During the weekend while taking stock of about to be finished first quarter of the year 2010, my head raced through a lot of stuffs. One of such is the implication of being a social media laggard.

I am sure most of us have not forgotten our marketing 101 class. At least we can all remember product innovator, early adopters, early majority, late majority and laggards. While thinking about this, I stumbled on an article by Jeremiah onwang which seems to capture what I have in mind. I guess this will make a good read for anyone who wants to do some brain exercise in social media application. 

While most us here either as individual brands or corporate brands are still waiting for the ideal time to jump in, people are already sharing the booties. While we are still saying our population is still small, the early adopters, innovators are already making their mistakes and winning their laurels. Waiting for the ideal time may seem like waiting for ‘godot’ who may never return.

Jeremiah Owang says that as a social media innovator, individual is willing to try new technologies as well as evangelize them. If his conclusion is to be considered right, he says most of these innovators started out in 2006.Jeremiah said most of them learnt by trial by error as there were not enough applications that could help them much when they started out. They may appear to have gained thought leadership by now if they have been consistence but their downside is that they would have invested too much time and effort to make it work. Some of them might have abused the platform rules because they did not realized there were rule s then.

The early adopters have learnt from the mistakes of innovators and might have gained from the experience, mistakes of their fore runners. This group may belong to 2007 users. Early majority joins around 2008 when most supporting technologies have developed and have reduced their risks of failure. This group took time to learn. Even though my opinion with regards to date of adoption may differ from Jeremiah’s view, I do believe we shared common opinion generally

My point of argument is that there are countless corporate and personal brands who are still laggards in our environment. Till date they are still in the valley of indecision. They are still skeptical about the use of social media. They want to understand everything before they join the group. Most of these laggards will join later in the year or beyond. It is just my concern that by the time they want to join, they would have lost a sizeable portion of their market to any of the groups who embraced social media early. They may not gain thought leadership status and there is likely tendency that their brands’ engagement tread would have leaned. The bond between such brands and their targets may not be tight. There is also a tendency that the social media sea may not be clear enough to encourage non initiates to swim through. I stand to be corrected here. It will take them longer years to enjoy any benefits.  Where is your brand today?

Change is a constant thing in life. Any brand that refuses to change on time with trend will discover too late that it is already in the graveyard. We are in the age of adaptation. A cursory look around will show signs of this. Before, many people cherished eating at home. Then they had enough time to cook their meals. Today the pressure on people’s time had opened opportunity for quick service restaurants to provide a stop gap in- between to help them out.

Despite these signs many big brands still cling to the old ways of doing marketing business. The need for adaptation has being nailed by this quotation: Adaptation means not clinging to fixed methods but changing appropriately according to events. We need to realize that in today’s business environment, success does not belong to the strongest of the species or the most intelligent, but those who subscribe early to change, adaptation before it is too late.

 The world is moving more rapidly, Holding to old strategies of doing business is becoming increasingly dangerous, poisonous. Technology keeps expanding and new discoveries are being made everyday. Brand’s strategists, communicators must ensure they are constantly overhauling their skills. Without adaptation, most brands will be lost in the sea of innovation. For many brands to survive today, such brands should be armed with these basic ingredients.

Change mindset/be open: It is not compulsory that we must absorb everything, but gateway to new discovery is a mind that is open and is willing to accommodate new ways of doing business. Never say never.

Plan/ strategize: when your brand is open to new ideas, it will see need to plan ahead. This will necessitate the need to plan for necessary changes or ignore them. This will also lead to strategy formation, deployment of troops ahead of the battle.

Act: never being stranded with inaction. Act on what you think will help build your brand for tomorrow. Begin to sell the idea to decision maker as an employee if you are hired for that purpose otherwise if you keep quiet, you may soon lose your job as a professional who does not know how to guide. That is why you are hired in the first instance. Does anyone has contrary opinion?

Today, the goal post of every endeavor is changing. This is a result of changing level of technology. The latest technology of yesterday is becoming obsolete today. Managing brand’s reputation is becoming a hard task. Strong reputation today has moved from ownership to conversation building. In the past, crisis spread within a particular space, spot and basically this makes it easier to manage. Today the effect of a crisis is viral. As it happens, the noise is everywhere. The world is now a global village. The press and the social media feed on it and it becomes exposed to every part of the world.

Before, the influence of the mainstream media was phenomenon and they were dreaded. No one gave other platforms chance. The press boys were kings. But now many corporate brands respect other platform now as if the missiles they hold can destroy their ‘Wall Trade Centres’ in few minutes. Influence of certain blogger can rock the boat.

The implication of all these is that managing brand reputation today requires multi-channel approaches and the use of multi-media is now a necessity.

It is now a must that each brand must have its own channel that is built in advance before the reputation damage begins. Over dependence on the mainstream media today will spark a fire that may not be easily quenched when there is a reputation issue to resolve.

When a brand has its own channel that is credible, respected, promoted among all the stakeholders it becomes fun to actively manage the reputation. But where there is over-dependence on a channel, the harmattan fire may spread faster than what can be handled.

Managing Brand’s reputation today demands adequate listening, socialization, participation and fast response to issues.

Each stakeholder has definite roles. The part of internal brands can not be undervalued. Ensure they know what to do and what their roles are.