickly via social media, and I’m not sure that a blanket use of “brandjacking” helps them get there.

So what do I recommend? More of a taxonomy — one that recognizes that there are both white-hat and black-hat forms of brandhacking. It’s just a sketch of an idea that I hope you’ll help me improve, but maybe we could use a grid something like this:

The morals to this story:

• Most companies still need to get their act together on social media. Let’s not stoke their fears by letting them think that any unofficial social-media communication equates to brandjacking.
• Instead, let’s help them to figure out how to deal with the VARIOUS forms of unofficial social-media behavior around a brand, whether that means they should encourage it, co-opt it, steer it, rebut it, or shut it all the way down.

What I’ve said here isn’t enough to build a full-blown theory on. But I’m trying to build on the excellent work of Jeremiah and others to help us reach a better iteration of the state of the art in our thinking about corporate social media.

What do you think?

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Photo by hmvh, used under a CC-Share Alike license.

Category: Marketing & Sales, Social media