Tuesday, December 30, 2014

Brands Saying Bae Distills Flawed Social Media Stategy

Not Your Bae


If you aren't following @BrandsSayingBae on Twitter yet, you probably will shortly.

The self-explanatory account finds corporate social media accounts using the slang term "bae" and tweets images of the use with short sarcastic commentary.

By simply holding up a mirror to the practice of established mainstream brands using slang, @BrandsSayingBae manages to skewer the strategy as a flawed attempt for achieving relevance.



The central issue here is expressed best (through irony) in this tweet of a capture of the Chili's Twitter timeline:

A brand may very well have personality traits. It is an identity. But it is not a person. And attempts to interact as a person come across as hollow. Chili's is not a person. It cannot blush, and using an asterisk around the term blushing does not change that. It simply looks ridiculous.

Nor does slang like "bae" instantly build connections or place the brand as relevant to people who know and use the term.

Oddly enough, this is especially true for large established brands that already have more of an identity. Because at that point, the brand has established an identity already, with a voice and a vocabulary that people are used to.

@BrandsSayingnBae brings up that notion in this tweet, wondering if Whole Foods CEO Walter E Robb IV tweeted "swag":
Is CEO Robb the public voice of Whole Foods? No. But that is far more likely to be a proper association for the brand than "swag". That's why the tweet is funny, and that's why the WholeFoods Twitter account should not use the term unless it is part of a larger effort to associate the brand with the concept of swag.

Your social media team needs to have guidelines and a policy manual for posting, and part of that is a style guideline for what is appropriate, including slang, are incorporated.

Here's a sample quick list that gives clear direction to a social media team:
  • Hashtags - use hashtags created for events and campaigns, and those of marketing partners. Do not use trending hashtags unless in a retweet
  • Memes - avoid and do not use
  • Slang - not to be used except if otherwise incorporated into published marketing materials like radio ads and TV spots
  • Abbreviations - Common abbreviations for month and day of week are allowed
Not every brand need be this stuffy. Some may need to be even more conservative. But having a well thought out guideline and parameters around what is acceptable is the best practice.

And a damn good way to avoid being part of the next tweet from @BrandsSayingBae.




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