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46
DEVELOPMENT
Tom Briggs,
Senior Social Media
Strategi st, Lead
Content Developer,
Quango Interaction
Design
A dynamic exchange can
strengthen customer relation-
ships. But there are caveats.
is interaction must be
supported with compelling
experiences, moderated
commentary, and a respect
for privacy.
46-53_Briggs_100305.indd 46 3/5/10 10:19:46 AM
Originally published in Design Management Review; Volume 21, Issue 1.
© 2010 The Design Management Institute, Wiley-Blackwell: Publisher.
47
© 2010 The Design Management Institute
At its worst, social media can be
self-servingly unidirectional—lacking
any underlying base of authentic lis-
tening or mutual exchange. No brand
seeking authentic engagement wants
its eorts to be equated with the con-
textually blind automated spam pro-
grams that quickly inltrated Twitter
and other social networks. Devoid of
any self-knowledge or conversational
ability, they interject canned state-
ments into social media spaces. is
is the equivalent of an individual
walking into a cocktail party, standing
on a chair, and endlessly repeating his
or her personal Web address at maxi-
fectively distanced those they sought
to engage.
At its best, social media has the
potential to drive meaningful connec-
tions and provoke conversations with
actively engaged audiences. Watching
Barack Obama’s inauguration live via
CNN video stream alongside a real-
time Facebook comment feed felt like
a well-executed marriage of old media
with new. At the same time, it pro-
vided a logical and natural extension
of Obama’s populist message.2
2. While the Obama White House has left unfulfilled
its promises of a US government opened up by social
media, the Obama campaign’s effective application of
social media outreach to a degree previously unseen in
politics cannot be denied.
Social media in the service of
brand has reached an interesting state.
It simultaneously exists as both the
darling of Web X.0 marketing evan-
gelists and the bane of those ready to
label it an unsustainable feel-good fad
with an air of early-dot-com hype.1
An examination of brand eorts in
the space thus far reveals that each
position has some merit. While early
social media eorts have produced
some inspiring successes with
abundant potential, there have also
been blunders where misjudgment
of complex new social structures ef-
1. Stephen Baker. “Beware of Social Media Snake Oil.”
BusinessWeek, December 14, 2009.
Social Media’s Second Act:
Toward Sustainable Brand
Engagement
by Tom Briggs
46-53_Briggs_100305.indd 47 3/5/10 10:19:46 AM
The Impact of Social Media on Service and Product Brands
48
engage alongside trusted members
of an individual’s social network. An
established, well-known, and sharable
brand story serves to imbue char-
acter while providing a basis for the
gathering of like-minded individuals.
Similarly, any brand superciality or
false authenticity is quickly identied
and amplied.
Social media demands the
authentic extension of brand narra-
tive. Any dissonance between the two
spaces will produce backlash among
engagers who expect authentic con-
nection.
Integration enables unication of
social presence
Social media brings with it new op-
portunities for interpersonal con-
nection. Just as signicant are new
elements encouraging the inter-
weaving of distributed social media
touch-points into a unied digital
persona. Driving this integration
are Web application programming
interfaces (APIs) for social media.
At their simplest level, APIs enable
sharing of information among what
are otherwise disconnected online
social nodes. is interconnection
facilitates consistent presentation of
an online presence. New opportuni-
ties for interconnectedness reveal
opportunities for a brand to grow
presence throughout an individual’s
carried their real story into a com-
pelling social space as Nike+. Since
2006, the Nike+ system has enabled
users to lace up a pair of shoes and
capture detailed personal workout
metrics. rough the use of an ac-
companying iPod or Nike+ device,
they can log detailed statistics that
include distance travelled and calories
burned. Post-run, these statistics can
be uploaded to an online gathering
of what has been called the largest
community of runners ever assem-
bled. To date, more than 1.3 million
Nike+ users have logged more than
130 million miles and burned over
13 billion calories.4 Uploading results
encourages Nike+ users to engage
in a social space where they can
meet and challenge other runners,
design an animated personal avatar,
compare statistics, and gain support
from those working toward similar
goals. Drawing on the inspirational
elements of the Nike brand story has
enabled Nike+ to form an appealing
social media space. Acceptance by the
global running community is proof of
success.
Social media demands social
brands able to provoke conversa-
tions and inspire resonant stories. In
this space, brands communicate and
4. Mark McClusk, “The Nike Experiment: How the Shoe
Giant Unleashed the Power of Personal Metrics,” Wired,
June 22, 2009.
mum volume. Social media requires
that brands navigate a ne line.
Social media demands social brands
In ways that are becoming increas-
ingly apparent, social media drives
user expectations that brands will
interact, provoke, commiserate, and
generally act like trusted friends.
Nowhere is this more apparent than
on Facebook’s walls—spaces that
automatically display real-time posts
from members of an individual’s
social sphere. Here, brands accepted
into a user’s social network speak
alongside spouses, family, friends, and
colleagues. In the resulting environ-
ment, brand is expected to engage
with a new sense of intimacy. Faust
and Householder’s denition and
subsequent call to authentic brands in
a recent Design Management Review
provides a timely perspective: “Simply
put, an authentic brand is a brand
that’s clear about what it is and what
it stands for. It’s a brand that’s built
from the inside out versus one that
panders to the latest trend, fad, or
customer segment. More deeply, it’s a
brand with a real story, a connection
to a fundamental truth and an appre-
ciation of its smart customers.”3
Few brands have successfully
3. William Faust and Leigh Householder, “Get Real and
Prosper: Why Social Media Demands Authentic Brands,”
Design Management Review, vol. 20, no. 1 (Winter 2009),
p. 47.
46-53_Briggs_100305.indd 48 3/5/10 10:19:46 AM
Social Media’s Second Act: Toward Sustainable Brand Engagement
49
transform moderation into a collec-
tive experience. e success of the
online knowledge resource Wikipe-
dia provides an example of eective
crowd-sourced moderation. In a
2005 study conducted by Nature and
reported by CNET, subject mat-
ter experts compared 42 Wikipedia
entries from diverse subject matter
areas to their equivalent articles in
the Encyclopedia Britannica. A total
of eight serious errors were discov-
ered—four in Wikipedia and four in
the Britannica.5
e example of Wikipedia shows
that the integration of community
moderation opportunities into online
social spaces can foster alignment of
content and interactions with stated
community goals. Genuinely engaged
supporters equipped with tools to
bury and silence negative engagers will
contribute to productive social media
experiences when oered a compelling
community vision around which to
rally. While ocial moderation of any
social media space dedicated to brand
5. Jim Giles, “Internet Encyclopaedias Go Head to Head,”
Nature, December 15, 2005.
Brands have an opportunity to use
these emerging API technologies to
simplify and enhance the intercon-
nected experiences of their social
media engagers.
Social media’s moderating inuence
By nature, social media thrive on the
open and uncensored dialogue that
is a cornerstone of the online experi-
ence. Brands looking to engage in
this space must accept that opening
up new communication channels
invites fans and detractors alike into
the conversation. Users interacting
typically face no censor but their own,
and eorts to silence the open ex-
change of ideas are generally frowned
upon. Fortunately, the move to greater
socialization and interconnectedness
of the online experience also reduces
anonymity—encouraging users and
brands alike to stand behind their
words. In essence, social media forges
a social contract through the fostering
of sharing and mutual observation
among self-acknowledged anity
groups. Empowered users assume
ownership of their communities and
social media footprint—his or her
“social graph”—while simplifying and
unifying the engager experience.
Prior to the emergence of
social media APIs, engagement with
multiple online communities meant
separate experiences—dierent login
credentials and a diluted online per-
sona. With social media APIs, users
are coming to expect greater interplay
among social media presences and
interactions. Google Friend Con-
nect and Facebook Connect are each
working to establish themselves as the
de facto standard for online pres-
ence integration. Each tool enables
one interaction to be easily shared
throughout a social graph. In this
way, a restaurant review posted on the
user-driven review site Yelp can be
simultaneously pushed to a Facebook
wall and broadcast on Twitter. e
result is a streamlining of the user
experience and a greater unication of
online presence. Using the same con-
cepts, a Facebook or Google login can
be “passed” between sites, simplifying
the user experience and contributing
to social graph continuity.
Where an online persona was
once distributed and diluted, emerg-
ing technologies are interweaving the
social footprint. is increasingly
robust interconnection will encour-
age and empower users to bring
consistency to their online persona.
Users interacting typically face no censor but
their own, and eorts to silence the open
exchange of ideas are generally frowned upon.
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The Impact of Social Media on Service and Product Brands
50
intimate details of life is appearing
online. While users are becoming
more comfortable sharing their lives
online with trusted networks, some
notable overreaching in social media
has produced instances of consider-
able backlash. Brands looking to
design compelling and sustainable
social media interactions must rec-
ognize and respect wide variations in
perceptions of privacy and openness
among users. Brands that help their
social media engagers establish and
of the social media environment.
Fortunately, this openness encourages
authentically engaged social media
users to self-moderate when given
appropriate recognition and the tools
to silence those who would engage
inappropriately.
Navigating privacy
With social media’s “What’s on your
mind?” prompt being answered by an
increasingly broad mix of users, more
data representing the sometimes
is necessary (if for no other reason
than to spur engagement), those
bringing brands into social media nd
unprecedented opportunities to inter-
act with users primed for engagement.
rough “social engagement sorting”
(see Figure 1), individuals who engage
appropriately within a social media
context are recognized and rewarded.
In a social media environment built
upon personal visibility, this public
recognition and reward serves to foster
appropriate social media engagement.
At its simplest, community
self-moderation is seen on sites that
dynamically shift comments based on
user feedback. By voting for or against
the comments of fellow users, site
members democratically decide which
responses sit closest to the original
content—receiving increased visibili-
ty—and which sit lower on the page.
Some culture sites reliant on user-
generated content take user modera-
tion a step further, rewarding contrib-
uting members for original material.
On these sites, registered community
members who provoke a discussion
or post material that garners a certain
number of comments are awarded a
persistent prole icon recognizing this
and similar accomplishments.
Brand managers considering
the design of social media interac-
tions must recognize the openness
Figure 1. “Social engagement sorting” uses individual exposure enabled by social media to recognize
and reward appropriate user engagement. Through public recognition and reward of contributing
engagers, positive interaction is encouraged and negative interaction discouraged.
Social Engagement Sorting
ENGAGEMENT
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Social Media’s Second Act: Toward Sustainable Brand Engagement
51
2009, Facebook announced that it
would terminate the service. Shortly
thereafter, the network released its
most dramatic update to its privacy
policies since its inception.
As the world’s largest social
network, Facebook set a precedent for
subsequent privacy postures. While
the rising tide of information shar-
ing enabled by social media shows no
signs of slowing, engagers are coming
to expect granular control over per-
sonal data proered online. Beacon
showed that those engaged expect to
retain control over what is shared and
the associated degree of visibility to
both their social graph and the world
at large. Brands seeking social media
engagement should recognize social
privacy spaces and empower users
to control the degree of exposure of
individual social media data elements
(dened as any sharable content). Us-
ers in control of shared data are more
willing to contribute good, honest
personal data that forms the lifeblood
of sustainable social media experi-
ences initiated by brand.
Brands looking to design and
manage within the social media space
do so for users with wide-ranging
views on privacy and openness. In
the case of Facebook Beacon, what
was seen as open sharing in one
context (the voluntary sharing of a
individual Facebook walls where they
were visible to friends. Users reacted
to this perceived invasion of privacy,
and civic action group MoveOn.org
became involved—demanding that
users’ actions not be published with-
out express consent. Beacon was soon
modied to require user approval of
postings. Users were eventually given
the opportunity to opt out of sharing
this type of information entirely. A
class action lawsuit followed and was
only recently settled. In September
manage elements within their “social
privacy spaces” (see Figure 2) will be
best able to forge sustainable social
media engagements.
e emergence and eventual
termination of Facebook Beacon in
response to outraged users reects
the shifting frontiers of social media
privacy. Launched in late 2007, the
Beacon service quietly observed the
interactions of Facebook users on
44 partner websites. Some of these
activities were then published to
Figure 2. Social media engagers desire control over the visibility of individual personal data elements
(e.g. photos, posts, interactions) as seen by their social graph and the online public at large. Meet-
ing this desire for clearly defined and easily manageable “social privacy spaces” drives productive and
sustainable social media experiences.
Social Privacy Spaces
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The Impact of Social Media on Service and Product Brands
52
context of brand.
Mobile device capabilities
including location-aware GPS and
ubiquitous Internet connectivity
will eectively abolish the nal bar-
rier between real-world and social
media relationships. In doing so, they
will make it easier to share social
interactions in real-time and from
anywhere—encouraging users to oer
up more of the information that is
the lifeblood of social media. In time,
these mobile, location-aware devices
will spur (and drive expectations of)
social media and networks that more
realistically mirror the complexities
of actual social interactions. As my
colleague Marc Anteparra-Naujock
has observed, social media will gradu-
ally become less of a destination, and
more of an unobtrusive digital overlay
through which individuals interact
and inform their continually shifting
real-world identities and relationships.
One of the earliest examples
of this real-world/digital social
space convergence is provided by
the FourSquare mobile application.
When visiting a physical business
location (Starbucks for an afternoon
coee run, lunch at the deli down
the street), users “check in” and earn
points by validating their presence
through a GPS-enabled mobile
device. Registered users logging the
in which appropriate content can live
and open, productive conversations
can occur. Responsive to engagers and
committed to the creation of content
exploring food and wellness, Whole
Foods demonstrates that a compelling
brand narrative deployed across an
interconnected social media presence
can foster sustainable engagement.
In recognizing that its social media
presence aords an ideal blend of
communication opportunities for
engaging supporters and detractors
alike, Whole Foods oers a compel-
ling example of social media in the
service of brand.
Social media’s second act
Social media’s evolution is a given.
e time it takes for new social media
tools to appear, integrate with existing
systems, and iterate shows no signs
of slowing. At the leading edge of
this evolution are mobile devices with
increasingly robust technologies and
capabilities. Gartner projects that by
the end of 2010, 1.2 billion people
around the globe will carry hand-
sets capable of mobile commerce.6
Increasingly robust devices combined
with the growing acceptance of social
media worldwide will further amplify
the opportunity of social media in the
6. “Gartner Identifies the Top 10 Strategic Technologies
for 2010” (press release), October 20, 2009.
recent purchase with friends) quickly
devolved into perceived snooping
and invasions of privacy when users
saw information travel beyond their
sphere of control. Backlash against
perceived privacy invasions provides
a wake-up call for brands looking to
engage via social media. Social media
experiences must recognize and ac-
commodate uctuating and uniquely
individual notions of privacy and
exposure. By designing straightfor-
ward systems that enable individual
control over personal data visibility,
wide-ranging notions of privacy can
be accommodated.
Sustainable social media engage-
ment in practice: Whole Foods
Market
Although many brands are ocking to
social media, few have demonstrated
the sustained commitment of organic
grocery retailer Whole Foods. An
early social media adopter, Whole
Foods maintains an interconnected
presence consisting of a blog, Face-
book group, Flickr feed, customer
support community portal, topic- and
location-specic Twitter feeds, iPhone
application, and podcasts. Leverag-
ing the strengths of each social media
element and integrating each into a
consistent brand-aligned presence has
enabled Whole Foods to forge spaces
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Social Media’s Second Act: Toward Sustainable Brand Engagement
53
most check-ins at a location are pro-
moted to “mayor” and retain the title
until another, more dedicated, user
surpasses their commitment. Small
prole icon “badges” are awarded to
those who complete dierent check-
in scenarios, like checking in at mul-
tiple locations over the course of an
evening. Check-in point leaderboards
and integration with existing friend
lists socialize the entire experience.
In time, experiences like these
will continue to blur the line between
the digital and real worlds. Is it any
wonder that relationships will evolve
as well? Integration of social media
will provide designers looking to
develop compelling brand experiences
with entirely new opportunities to
spur engagements. In doing so, they
will discover opportunities to arm
audiences and blur the line between
online and real-world socializations.
Acknowledgements
Special thanks to my team at Quango
Interaction Design, specically Marc
Anteparra-Naujock and Dave Anolik
for their insights and critiques.
anks to Alec Hill for diagram
designs. n
Reprint #10211BRI46
by Will Ayres & Scott Lerman
by Will Ayres & Scott Lerman
46-53_Briggs_100305.indd 53 3/5/10 10:19:48 AM
