May 11, 2010

Brand Voice: balancing personal and corporate tone in Social Media

Last night we held our biggest event yet at the fantastic Saatchi building in Parnell and it was a really valuable experience for all involved.

We kicked things off with a few words from our gracious beer sponsor Monteith’s about how Social Media is only as cheap as the time you want to devote to it.

Next up was Rebecca Smith, who leads the digital and direct marcomms team at Telecom. She shared some fascinating insights into what it was like for during the XT network outages. She also gave some pointers as to what she has learnt from her Social Media experiences. According to her, it’s all about “picking the right people to look after your business’ Social Media presence.” Those who are ‘naturally’ on-message and on-brand are the people who need to be fast-tracked as digital voices for the company in question.

She also emphasised the increasing importance of speed in turning around press releases and mentioned that it’s a good idea to keep a low profile when learning the ropes in Social Media, which I thought was a very pertinent point.

Rebecca was followed by the effervescent David Farrier, entertainment reporter/ blogger for TV3 and bfm DJ. David talked about a whole range of topics, from odd cult movies to how platforms like Twitter have superseded his beloved gamer forums.

He also said something that I’ve heard before and definitely agree with: try not to tweet anything you wouldn’t want your Mum seeing. Very true.

Last on the podium was Vaughn Davis, creative director at advertising agency Y&R.

Vaughn talked about what we can learn about brand voice by keeping it real like Hurricanes star Ma’a Nonu’s recent expletive filled post-match interview.

Basically, it’s all about being real, open and transparent and engaging honestly with customers. If you don’t want to ‘open the windows’ to the outside world then maybe you should take a long hard look at what you’re doing that isn’t suitable for public consumption.