What if we told you... that confusion is cancer for your brand

Internet these days is like too many people shouting proclamations at the same time all with

the common header of “To whomsoever it may concern”. It is rather very easy for your brand’s

voice to be lost in this noise. Sometimes, to be able to reach your target audience, you try

joining the herd to wherever the tide flows, but that if done without relevance or significant

context can be detrimental for what your brand wants to achieve.

We of course agree that there is no strict formula or some golden ratio for what will work with

the audience, but following are a few of our observations of situations over the years that can

form a pocket checklist of “don’ts” during crafting content for your brand.

When you wear stilettos to a football match

So everyone is talking about that hottest party in town and you want you be a part of it as well;

you put on an “appropriate” dress and gatecrash it, soon everyone in the party as well as you

realize that you don’t really belong there. Ever felt that way?

It’s the same when you publish content just to get featured under “what’s trending”. Only if

there’s something that everyone on internet is talking about and you feel that you have

something to say about it too, that will really add value to your brand, and then it’s absolutely

legit.

For example, if you remember, on 1st of July, the internet went berserk overnight about

Facebook changing its logo after a decade. Now, agreed that the occurrence may be singularly

important for tech-insiders, design enthusiasts, social media experts et al, but when everyone

started publishing expert comments about how thin the ‘a’ is and how the ‘b’ has a better stem,

many were left to wonder as to why they are supposed to care.

When you tell yourself a lie too many times, you actually start believing it

Just, “One More Episode” / Just “5 minutes more” / Just “One more page”

These are lies which you tell yourself that others find even harder to believe.

Similarly when you start talking about something that you are not convinced yourself, it gets

even more difficult for your audience to get what your content is meant to say

A simple example would be Vogue, a magazine that which has always drawn margins and

constriction to define women and their beauty came out with a strong video of women

empowerment with the catch-line #MyChoice. Whatever the intentions were, major part of the

audience could not relate to it all, and the flak they received on the internet was relentless.

When you are forced to say “just kidding” as damage control

Our lives would be pretty dry without sarcasm, wit and humour but we need to know where to

draw the line. Not everything is a joke.

If for the sake of projecting a light perspective to a serious issue, you trivialize it, the

consequences can really be dire.

Recently after the tragic Nepal Earthquake, before the gravity of the situation had hit the news

channels, people were obliviously updating their experiences and as usual trying to be funny,

ScoopWhoop has picked up that trend and published a full-fledged article on it, to cater to the

audience and realized their blunder at once.

The same day, LensKart and American Swan faced extreme backlash on social media due to

their campaigning strategies just a few hours after the earthquake and were both forced to

apologize. LensKart had sent out a promotional message saying “Shake it off like this

Earthquake” and American Swan’s website had read “Whoaaa! This is an Earth Shattering

offer”.

It’s not what you said, but it’s how you said it

A line that is commonly heard during heated conversations between people who are very close,

some modulation of the voice or the body gesture that leads to all sorts of misunderstanding.

It’s wise to remember that you as a content marketer/publisher share are closest to your

audience and even a slight change in punctuation or highlighting of a particular word can alter

the entire tone and meaning of a sentence that muddling with what it originally meant. The

tone of your content should be absolutely unambiguous.

For example, ‘Selfie with Daughter’ campaign driven by Prime Minister Modi, though has

received a widespread response and was undoubtedly launched with the very best intentions

at heart, the campaign has still managed to raise eyebrows and relentless questions towards

its sincerity as it is majorly directed to influence a part of the demography who in all

probabilities already understand the importance of gender equality; the rationale being that

ones who can afford smartphones are exposed to enough resources to be educated about

such social issues, and it is doing nothing to reach to those corners of the society who really

need the uplifting

You were born original, don’t die a copy

Agreed that you are working for a generation, which is known to have progressively less

attention spans, but that doesn’t necessarily give you the liberty to produce very similar to

something that is already out there, without any addition from your side.

It’s ironic how many get enticed to of “being different” and end up copying someone else to be

so. Honest content is still most widely acceptable and there are no two ways about it.

Your page suddenly starts showing a lot of enthusiasm in boxing, particularly a certain

particular match featuring Mayweather vs Pacquiao just because everyone you know is doing

that same, and it’s suddenly the new cool, but you are doing is in turn leaving your audience

befuddled as they question as to why they don’t know much about something you seem to be

very interested in.

So, what’s our point…?

The point that we have been trying to drive home is that, even the smallest of elements in your

content can render it as confusing and that can result in their subsequent alienation or worse

misconstructions. The digital space is dynamic, exciting and unpredictable. But we reckon as

long as you stay true to your tell and keep whatever we spoke about in hindsight, you are

golden.