Pundits and hacks alike have been pondering the impact of social media on the mysterious yet powerful discipline of Branding. I am no different and am cooking on a truly brilliant theory of my own (really, I am - stay tuned) about this multifaceted subject. But before I get to brilliance, I wanted to point to a dialog going on among ASAE & The Center for Association Leadership members on its marketing list serve because - thanks to Ben Martin and his insightful blog response to the discussion - it illustrates a specific and yet important example of what modern 'brand police' are having to deal with.
In short, a member brought up the wisdom of allowing or prohibiting Association employees from putting personal tag lines in their email signatures. Various opinions were put forth, all the way from - no, don't allow it because it messes with the organization's brand, to why not give employees an innocuous self-expression opportunity? There were also responses in the middle about limiting the nature of the messages and providing several "approved" messages for employees to choose from.
In my own response, which Ben refers to in his blog entry, I suggested that all communications going out under the organizational brand name (including the employee's email address) have one of three impacts on the brand: reinforcing it, having no effect or confusing it. I used this rationale to agree with a suggestion to offer standard quotes for employees to use. Ben notes that his association has handled it differently by allowing employees to use a favorite quote, which provides the opportunity for self-expression.
On the surface, it might seem as though we are debating the wisdom of organizational vs. personal messaging. However, I think the issue goes much deeper. Employees have always been a major factor in creating the company brand because the brand is the promise that is made by all interactions we have with it, through all its representatives (especially employees). And although I stand by my original statement I would refine my advice after Ben prompted me to think about it a little further. The point is not just about what the email signature says, but also what its presence or absence says about the organization for which the employee works. The policy which determines whether (or the extent to which) an organization encourages or discourages personal messages in their employee emails signatures itself contributes to brand image. A brand that recognizes and promotes individualism would definitely benefit from a practice that encourages individual messages in email signatures. However, an organization can still encourage individualism and - for liability, brand or other reasons - ask employees to include their self-expression in the context of the email itself and through the unique style with which they do their job. Each of these choices is legitimate and should be made in the context of other communications standards and practices used to guide employees and support the brand.
This issue becomes even more interesting in the context of employee blogs and web sites and this is where the brilliance will begin with a platform I am developing called Branding in the Round(TM). With the reality that employees (and customers) have such hugely influential voices through electronic and social media, organizations are now faced with direct evidence that branding experts have been right all along - that it's not just what you say about yourself that creates your brand, it's also how you behave internally and externally. Though it's always been true, company practices as expressed through personnel and customer service policies are having a greater and greater impact on the brand because the people effected by those practices have bigger and bigger soapboxes on which to complain about them (or praise them - it happens sometimes.)
I'd like to thank Ben for probing this issue more deeply and I look forward to more lively dialog on the subject.
And a note to brand police everywhere: If you haven't already, now is a good time to put away the gunbelt and police cruiser, get on a bike and start circulating with the people. You can still wear your badge and call the paddy wagon when needed, but for the vast majority of the population, the days of intimidation are over (not that they ever really worked all that well).
