Don't let your organization be behind the times.
Older organizations are having a hard time understanding this new world of social media. They don’t see it as valuable, they still see it as a pimply faced 15yr. old trying to find a girlfriend online. They still think that press releases and an ad in the yellow pages will get them good business and that they have control over their brand. Well, it is time to wake up. Traditional media outlets are becoming less and less effective with each new social media website. In the past, organizations could control their brand image by the kind of marketing campaign they put out (t.v., magazine, newspaper). It gets a little tricky now. While each of those are still important, a lot more is required if an organization is trying to create a brand. It doesn’t matter if you call yourself “The King of All Beers” or “”A Church where you can be “real”, ” if the community that engages with your brand doesn’t agree with it, then your attempts at creating a brand have failed and your organization will fail if you don’t listen to your community. Your brand is whatever the community says it is. For example, if you release a scary movie and the commercials for it say “Scariest movie of the year!” and the majority of the public thinks it wasn’t scary at all and that is what they are saying online, then your movie wasn’t scary and you might need to rethink how you sell it. The public owns your brand, not you, and until you understand that and get on board with it your organization will only fall father and farther behind the times. Listen to the pubic and make changes accordingly. I have posted a link for some free sources at the bottom along with some questions to ponder.
What are your thoughts on organizations having no control over their brand? Maybe corporate should use this info, but what should non-profits do about this? Is it wrong for a religious organizations to cater to the public’s opinion?
Here is a link for some Free Social Media Monitoring Tools.
I think it is hard to separate the idea of branding from the idea of “experience”. What a person experiences when using a product is essentially what translates into that company’s brand. Social media these days is a big contributor to this. I also think the blogosphere is a big contributor as well. Case in point, Windows Vista.
So when we talk about how branding translates into the world of Christianity I think it gets a little tricky. There are many aspects of branding that are taken into consideration in the corporate world that the church should not really be all that concerned about.
In my opinion, when it comes to branding, the church should be concerned about its identity insofar as we are living out The Great Commandment to the best of our ability so as not to tarnish the image of Christ.
Sorry it has taken me so long to respond to this.
I agree that the Church should not be concerned with “branding.” But, when we talk about the church (the building) there is the element of finances. Don’t you think a church should share with people the things they might offer that other churches don’t, which in turn will provide more funding? Not saying that this is the approach I would take, just would like to know your thoughts.