Open Source Branding:
A Field Guide
Recently, I was asked to speak on a panel at the St. Louis Ad Club Digital Symposium. When I agreed, I had no idea what the topic would be. It ended up being “open source branding.” And admittedly, at first, I didn’t really know what it meant.
Marketing is flooded with trends and buzzwords. What was “social media” yesterday is “content marketing” today. I recently read an article on “growth hacking,” which can be summed up, in my opinion, as “just marketing.”
But the more I searched about open source branding, the more it sounded familiar to me. And I came to the realization that our team has been deeply involved with several open source branding projects. I just knew them by their old name. Contests.
Open source branding is where a brand asks their fans to generate some sort of content in the spirit of the brand. Like asking your Facebook fans to vote on something, or submit some form of content like a photo or video. Or asking them to come to your office and use your photocopier in a unusual way.
They are a great way to get customers involved in your brand. In the last few years, Atomicdust has done a handful of contents and social media promotions that would be considered “Open Source Branding”, and I thought I would share what we’ve learned along the way.
It’s not the destination, it’s the journey.
One of the most appealing reasons to use open source branding (a contest) isn’t the contest itself, but the fact that a lengthy contest gives a brand something to talk about on social media.
A lot of brands struggle with social media because they simply don’t know what to talk about that is both entertaining to the audience and reflective of brand values. Asking people to participate in a contest is an easy way to remind them what your brand is about on a regular basis. The promotion of the contest becomes the content. It much less about someone winning something, and more about keeping the conversation going.
Remember, you’re still in control.
If you’re asking people to submit something they have created, you really don’t know what you’re going to get. What do you do if someone submits something offensive or inappropriate? You should have a plan in place for as many different scenarios as you can think of.
You probably love the idea of your contest, but take the time to ask yourself this question: “If I was to ruin this, how would I do it?” Work backward from there. Reverse engineering your open source branding will help uncover potential negative situations and allow you to think them through in case they ever happen.
Humans are more social than software.
It takes dedicated resources to run and monitor any open source branding campaign. There is a lot of software that can monitor brand mentions and positive and negative sentiment. This is great, but for open source branding, you need smart people that can think and act quickly.
Open source branding campaigns are public, and you never know the response you’re going to get. If some rabid fan posts something inappropriate, you want someone that can think and act quickly, without anyone’s approval. There is no time for a lengthy chain of command or approval process.
Someone on Facebook is going to hate it.
There is nothing more deflating than working to make a contest amazing only to have some random person on Facebook tell you that it’s lame, or they are offended by it, and that its existence is ruining their lives. But it is going to happen. It really is. Don’t let it stop you.
Every contest we’ve ever done on social media has had at least one comment that made me stop, freak out a little and question the whole thing. But I didn’t stop the contest, and neither should you. Don’t let one rude voice crush your good intentions.
Don’t fear lack of control. Fear lack of engagement.
With careful planning, you don’t have to worry as much about a lack of control. What should scare you more is a lack of engagement. A contest with zero entries. It’s the worst-case scenario. It’s like throwing a party no one shows up for. Fortunately, this hasn’t happened, but I can tell you we do a lot more worrying about people participating at all than about people doing something we can’t control.
To get people to participate, you want to promote on as many channels as are available to you. If the main hub of the contest is on Facebook, then use your website, blog, Twitter, LinkedIn, email list and any other resources you have to promote it.
No matter what you call it, open source branding (or contests) can be a great way way to spread the word about your brand, improve your reputation and increase traffic to your website. If you have any questions, or want to talk about the ins and outs of a contest / OSB campaign, we would love to hear from you.
Thanks to Ad Club St. Louis, the event sponsors and coordinators for putting together a digital symposium for St. Louis and inviting me to speak on the panel. There are a lot of great people and agencies here, and efforts like this bring the community together and help give it a voice.
