Astounding! The 600+ dotBrands Social Media Dilemma
A strong social media presence is one of the most valuable assets that a brand can have in this new digital world. However as the social media world expands and both brands and consumers understand more about it, so does the complexities of how to effectively manage them. Facebook may have been one of the first but these days there are a huge number of social media options available including some from other countries that rival Facebook for users. The reason for this is that there is demand for specialized channels that services a variety of different needs that Facebook doesn’t adequately. However as the demand grows and channels diversify how are the brands and their target audience going to manage all these options? Will they still need them or will brands and consumers suffer from social media melt down? This is the dotBrand social media dilemma.
Social media is a journey not a destination that builds with equity over time just like any other asset. As your assets grow they can become more difficult to manage, especially if you keep adding new assets. This equity lies in the substantial and influential power that advocates of a brand can have through digital social networking. Social Media is one of the biggest, fastest and most profitable ways a brand can grow their business online over time and it’s only going to get bigger and more complicated with brands running their own top level domains as dotBrands. Considering the size of some of the dotBrand applicants that want to run their trademarks at the top level of the Internet, you quickly realize that that’s pretty powerful and potentially complicated stuff. Every social media connection represents a direct link with a potential centre of influence in a community and that is what a brand uses to build their social media equity (customers) with. But what will the social media channels of the future offer? How will brands manage it?
Our study of the 647 trademark holders that applied to ICANN (International Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) for a dotBrand new top level domain name raises some interesting concerns.
You can view our full dotBrand Social Media report on this here – SLAM Strategy Social Media dotBrand Report
This study focused on what social media channels could be found on home pages of each of the trademarks holder’s websites submitted during the application process. Considering these are the 647 biggest and or most progressive and influential brands in the world, you might be surprised to learn that 130 trademark applications didn’t supply a website address in their applications at all and several didn’t submit a URL that even worked. However of the 517 brands that submitted a website URL, amazingly over 45% didn’t have any social media links on their websites. Now true this has been skewed somewhat by brands like Amazon who applied for 26 dotBrands and only put down the 1 website for Amazon.com in their application. So if Amazon.com doesn’t have any social media links (and it doesn’t) then the figures will look even worse but regardless of that there still are plenty of others who also don’t have a social media presence. Of those 283 that are using social media, at least 90% use Facebook while 40% believe they need to have between 3 and 5 social media channels to reach their target market. At the extreme end, Lamborghini believe they need to have 10 social media channels to manage their brand. Although there are some exceptional reasons as to why some brands don’t have any social media channels on their websites, it’s still a jaw dropping number considering they have spent close to $500,000 or more (including other costs) on a branded TLD just to tell no one about it. It is a well-known fact that many brands applied defensively and these statistics perhaps highlight that.
Take for instance some of the brands that don’t have any social media channels listed on their websites, there are many reasons for this including the fact that many of these brands have listed their global parent brands websites in their applications rather than their sub brands. For example take Amazon who actually do have plenty of social media channels but for some reason don’t link them to their main site. Perhaps for some strategic reason they choose not to display them or perhaps it’s just too hard. Then there is Richemont.com who have sub brands like Cartier and Montblanc, perhaps they also find it too difficult to display all of the social media options on the parent site because they have 20 brands to consider. Or many be it’s a case of “well who really cares about Richemont anyway it’s the sub brands we are interested” perhaps. In some cases maybe it’s because they have so many separate websites and separate social media channels in separate countries that it’s just too daunting to consider like L’Oreal. L’Oreal has many sub brands like Lancome, Maybelline and Matrix with official Facebook, Twitter and YouTube social media channels (and more) for each of them in each country they are in. Now if you were in say 20, 30 or 50 countries then that is a lot of socialness to manage and their current website obviously can’t cope. From a central management and cost point of view, what started out as a relatively simple case of listing a Facebook channel has now turned into a social media soup of immensely complicated options to cover. It also highlights the limitations of both the social media channel’s ability to effectively address the brands needs and the tools for brands to effectively manage their social media presences online.
Here are just a few of the brands with no social media presence on their website’s home page.
• www.barclays.com
• www.clubmed.com
• www.iggroup.com
• www.ferrero.com
• www.ford.com
• www.fujitsu.com
• www.goodyear.com
• www.ibm.com
• www.jaguar.com
• www.landrover.com
• www.amazon.com
Here are some of brands with at least 6 different social media channels on their home page.
• www.dnb.com
• www.cisco.com
• www.bugatti.com
• www.latrobe.edu.au
• www.oracle.com
• www.chryslergroupllc.com
• www.beatsbydre.com
• www.shell.com
• www.lamborghini.com
You can view our full dotBrand Social Media report on this here – SLAM Strategy Social Media dotBrand Report
Of the 647 dotBrand applicants we found that they were using a total of 21 different social media channels. These channels are made up of hundreds of millions of fans, customers, subscribers, supporters, affiliates, distributors, sales reps etc., all digesting and sharing branded content on the internet in different ways and for different reasons. Although the top 3 social media channels appear over 60% more often on the brands websites than all the other 18 channels put together, brands are now using a combination of 21 different channels and up to 10 on 1 site to stay connected with their target market. Although the top 5 channels which includes Facebook represent 81% of the total social media channels being used, it was recently reported that for the first time in history Facebook has seen a decline in users. This is largely due to consumers moving away from the traditional channels to more specific channels for their needs and brands therefore having to follow. This could be why nearly 20% of dotBrand applicants who are using social media are using 5 or 6 channels. In other words while social media is still dominated by the big four (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn) it’s weakening and as a result brands are starting to feel the pressure to try other channels with possibly a better target market. Not too surprisingly though is the fact that the fallen original angel of the social media world Myspace, is only being used by 1 brand. Gone are the days of Myspace being the center of the social media world, possibly forever.
Why is this important? These dotBrands represent ALL of those brands which have or that have applied for their trademark to the right of the dot. In other words they will soon be able to replace their .com with a .brand and run their trademark at the top level. This ability is going to change the landscape of online forever, but how? Well when you run your trademark at the top level you have access to certain features that are only available at the top level. The main feature is of course the global brand exposure that you can’t get from a dotcom – If it’s not dotnike then it’s not us. On top of that there are the subtle emotional connections that come from a dotBrand that it is more specific than a brand.com as well as the potential SEO benefits that are still yet to be fully explored. Dotcom from a marketing point of view means nothing on a billboard or a sign, it’s just a combination of letters that don’t represent the brand like a dotBrand does. A dotBrand also allows for other more relevant wording to the right of the dot like product.brand or customer.brand.
What has social media got to do with a dotBrands presence? These brands have exclusive access to promote to millions of customers about their advancement in the digital world giving them an edge on their competition. They have a competitive advantage that others who didn’t apply could only dream of. Brands will eventually move from brand.com to dotBrand, and social media is the fastest and most cost effective way to communicate this transition. When you are running a global business, the very smallest advantages can have the biggest impact on the overall effectiveness of your marketing efforts and add millions of dollars in revenue to the bottom line. With a combined access to literally hundreds of millions of consumers through these 21 social networks, moving from a brand.com to dotBrand has never been easier. It allows for innovation that can only be achieved by owning a trademark at the top level. All these dotBrand applicants will have the opportunity to effectively communicate their competitive advantage quickly and very, very cost effectively. Combining a dotBrand with the next generation of social media could lead to new big data and new sales channels that were previously unimaginable.
In our next blog post we will go into more depth about how a branded top level domain will impact on dotBrands current social media channels, how dotBrands will manage their current and new social media channels and what tools dotBrands will need in order to capitalize on the control of the second level domains from their top level. Finally and most importantly is how their customers will react to this change and how dotBrands can take advantage of it.
You can view our full dotBrand Social Media report on this here – SLAM Strategy Social Media dotBrand Report