Being Successful in Social Media Means Breaking the Rules

What do companies that outperform in social media do right?

Dr. des. Johannes Paßmann, University of Siegen, Germany. Visiting Researcher at BI Norwegian Business School. E-mail: johannes.passmann@uni-siegen.de

Organizations that outperform in social media as measured by the largest number of clicks, likes, shares and retweets usually have a refined concept of sovereignty. This means that they do better not by seeking larger numbers based on today’s widely-used metrics or fads, but rather by being themselves and following their own rules.

Social media puts enormous pressure on organizations to develop a voice in the new platforms. However, the dynamics, particularities, and sometimes oddities of ever new platforms pose an enigma to many established communicators.

While the evaluation of social media effectiveness might seem clear (social media metrics every-where), their actual purpose can be quite blurry. Furthermore, there is a temptation to copy others’ success for example a campaign that has generated enormous attention or went viral. CORE OF GOOD SOCIAL MEDIA PRACTICES

Recent research shows that what is at the core of good social media practices is not a number of recipes and not even one or more patterns, but rather a stance or attitude that is conveyed “between the lines” and established through a series of messages over time. This is captured in the concept of sovereignty.

Sovereignty means that every aesthetic choice a communicator makes, every message and form, is a choice they make on their own, independent of current rules and best practices on how to communicate. Sovereign social media communication is able to develop and constantly rework its own rules. And this is what organizations need to do if they want to be highly visible. WHAT IT MEANS FOR COMMUNICATORS

Being sovereign or being released from following rules means three things for corporate communicators.

1. It means that an outstanding performance on social media cannot be produced by adapting the ‘hippest forms’ currently on the internet. If car manufacturer Opel tries to adopt the style of the internet phenomenon Grumpy Cat, it might not appear progressive or advanced at all, but rather like a company that wants so badly to be up to date precisely because of its outdated and boring image. That is exactly what can happen when an organization does not produce and follow its own rules.

2. It does not mean that applying current web culture styles is not a good strategy. Quite the contrary, it can appear as a highly sovereign act, as sovereignty does not mean

that one behaves according to the rules that people might consider ‘the rules of sovereignty’ because these would again be established rules, making the communicator appear guided by rules that are not his/her own. Thus, sovereignty also means breaking perceived rules of sovereignty, as it means producing rules yourself or deciding yourself what rules to follow or discard. This is exactly why there can never be a cookbook for truly excellent social media communication.

3. Such a bold move only works if it is visible and people recognize that the organization is breaking previous rules not because they are following a new web trend or phenomenon. Paradoxically, it may even be truly sovereign for an organization to not break rules about communication in social media but to stoically continue “old forms” used on traditional media as if nothing ever happened. FOLLOW YOUR RULES

The question is not whether or not a car manufacturer uses Grumpy Cat for advertisements, whether an airline starts wisecracking with other social media users or whether a camera producer manages to make its videos go viral. Put differently it is not central whether or not an organization sticks to rules of its image or if it breaks them.

Rather, it is important to demonstrate that if rules are broken or followed, that this is done from a position of strength and freedom, i.e. sovereignty. The result is that, in many cases, it is a good strategy to transform an organization’s image for the social media presence and to behave differently on Twitter or Facebook than one would have in traditional media.

Not only make your own rules but follow your rules, and even if you borrowed someone else’s rules, stick to them. REFERENCE:

Paßmann, Johannes (2017): »Kurz & souverän. Twittern als sozioliterarische Praxis«. In: Michael Gamper / Ruth Mayer (eds.): Kurz & Knapp. Zur Mediengeschichte kleiner Formen vom 17. Jahrhundert bis zur Gegenwart. Bielefeld, S. 325348.