1 Don’t focus on fans, but friends of fans

Brands trying to get business only out of fans are like businesses trying to only sell to their employees… or specifically, their sales and marketing team. The whole point of having fans is that they’re so excited about your brands that they would let their friends know about you — friends that otherwise could be very difficult (and expensive) to reach! So instead of trying to get your fans to buy, give them a reason to refer their friends to try what you have to offer with their blessing! There are way more friends of fans than fans anyway.

2 Monitor both evergreen and real-time content

Some brands focus on evergreen content (e.g. reviews on TripAdvisor) whereas other brands focus on real-time chatter (e.g. what are they talking about on Weibo or Twitter). As a brand manager, you need both. Evergreen content is content that convinces/dissuades people to buy, and real-time content is the buzz that has to do with your brand reputation at the moment. Brands that focus too much on one or the other are driving with only one headlight on: dangerous in most situations. If a brand is still wondering whether they should be monitoring social media or not… hope luck is on their side. But we all know hope is not a strategy.

3 Engagement kicks up another level: videos and games

Text and photos from brands won’t be enough anymore. The standards of how to engage, unfortunately, isn’t set by your competitors in travel, but by Hollywood and the likes of global CPG brands. This means that if you want to keep your fans, you will need to be more creative, innovative, so as not to be mind-numbing. Content will have to evolve to a more entertaining form, video, and interactivity has to be more engaging, like games. Being “me too” for category leaders will surely decrease brand status, even if your brand built itself on being “classic and traditional” and are using that as a reason to not innovate. Chanel and Louis Vuitton are “classic and traditional” brands, each over 100 years old, but they’re being adventurous and bold in engaging new consumers — always have, and this is why their brands endure. So don’t hide behind having a tradition; it will just dead-end at the brand graveyard for not being relevant for these times.

4 Train your people to deal with emergencies in social media

Have your communications people been trained yet? Whether it’s emergency caused by brand reputation damage, natural-made or man-made catastrophes, have your people trained to deal with this new media. If you make your people go through PR training, then they should go through social media training. It’s a much larger audience, the nature of the social media beast is different, and in an emergency, you won’t have time to sit around and think about what to do… so how to participate in this medium has to be instinctive by then. And if you think that catastrophe can’t happen in your location, think again. #OccupyWallStreet, #LondonRiot, #Urumuqui. Need more examples?

5 Get to know your Gen Y Influencers — Gen Y are here.

The oldest Gen Ys are now 30, and there are more Gen Ys than there are Gen Xs. They already comprise of more than 50% of your workforce, and soon, they will be the majority of your customers. It’s time to stop waiting for them to grow up, because they have grown up. Gen Y’s values and expectations are complex, especially when you take geographic and cultural variables into account. And while they want to be treated like individuals, they can turn into powerful angry mobs capable of overthrowing governments and institutional practices (e.g. #NoMoreBankFees anyone?) Get to know them. They hold the future of your business in their hands.