Why Brands Fear Social Media: Top 5 Reasons

Most Brands today , specially the so called bigger brands are not comfortable with social media. While most Brand managers who haunt the Knowledge summit across the country will vouch for the fact that conventional marketing and branding is slowly but surely becoming more expensive and less effective more distractive and less meaningful as Internet turns on traditional marketing and branding on its head.

The truth is that these experts only pay lip service to the concept on online marketing and social media . Brand managers are today truly and deeply afraid ff the power of social media..Some of the most well known reasons of fearing the social media for these brands come from the following reasons

1) Consumer will see my other side : The side that is less traveled and murky, the part which most brand managers hate to expose to their consumers. What happens when my brand is exposed to negative feedback?

2) I will loose control of my brand: What happens if everyone trash my ads in public. What happens if you product launch becomes another Haagen Daz fiasco ( remember how Haagen Daz thought that they have come up with a brilliant idea ... which resulted in them firing their ad agency)Brands tomorrow will be controlled more by what people converse across the online world rather by TV ads or print ads... Like consumer generated content.. Consumer Evolved Brand will be a norm rather an exception

3) How do I counter negative Publicity: Online news specially the negative news travelers faster on the web... Instead of controlling their PR and Communications department on what to say or not say.. they are caught in a whirlpool of social media ecosystem which takes away all the goodwill they have earned

4)Not Finding the Right Guy : How many of our HR knows about social media.. leave alone.. having the ability of hiring the right kind of people. Instead of Brand managers attending social media summits .. the HR should be sent to know to get an first hand idea about how social media is changing the landscape of brands and companies. Social media cannot perform in silos... Social media is everyone's business . Social media cannot work unless it is integrated across the organisation

5) I dont need it : Social media is not for me: Many brands still feels that social media is not for them thinking that either they are too big or too small to be affected by social media . This is a Common mistake with very common repercussions. 1o years ago no one thought that you could earn money by having blogs and uploading video on youtube. 15 years ago no one knew that you could book railway and train tickets by the comfort of your home.. As more people turn online , print gives away to web and TV gives away to Online Video... You cannot afford to be insulated from the social media ... Its not a question of whether you will be affected or not... rather how will it affect you.