Brands, especially in luxury, fear diluting their image with platform-native content. This fear is misplaced, as consumers are already defining the brand's perception through user-generated content at scale. Brands must participate to guide the narrative, as the "brand schizophrenia" they fear already exists.
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To truly change a brand's narrative, marketing's 'talking the talk' is insufficient. The product experience itself must embody the desired story. This 'walking the walk' through the product is the most powerful way to shape core brand perception and make the narrative shareable.
The most valuable consumer insights are not in analytics dashboards, but in the raw, qualitative feedback within social media comments. Winning brands invest in teams whose sole job is to read and interpret this chatter, providing a competitive advantage that quantitative data alone cannot deliver.
Stop thinking of content as a one-way broadcast. A sophisticated approach involves creating posts designed to provoke responses. Then, systematically mine the comments for raw, unfiltered consumer insights, effectively turning your social channels into a free, real-time market research platform.
As luxury brands consolidate into huge corporations, they face a paradox: their prestige relies on exclusivity, but their business models require mass-market scale. The solution is a new paradigm where status is framed as inclusive and 'for everyone,' turning the concept of prestige proletarian.
Large companies often stifle authentic stories with restrictive social media policies. The guest advises them to "put your brand ego aside" and trust employees to share. Personal profiles and individual stories have far greater reach and build more trust than polished corporate content.
