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Good social media strategy recognises that content is king, the channel is never a solution in itself

Posted by evakeo October 5th, 2010

So Ed Miliband is the new Labour leader, and as usual it didn’t take long before someone wrote an article saying how he will have to embrace social media if he is going to have any success.

Well, I guess so. But let’s not put the cart before the horse.

What needs to be understood here is that social media cannot bring about political change in isolation. Social media are only ever tools to facilitate communication, be that directly or via the sharing or creation of content. Twitter hasn’t and never will make anyone want to go and march on a protest, it will only make it easier for those who do want to march to communicate and co-ordinate.

Yesterday, my colleague Adam Russell sent over to me a thought provoking article in The New Yorker last week by Malcolm Gladwell (author of The Tipping Point), whereby Gladwell debates social media’s shortcomings when applied to activism and attempting to establish any meaningful form of social change. To be honest, I thought that whilst it was a well written story, it was more a case of stating the obvious because there is a lot of hot air around social media and politics that needs to be taken with a big old pinch of salt.

With social media, it is never enough just to have a Facebook presence or run a Flickr account. A brand needs to clear objectives and a well written strategy that will promote a sense of transparency that may have repurcussions for the way that the entire business is run, or at least how every faction communicates with the public. You will also need engaging content- after all what is, for example, a Facebook page without content? It’s the same with politics. It’s all very well having a smooth looking website and a few Twitter feeds but what really matters to people is what politicians have to say about how their country is run. Social media just makes it easier for people to get the message but the threat of, say, a pressing local issue will make immeasurably more difference when you get to the ballot box.

Predictably though, there was a rebuttal of Gladwell’s article from Jonah Lehrer of Wired where he states:

“Gladwell says, online networks are all about weak ties — a weak tie is a friend of a friend, or a casual acquaintance — whereas real activism (he uses the example of the civil rights movement, led by Martin Luther King) depends on strong ties, or those people you know and trust … I would quibble with Gladwell’s wholesale rejection of weak ties as a means of building a social movement … Do all those Tea Party activists feel like they have weak ties with Sarah Palin?”

Now, in my personal opinion, the right wing ultra-libertarian Tea Party is a repugnant organisation. But it is an organisation that exists because of the increasing polarisation of American politics brought about by successive leaders that come from very opposing ends of the political spectrum and whipped into a fervour by two very old media stars- Jon Stewart for the liberals and Glenn Beck for the conservatives. Yes, social media will absolutely help them to organise and communicate in a way that they never would have managed 10 years ago, but political change is not coming about because of social media- it is coming about because of real world issues. Social media just helps with the heavy lifting.

Everyone knows that the web helped Barack Obama’s supporters to co-ordinate with each other, but the only reason that they wanted to do so in the first place was because Obama represented such a change from the incumbent in terms of his policies, ethnicity and character. Obama was campaigning on real world issues that really mattered to people, both at home and abroad. Yes, the web helped his cause – not least because the younger demographics which were likely to vote for him were also predisposed to be heavy internet users- but that’s all it did, help it. The web was one of the catalysts for change but there were dozens of other that one could say were just as significant if not more so. The war in Iraq may be one for a start.

Political parties that make the best use of social media will not “win hearts and minds” by doing so, that change will come from policy and personality. It may help with parts of campaigning like funding, as it did with Obama, but was the web in itself the catalyst for that success? Or the fact that George Bush managed an administration that drove the US into recession, making the hugely charismatic Obama the best economic and political choice for big business as well as the centre left? He managed to raise record funds for a presidential campaign. You don’t do that without some support from some serious players whose connection to Obama has little to do with digital.

Social media are great. But only because of people. People and their opinions have always come first and always will do. All social media does is allow us to act out what we would do in the real world to a larger audience. That is powerful, so powerful that a brand that doesn’t have a good social media strategy will soon find itself left behind. But in politics, social media are still only tools for change rather than change itself. If Ed Miliband wants to ape Obama’s election success, he will have to learn this quickly. A politician needs policy to fuel their social media, as any brand needs content for their channels to reach consumers. Otherwise they will be just wasting bandwidth.

Want to know more about content and how it can reach maketing objectives, social and otherwise? Come to the LBi Branded Content Salon on Tuesday 12th October at 3pm, here in Brick Lane.

Tags: content, Facebook, labour, miliband, obama, politics, Social Media, strategy, twitter

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Alan Davies joins LBi’s group exec as Chief Strategy Officer

Posted by Laura JB May 25th, 2009

Alan Davies, Group Strategy Director at LBi International AB (LBi), is to now join the Executive management team as Chief Strategy Officer.

He will be responsible for the execution of LBi’s global strategy and service offering.  Alongside the CEO, Alan will ensure that LBi’s growth in services, geographic coverage and organizational design is structured to deliver maximum value to clients.  A key part of this strategy will be the development and delivery of proprietary tools and IP that help drive accountable ROI and intelligent decision making across all channels.  The commercial expansion of LBi’s data platform into all key client engagements will provide an increasingly differentiated service that will help to cement LBi’s long-term strategic partnership with its clients. 

“I am very excited to be taking on this challenge.  We are now entering the next era of digital where the relationships that companies and brands have with their customers is fundamentally changing.  The agencies that support that change must themselves adapt.  With the strength of talent and service and the tools that we have developed at LBi, we are in a unique position to offer our clients the support necessary to com-pete in this new environment. I have had the pleasure of working alongside the cur-rent management for many years and now, as part of the leadership team, I look for-ward to helping drive the business forward“ says Alan.

Alan has been at the forefront of the Digital Industry for over 10 years as a consultant, a manager and a salesman. He has worked for LBi for over 8 years with most of their significant clients.  His background in corporate strategy has additionally given him the strong commercial and operational skills required to ensure LBi’s continued strategic success. 

Luke Taylor, CEO, comments, “It is important that our services strategy is informed by a deep understanding of clients and their needs.  Alan has been at the forefront of our most important strategic client relationships for many years and with his consulting insight is uniquely positioned to drive forward our services to support large, international brands.

Having worked alongside all of our international offices and enjoying their deep respect, Alan is ideally placed to both mentor and embed a greater degree of sophistication around the use of IP and data in the transformation of our strategic services.  Specifically, our data platform has the ability to transform the nature of our engagement with clients and Alan will be key in driving this forward throughout the organization.”

Tags: global, hires, LBi Group, Staff, strategy

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LBi strengthens and expands planning offering

Posted by Laura JB March 30th, 2009

Jake Dyer and Ed Beard have joined LBi to take customer brand engagement to another level.

Under Maureen Cuddihy, Head of Planning, both come with a stella pedigree. Jake takes the role at LBi as Planning Partner after comeing from agency.com as Head of Strategy and Planning and part of the management team. At agency, Jake created award-winning work for brands like BA and IKEA, including award winning digitally led integrated activity. Prior to Agency.com, Jake worked for Tequila and TBWAGGT as a Planning Director and CRM expert.

Ed takes the role of Senior Planner after coming from Digitas, where he worked on both B2B and B2C for clients like HP, Shell and Lloyds. While at Digitas, Ed created award winning work for HP. Ed started his career as a BBC journalist and brings his journalistic experience into the world of creating ‘earned’ media engagements for LBi’s clients.

Caroline McGuckian, LBi’s Global Media Director says, “These hires reflect LBi’s continued focus on strategic digital thinking throughout a consumer’s journey with a brand and evidence our commitment to providing clients with the best talent available to work with them in today’s ever changing landscape”

Tags: Consulting, hires, People, planning, Staff, strategy, UK

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