Brands work only with the support of their consumers. The closer a consumer feels to his or her chosen brand, the more ‘personal’ he or she feels the connection is, the more the consumer is likely to stick to that particular brand through thick and thin. Look at Apple, for example. They make fantastic products, but so do many other companies. But somehow, Apple has managed to instill a sense of identity about their product, something that makes their consumers extremely protective about the brand.

Why are we going on about brand – consumer connection? Well, because according to a new study, that is the kind of connection which makes people connect with brands in social media. More specifically, it’s what makes people ‘Like’ their chosen brands on Facebook. Conventional wisdom is that people generally engage with a brand on social media to either communicate with the brand or to take advantage of special offers, promotions etc. However, according to a study by ExactTarget and CoTweet, 39% of the people polled said they ‘Like’ a brand on Facebook to show their brand loyalty and support to others. It is the second most important reason why people ‘Like’ brands, ranking only below a desire to take advantage of special offers.

This study is illuminating because it is proof of something most social media marketers try to explain to companies and businesses – social media efforts can only be successful if they are tied together skillfully with real-world efforts. It works when people organically flock to a company’s Facebook page simply because they want to show other people they love that particular brand. Nurture that love, encourage it and your business too can rule the social media sphere.

To read up more on the survey, click here

Technology and marketing today are more intertwined than ever before. No longer is it enough to just have an idea about the technologies of the day; your organization needs someone in the know, someone who is aware of the hundreds and thousands of software and applications that can come in handy at every step of the marketing process. Scott Brinker (President and CTO, ion interactive) recently emphasized on the need of a Chief Marketing Technologist for these very reasons. Brinker put forward three very compelling reasons why companies need to look beyond the traditional marketing approach and introduce such a position in the marketing chain of command.

1. Your choice of software has massive impact on your marketing strategy. From analytics software to the various web technologies – they all influence your marketing operations. You need a person with enough technical and business expertise making strong decisions and not educated guesses.
2. The interaction between the various technologies you use, indeed you entire technology ecosystem needs a single point of control. A technologist maintains the balance between these various technologies working together for optimal results.
3. Finally, marketing is now a fast paced world, where technologies and strategies change every few weeks. To survive and thrive in such an atmosphere needs someone at the helm who is tech savvy and flexible.

Of course, while tech savvy is important, a marketing technologist by its very definition needs to be someone who can marry the technical resources and business needs of the organization for the best possible results. A marketing technologist cannot be an IT guy struggling to understand the requirements of marketing; he needs to be a marketing person with expertise in IT. His job is not just the implementation of new technologies but also to be a liaison between IT and marketing, to advise the company on matters related to technology and marketing and also to make sure that the IT awareness level among marketing people increases.

To read Scott Brinker’s article on the need for a Chief marketing Technologist, click here

Today, let’s talk movies. Specifically, let’s talk about the movie that’s topping the US box office charts this week. The movie that has a 97% fresh rating on RottenTomatoes. The movie….all right, enough of that. We’re obviously talking about The Social Network. The ‘Facebook Movie’. Except, it’s not really the Facebook movie. It’s not even the ‘Zuckerberg Movie’. No, from this vantage point, it basically feels like a ‘we-have-no-idea-what-Facebook-or-social-media-is-but-let’s-make-a-movie-anyway’ movie.

Oh, we are not here to talk about the actors, who are mostly brilliant, or David Fincher’s direction, which is tight, or even Aaron Sorkin’s dialogue, which has the pace and bite his fans are familiar with. But as a peek into one of the foremost techno/entrepreneurial minds of the 21^st century, it stumbles and ultimately fails. Zuckerberg is presented as a loner with an edge, awkward around other people. Basically, the caricature of a programming geek. By all accounts Zuckerberg has his flaws and a history of questionable decisions, both personal and professionals. Many might take him to task on his ideas about privacy. But neither is he the unblinking, unsmiling, unfeeling, almost alien creature he is presented to be. The movie does not explore why he does what he does, or tries to even understand the Facebook phenomenon. It is far more interested in a (largely fictionalized and lurid) story of betrayal and excess with a popular brand name to draw in the crowds.

The Social Network does not understand social networks; indeed, it even seems frightened of them. It sees its creators as disconnected nomads in a digital desert; people who don’t understand humans, only computers. The one man painted in a sympathetic light is Zuckerberg’s former friend and partner Eduardo Saverin. Not surprising, since Saverin served as consultant for the book The Accidental Billionaires, the book this movie is based on.

The tagline for the movie reads ‘You don’t get to 500 million friends without making a few enemies’. It’s clear that Fincher and Sorkin lie strictly outside that 500 million. Ultimately, what’s ironic is that The Social Network gets many things right – but not the people that populate it.