Why no one cares about your brand.

I have a riddle for you. You wake up in the morning and instinctively reach out for your phone. Of course you go on your social media pages and the first thing you want to check is what Coke has tweeted today. You must have missed so much over night.

Question: Who are you?

Answer: Coke Brand Manager.

Any chance you are someone else? Yes, Coke Digital or Social Media Manager. That's the end of the list of options.

When a person checks their social media there are three, primary reasons for it:

1) To check their own popularity,

2) To spy on the others, especially those they don't particularly like,

3) Literally, they have nothing better to do with their life than to browse the feed endlessly or play candy crush (is it still on or is there a new, upgraded type of 'let's line up shapes on the screen' game?)

Ok, there is me, marketing geek, who randomly browses through feeds of different brands. Oh, wait, I guess that qualifies me under no 3.

What is interesting though if you go through the social media accounts of bigger and smaller brands, you can be endlessly surprised how many of them still genuinely think they have something to say. That they will excite people about the change of color of their logo or the new shape of their packaging. And then they get two likes on such post (both by their own digital team) and get disappointed. They start working on better targeting, review the post schedule, blame the platform algorithm, change their social media agency... the thing is, no one will care and no amount of resources you put behind promoting your message won't change that.

People are on social media platforms for themselves, not for you.

Essentially, you have two choices on how to use your social media with branded content:

1. Inform (but don't count on massive engagement).

I know you spend the hours (months, years) on designing the new packaging. It required alignment with multiple department and approval of the President of Everything in your company. It costed your time, sweat and tears. And no one cares. Not even your mama. No one writes comments under the picture of the new pack you posted on brand facebook feed telling you how amazing job you did. I know. It's unfair and frustrating. Get over it. It's not about you. It's about them. The people. And they are on this platform for themselves. Not for you.

If you want to use your social media pages just like a regular website - for people to find information about the product or services, to keep it serious and real, do that. Just don't expect people will follow it spontaneously. But it can be a good source of information in case they need it. Or they have to complain about something.

Exception to the rule: there are lucky brands with a high-involvement products, such as Apple or (yes, hurray for me) LEGO brand. They have fans who wait for the news about products coming out, so even informative posts can blow up the engagement rates. But that kind of brands a four-year old can count on her hand probably.

2. Entertain.

So no one cares about the new, leaner version of your yoghurt. But if you post a video of people having an outdoor yoghurt fight it suddenly goes viral. Why?

Copy/paste time :) People are on social media for themselves. And you just entertained them. You gave them a social currency to share with friends. You made their day a bit better.

When you work in a beautiful shiny office, attend glamorous photo shoots it is easy to think you are a queen of the world and everyone knows you and wants to be your friend. However, if from time to time you step down from your throne and start with 'no one cares for my brand' - that opens up a very refreshing space of innovation and creativity. So before you ask people (consumers/shoppers/audience - however you are calling them internally, those are essentially people) to do anything for your brand: comment, engage, like, follow, ask yourself what can your brand do for them to make their day a bit better?

And with that cheesy ending wishing you a nice weekend!