For the most part, traditional marketing is dominated by right-brain activity. Creativity, visualization, intuition – those characteristics drive success for brands in the media landscape. Quick, think of some of your favorite brand campaigns. Maybe Apple’s 1984 spot. Or 20 years later, Mitsubishi’s See What Happens. Maybe more recently, Old Spice Guy or The Most Interesting Man In The World.
Similarly, participating in social media is a right-brain activity. It’s full of spontaneous self-expression and person-to-person community engagement. Brands receive recognition for using these new communication channels in innovative ways – whether Comcast using Twitter for customer service, Nike splicing hundreds of user videos together to create The Chain, or Dell taking to blogs to share information during a product recall. As brand participation in social media grew commonplace, analysts (like me) and managers began to wonder – is there a way to make sense of this? And if so, does it matter?