You know how when you call a company with a question or a complaint and you spend the first 10 minutes navigating their phone tree? “Press one if you want to talk about your bill, your service, or to leave a comment”. And you know how surprised you sound when an actual human being finally answers the phone?
“Thank you for calling blah blah blah how can I help you?”
“Oh…uh…hi…wow…uh…okay…I had a question about my bill…”
You’re in an automated system that suddenly becomes personable. It catches you off guard. The opposite is true for social media. The bedrock for the medium was built on person to person connection: whether you’re flaming on a forum board, or poking someone on Facebook, the goal with the same: Human Interaction.
I bring this up on the context of this article about Premier Kristina Kenneally’s twitter habits.
It’s newsworthy in the context of other politicians tweets. The author knocks off some “how don’ts” of Kevin Rudd and Tony Abbott, but marvels at the politicians “increasing awareness of the medium”.
I’ve previously written about new media (uncapitalized) and how it takes some trial and error to figure out, but with politics, the question shifts a little bit. Their brand management is now more based on “personality management”. Barack Obama’s success online can be attributed to many things: internet savvy, a team of digital-natives, an ability to harness the zeitgeist. But chief among the reasons for Barack Obama’s success is Barack Obama’s personality and the internet was a great place to “sell” that “product”.
It’s a far cry from the earlier, broadcast world where (it could be argued) politicians strove to become essentially personality-free.
The same, it could be said, is true for brands. Prior to the online age, the identity of a brand was something broadcast…the personality was defined at the corporate level and disseminated down. Unfortunately it’s difficult to have a relationship with a broadcast personality and today we want a relationship with things that were sent down from on high. They need to have a face. We want to converse, not consume.
This is not to say that the vision of a brand (or a politician) is completely in the hands of the unwashed masses. It’s more to say that a stronger personality, and a stronger sense of self, will incite more conversation…will reach more people. It does take a little navel gazing to figure out your “Brand’s Soul”, but in the end you will find your audience…grasshoppah.
Back in 08, everyone went kind of ape for the way the Obama team used social media to connect with voters, but the tone of this article made me smile because of the way it portrayed the Premier as…well…a human being; one who enjoys sublime ridiculousness of the internet as much as anyone (as well as some beefcake with a kitty). Smart politicians here in the U.S. seem to be noticing that if you swear on the house floor, your youtube video will go viral. (Or if they haven’t noticed, consider that a free tip). Meanwhile one of our Supreme Court Justices (the highest level of our judicial branch) asks a lawyer a very sincere question about the difference between a pager and an email. As in “What’s the difference between a pager and an email?”
Well, at least we got one branch of government on board.
