Zeroing in, or out...on your brand

When Twitter zero'ed out last week, lots of faces crumpled in anguish, in sheer terror because the legions of followers they had built up over the past few weeks, past several months were suddenly gone, leaving them in an empty room, with no voices, no chatter, no hero worship. Among these were the brands who had painstakingly set up fancy Twitter pages, all nicely branded and boiler-plated. Luckily for all of them...us...it was a temporary glitch and in no time at all, the world had righted itself and following and followers had been restored.

But what if it hadn't? What if Twitter had screwed up your online "popularity" forever? What if you had lost all your followers - all those people who reached out to you during the day asking questions, retweeting your links, #FF-ing you? Would you have survived?

And more importantly for brands, do you have any idea who these people are? Now chances of knowing them all, may be slim to none. But is the rapport with them strong enough to withstand a crash such as this, and make them come back on their own, without you having to sit at your desk, trying to remember their Twitter handles?

It's something to think about isn't it? One lesson brands can learn from this is to not put all their social media energies into one social media basket. Some folks love Twitter and that's the extent of the relationship, but as we saw last week, it can be doom for the one-way brand. It's not an excuse to now go out and populate the SM universe. Be practical and relevant and go where your audience is sure to be. Be practical if you're a one-man show and it's just you managing social media.

But the other question coming out of the Great Zero is...

Would you have been able to keep on going without them?

There are some who have relied so heavily on social media that perhaps the traditional forms of engagement and communication have taken a bit of a hit. So on a day when the technology hits the skids, are you prepared to keep it going without missing a beat? Have you managed to create a synergy with your online tools and your traditional strategies to build a loyal offline community?

I often wonder where I would be if one day I lost my old phone (not a smartphone, so I guess it's a dumbphone), chock full of email addresses, phone numbers and texts with important info - all of which, sadly, is saved nowhere else. I think about a life before advanced mobile technology and how my telephone book was just that - an actual book, and I could rattle off numbers without blinking because I did not have mobile phone books to depend on. Now, with maybe the exception of my mother's mobile number and those of a couple close friends, I am just terrible with remembering data like that now. At the same time however, I am not limited by emails and tweets when it comes to my real life relationships. It makes it more fun, more convenient, yes...but it does not beat going out in the real world.

So really the question is How else are you building your brand?

• Is your website a hot mess because you have sold your soul to Facebook and Twitter?
• Do your followers know how else to find you, i.e. via your website or other platform, or do they think your Twitter URL is your...well...your URL?
• Is your non-virtual frontline customer service below par because you are a Twitter customer service superstar?
• Have you done away with in-depth articles or blogs because you've got 140 characters?

It seems ludicrous but it's a serious question - one which we all should be asking ourselves because at the end of the day, these are merely tools and not the whole enchilada. If the basket of eggs should fall, would that be the end for your strategy?