DON’T BUY THE ‘BRAND COMMUNITIES’ LIESocial is a tool to grow brands, don’t waste your money on trying to build and foster communities.

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DON’T BUY THE ‘BRAND COMMUNITIES’ LIESocial is a tool to grow brands, don’t waste your money on trying to build and foster communities.

IT HAS BEEN AN EASY TRAP TO FALL INTO, BUT IT NEEDS TO BE DEBUNKED.

The vast majority of brands can’t and

shouldn’t worry about growing

communities online – it’s a waste of time,

money and effort.

I could go off and bore you with more ‘the

algorithm has changed’ information - and

yes, platforms control over newsfeeds has

had a factor in the death of most

communities, but the truth is communities

for 99% of brands never really existed at

scale in the first place. And they probably

didn’t have that much value either. There’s

just not enough people that want to devote

that much time of their busy day towards

building or participating in branded

communities.

Hi, We are Impero, we bring brands

fame and glory. Here's why: at their

essence, brands are tools to help people

make decisions on what to buy. Fame

and glory makes those decisions easier.

Famous brands sell more stuff because

famous brands are always top of mind.

Glorious brand experiences help sell

more stuff because rich and engaging

executions linger longer in consumers'

minds and create deep relationships

and brand passion.

If you want to bring your brand Fame

and Glory – hire us. We’re awesome.

www.weareimpero.com

IMPERO

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THE OLD WAY OF THINKING: BUILD A COMMUNITY OF YOUR MOST LOYAL CONSUMERS WHO WANT TO HEAR NEWS FROM YOU AND YOU WILL HELP GROW YOUR BRAND.

Seemed like a good idea, and to be fair it

kind of worked – brands of all sizes built

communities of all sizes. And within some

industries brands get lucky because there

is general appetite to get content from

some sectors. Tech, Chocolate, High end

automobiles, Fashion are sectors with

natural consumer passion points. Within

these sectors you have big brand

advocates and an inherent love for what

you sell. The trouble is, it’s just not that

many people.

Coca-cola have 3.2 million followers on

twitter. A number almost all other brands

in the world would die for. But it’s not that

much. There are 1.9 Billion (BILLION!)

servings of coke sold each and every day.

3.2 million followers gained over 5 years of

a Twitter handle doesn’t seem that much

anymore, does it? Looking at their

newsfeed, their last three tweets got a

combined total of 500 likes. A poxy 500

interactions out of 1.9 billion buyers. That’s

tiny. They may be super fans, or they may

have clicked that heart by accident. Either

way, there’s just not that many of them.

You might say, well, one tweet costs you

(next to) nothing. So those 500 hearts are

still valuable. And I don’t disagree with that.

It’s valuable to show your brand loyalists

some love. A cold shoulder would be rude

and counter-intuitive. But 500 likes is not

going to shift the dial in sales for coke, and

it’s also the type of thinking that will keep

Social on the fringes and stops it from

getting the respect it deserves for the

power it has to grow brands at scale.

Byron Sharp’s work in this field (disagree

with the man or not, he has done incredible

work crunching the numbers and providing

useful datas) shows us that even for

passion brands (Harley Davidson, Apple

and others) communicating regularly with

your super-fans is not going to grow your

brands.

These super fans already buy and shout

about your product. They already know

you. It’s impossible to grow your brand by

only talking to people that already love it

and buy the products. Brands grow by

continuously finding new consumers.

WHY BRANDS DON’T GROW BIGGER COMMUNITIES?

In a nutshell, people don’t care. People

care about themselves, not about brands.

And even those who really like some

brands (e.g. me personally, I really like

Bellroy wallets, I think they’re cool, I have

owned 2 and I will probably own another

when my current one wears out) but, do I

care about them? Not really. Not when you

compare them to the other things in my

life.

1 That’s not to say it isn’t a good idea to communicate with your super fans, they love you, you should love them back. We just don’t think it’s going to grow your brand at scale.

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I care about my 3 year old son, my wife, my

family, my dog, my mortgage, my business,

my work, my friends. I care about issues

that I hold dear to me, I care about things

that matter to me. And like the vast

majority of people that doesn’t include the

growth of the brand.

If digital and social has taught us one thing;

it’s that people don’t care as much as we

assumed they do about brands. Sad but

true.

FORGET COMMUNITIES, THINK CONSUMERS AND GROW YOUR BRAND.

So if not brand communities, what does

social offer us? Access. Access to

consumers. Millions of them. And all sliced

and diced so we can; like never before target

them with absolute precision. We know a lot

about people, and often overlooked, we

know what they’re doing when they see our

stuff - they’re checking Facebook, in the

morning, probably in bed, or they’re on

Instagram, in an exotic place, probably on

holiday.

It also offers us fast data. For telling us what

is resonating with consumers and what isn’t

almost instantly. Meaning we can dial up,

dial down or alter creative on the fly.

But most interestingly, for the first time in

mass media Social platforms offer us, with

absolute precision, re-target.

And that’s why we believe you should

forget about communities and think

consumers. With social you can find your

target market, put your messages in front

of them at the right time and with the right

frequency and turn them into new

consumers. That’s how brands grow.

JUST BECAUSE YOU CAN, DOESN’T MEAN YOU SHOULD: DON’T OVER TARGET

Precision is a beautiful thing, you just need

to make sure your target is the right one.

And the tools today are outstanding at

finding the ‘right ones’.

But here’s the paradigm: If your marketing

has been successful so far, and your brand

is already well established, then chances

are your bulls-eye target market is

probably already buying your product. So

targeting your current consumers may-be

less valuable than finding new ones. Always

consider your entire possible consumption

pool in each campaign. There maybe low

hanging fruit out there that just need a

nudge.

And remember, wastage can be a beautiful

thing. Overly targeted ads reach specific

people. Traditional ads build brands by

exposing people to products they didn’t

even know they wanted. Remember when

you started to want an iPod for the first

time? It was probably sometime between

when you had never heard of an iPod and

the white earbud dancing advert.

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DON’T BE CREEPY.

And don’t track and tailor your messages so

much that your creep your consumers out.

It’s weird, obvious and honestly, needy.

The truth is, the bigger you get the more

different people buy your product. The

bigger you get, the more you’ll need to find

consumers who don’t match your bulls-eye

pen portrait.

HOW TO REACH AND ENGAGE CONSUMERS IN SOCIAL: ENTERTAIN, DON’T ADVERTISE.

The question now is, how do we get to

them, how do we communicate them and

how do we land our messages with them to

enable these wise and wonderful people

from all over the world to think about us

when they are next going to purchase

within our category?

We can’t advertise to them - that doesn’t

work. Ad blocking software is new and now

has scale. However, before we had the plug

ins to block ads, we had inbuilt ad-blockers

in us all. What we call our care-dial. Our

care dial tells us to make a cup of tea during

the ads, our care-dial tells us to not notice

that double MPU, or look only at that

articles not the ads in the morning paper.

Or most recently, our care-dial has told us

to fork out £10 a month to remove the

adverts from Spotify. We now hate adverts

so much, we’ll dip into our own pocket to

have them removed!

But don’t fret, because people still like to

be entertained. They love entertaining

content and interactions. They love to

watch, share and be part of something.

That ‘something’ is just not advertising

online.

Great, compelling, interesting, educating,

entertaining, novel, deep, funny, sad, awe

inspiring content cuts through every time.

USE CONTENT VIA SOCIAL TO BUILD FAME AND GLORY FOR YOUR BRAND.

At Impero we grow brands by building

Fame and Glory.

Famous brands - those you have heard of

or are familiar with get purchased more

because they are safer and easier choices

to make. Humans love choice, but hate

decisions. Finding ‘the one you know’ on

the shelf is a decision and a solution,

looking at a bunch of no-names and trying

to make a choice is a problem. And that’s

why famous brands sell more stuff. They

make decisions easier when they most

matter.

4 TIPS FOR USING SOCIAL TO GROW YOUR BRAND

If you have an unlimited budget, grow a community and a brand. For the rest of us, let’s concentrate on focusing budgets towards growing your brand.

1Use the power of social and digital platforms to target, and re-target the right people to build brand fame.2Lessen your emphasis on always on content that only reaches your existing consumers. Spend your money creating glorious content that will grow your brand.

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Always remember, that while your brand fans love you, they probably already buy you. They’re a great asset to have, no one is doubting that. But if you want to grow your brand, do so by finding new consumers, or reminding those that don’t buy you very often, to buy you again (and again).

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Glorious brands - are more appealing.

They’re more likable, more

understandable, more desirable to you

personally. They’re aspirational. They

share your values. They have your same

sense of self. They outwardly perpetuate

the same ideas about what is nice, good,

sexy, high-quality as you do. Glorious

brands sell more stuff because there is no

point being famous but unappealing.

Great enthralling, interesting content or

social campaigns will make your brand

more glorious to consumers.

+44 207 998 7571michael@weareimpero.com

Unit 306, Metropolitan Wharf70 Wapping WallLondon, E1 W3SS

GET IN TOUCH

Use social media and it’s amazing

re-targeting potential to put your glorious

content in front of the right people more

often to make your brand more famous.