There is no need repeating the obvious. Humans thrive when there is interaction, bonding and not when in isolation. Humans are not wired to live in isolation. To be successful human/brand needs solid relationships, engagement with others. since the world has become a global village, building engagement withy locals only deprive brands the benefits that are available to all.

 As many professionals know, productive, profitable engagement in the midst of noise level today is not a child’s play. It is real work. What I have noticed is that many give up so soon when their efforts are not yielding immediate result. The pressure from management that has invested much in online branding is not helping matter. Community manager must educate the management on the time lag it will take to make meaningful impact. There is no overnight success.

Whether there is instant success or not, we must be able to see clearly like DNA13 suggests ‘joining conversation and shaping public opinion holds promise of reducing cost of communication’. Strong community engagement thrives where there is strong collaboration among the major actors which includes the community manager, the community members and other stakeholders. Conscious effort must also be made to recognize, value active promoters of community well being. The community leader, manager must be a bundle of inspiration. He/she must not be lazy or tired of maintaining the conversation so well with relevant content. The community leader must also learn to build quality relationship with the community stakeholder and be willing promptly attend to community concerns.

Any brand that wants to maintain solo, one man squad approach to managing, promoting, positioning itself will end with lots of regret.

Trust is becoming a scarce commodity in this season;  building brand profitability through trust must now be an integral part of any brand strategy if brand must make reasonable profit. Top executives of many brands can no longer be trusted and this has affected the confidence stakeholders have in many of the brands.  Many brands’ failure and liquidation are traceable to lack of strong corporate ethics. While I am not pre-empting anything, I do think that the breach of trust repose on top executives of many banks executives in our nation led to the dissolutions of many banks’ board of directors.  Imagine granting loans running to billions to individuals or corporate organizations without collateral. At least that was what we were made to believe by the investigating authority.

What will keep and sustain many brands today is the level of trust, confidence the customers have in them. One of the ways to build trust in a brand today is openness, honesty, entertaining, usable content that daily helps in solving the challenges of the customers. This route allows any brand at whatever level to participate. There is no excuse for any brand not to initiate the process. It may be a long term investment but it holds a sure result.

Even if your brand is a start up, begin by supplying insight, helpful information. After a while, your brand will gain some conversion rate out of those who feel you have been of help in resolving doubts they have. When you build trust, the conversion rate may be gradual but it will trickle as you increase your brand’s efforts. Remember that every buyer starts their search on the net as a browser. As a browser, this potential has no commitment to any brand. The potential can be classified as onlooker or as an unbeliever in religious parlance. If your brand can build trust through usable, relevant content, you can turn them to believers in your brand. To gain more customers, I think it is high time brands jettisoned sales pitches, old marketing principles by converting browsers to believers and believers to buyers.

When buyers are turned to buyers, the process must be continued. Keep lubricating, oiling the relationships. I do believe also that a strong brand activation process stands better chances of being successful if it is laden with trust building than any other alternatives.