Don’t Drive Erratically in Social Media

A funny thing happened on the way to work this morning

Turning right at an intersection, I was cut off by a car in the left lane who ended up turning right as well. Not in any aggressive way, they just pulled out at normal speed, casually cut me off and continued on down the road. The expression on the person’s face looked like they were completely unaware of  their indiscretion – as if perhaps my car were invisible. Their car was nice and new, but unfortunately for them, was also signwritten, which obviously isn’t ideal for their company’s branding. After parking my car, checking that it wasn’t invisible and heading into work I quickly Googled their business.

For me, the poor driving had already branded this business – they look professional, but are detached, careless even. They are quite salesy and have poor client relations. I certainly wouldn’t use them or wouldn’t recommend them to anyone. Wow, I thought, that’s the power of branding + poor driving! Or poor anything for that matter. Stick your brand on something, have a woopsie and you’re mud.

Nothing could be more true in social media. While I might tell one or two people about this morning’s events (including business name) around a bbq this weekend, if I had decided to have a rant on Facebook or Twitter when I got to work, the number of people who could be reached is a lot larger. And it would happen a lot quicker.

And for businesses that have a social media presence, but don’t treat it like a highly visible, highly sharable brand asset, the results could be devastating. So metaphorically speaking, motorists driving on the internet don’t want to be cut off by your business, because within two clicks of a mouse your muddied brand could be flying around social media.

Going back to the title of this post, the funny thing about it was that this particular business is a marketing agency, who on their website, state they are branding specialists.

Jeremy