Imagine that it’s raining outside. You decide to step-out wearing a pair of shoes that are clearly not designed to be worn outside, in the rain. Since the shoes don’t have the right grip to be able to walk on wet surfaces, you start slipping, and hence have to carefully try and step on drier patches on the road.

That’s social media in a nutshell for you.

Any small misstep will send you slipping down the slope. And practically nothing can be done to change this environment.

What can be done is to prevent this from happening in the first place. Just wear all-weather shoes!

Brands need to understand that consumers can see through their messages most of the time. So it’s quite crucial to be authentic and honest, even if you already have a humongous following. Most people, if not all, are well aware of the current news, events & trends, and are quite capable of making up their own minds about them.

Taking up a social/political/economic issue, and then just jumping on the trendy train with it, just for the sake of it is a huge nope on social media. Because you might feel like you’ve joined the gang of the ‘cool’ kids, but the audience might not think so.

It’s quite hard to put in the reverse gear after this point, or even brake. You’ll keep going ahead full steam towards a deep valley.

Virtue signaling is when your brand conspicuously expresses its values without actually taking actions to live by those values. And once you break your consumer’s trust, it’s quite difficult to get them back. Specially in the case of brands who sell high-involvement goods and services.

Does this mean you shouldn’t take a stand on issues that are close to your heart? No, of course not. It’s just the way you do it that’s the deciding factor here. It’s important to carefully plan out your approach and your overall strategy BEFORE posting the content online.

Who is your audience? Is your message related to your product/service? Do the consumers need to know about this? Should this message go on your brand account or your personal account? Will this be relevant to your consumers? Will this message follow your brand’s style guidelines? What tone will you be using? And finally, Who will the message go out to?

Here’s a key deciding factor. If this is something that you would never be comfortable saying to anyone in real life, then it probably should not be published in the first place.

Trend-jacking is kind of similar to virtue signaling.

Trend-jacking is basically taking up the opportunity to capitalize on & exploit a current trend or topic. Now trends are actually good for the brand.

They get you wide visibility & help out with awareness. The thing is, jumping on a trend in order to provide more value to your audience & making a profit without coming across as dishonest or unprincipled is not quite simple.

You also have to figure out if the trend is adding anything to your brand. Does it come across as just lazy? Or do you think you can pull it off in an honest and appealing way?

Like I mentioned before, today’s consumers are quite social and sharp.

Because of the ease of access to social media platforms, trends can spread far and wide. So if a brand is being shady about something, people can usually tell. And that’s bad news from a business perspective.

The major concern here is irrelevancy. You really really need to match your content to your market. A convenience purchase is different from a loyal purchase. Loyal customers will stick with your brand through the highs and the lows.

In order to get loyal customers you need to develop higher levels of trust, and to develop trust, you need to produce relevant content.

As a brand, you sell feelings. Plain and simple. It’s all about how a consumer feels after they come in contact with your brand and use your products.

Which is why brands need to be extra careful about consumer sentiment. They need to think about their position in the market from a consumer’s viewpoint instead of from a brand’s viewpoint.

You just need to be able to answer this question. Why is your customer, your customer?

And no. ‘Because we make a good product’ is not an answer.

There are plenty of good products in the market, at a similar price point. There are specific reasons why someone chooses your products. It’s more complex than just the quality of your products.

And brand’s need to figure this out.

Virtue signaling and trend-jacking will only further frustrate your consumers and will drive them away to your competitors. On social media, it doesn’t take time for news to spread. Word of mouth is still the most powerful form of marketing out there.

To end this, what I will say is that brands should run after getting more consumers, not transactions, depending on your business of course. Honest and authentic communication will give your long-term, loyal customers. And that is what will earn you more brand equity.

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Hey there! I’m Abhishek. I’m a digital marketer. If you liked what you just read, then do drop a follow. Helps a ton. Thank you.

My podcast — https://open.spotify.com/show/0k4rQBTnvyps1m0LIhV1a2

Mail — [email protected]

LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/abhishek-samant-digital-marketer/

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