Are you a S.O.B? .....No, I mean a Social Object Brand!

There is nothing new in wanting people to talk positively about your company, about your brand. So why all this talk about new marketing? For me the output - strong reputation - is not new, the new part relates to

• Where your consumers talk about you - now on-line as well as off-line
  
• The tools that you can use to help people talk about you - blogging, microblogging, social networks, widgets etc

But the tools won't work unless you have something that people want to talk about, something that people want to share with their network, something that in some way creates value in the consumers lives.

Hugh Macleod (must read blog!)wrote a wonderful post on social objects a while ago and it made me think about how we put a huge amount of time into creating new products - or at least we should be! But how much time do we spend on creating the story to go with the product? The distribution part of the marketing plan now needs to include the conversation as well as the retailers.

Do we concentrate on the brand, the object but not the social aspect?

Consumers of your brand, both internal and external, are your own global salesforce that will work for you, free of charge, if you engage them in the story. A story that they can't wait to share with others. People will share news with their networks, as a way of building relationships, appearing "experts" or even that basic need of wanting to be liked. So today, think about whether you are an S.O.B - whether a corporate, employer, leadership or personal brand. Do you feed the conversation by supplying shareable news regularly, as a matter of course?

Here are some resources to inspire you

• Do we build a story that people can talk about, because it is relevant to them? (Listen to Nettie Hartsock podcast for inspiration )

• Do we understand the art of the conversation? (Listen to Part 1 and Part 2 of Connie Reece podcast)
• Do we give people tools to share the story? (Listen to Connie Bensen for Community Ideas)