Jordan McCollum at Marketing Pilgrim takes Infegy to task for a study that shows the most popular brands mentioned in the social space and asks, “does popularity = social?” I do think she makes a good point when she says that true social brands are brands that engage their audiences through the social networks. Popularity is one thing; engagement is another.

So the question is, What makes a brand “social.” Is it popularity or is it engagement?

I tend to think engagement. Popularity is nice. It’s good if people are talking about you, but it’s better if you are engaging your audience and meeting their needs or changing your policies based on their feedback in the social space.

Social media is a great asset, but if you are sitting in the lurches waiting for people to talk about you so you can be popular in the social sites then you could be hoping from here to eternity. It’s best to be proactive. Go out and make something happen, give people a reason to talk. That’s how you gain a social presence.

Tags: popularity, social engagement, Social Media

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 5th, 2010 at 4:56 am and is filed under Social Media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.