Those around the company who know me well know that I have an obsession with being connected. Information and communication are everything, hence the many mobile phones and computers sating my need for Twitter, Facebook, Skype, MSN, Linkedin and the various virtual worlds in which I exist and the MMORPGs (massively multiplayer online role-playing games) that I play... the list goes on.

In short, I have caught the social media disease. But fear not, I am told it is tweetable.

I have another confession too... I have multiple online personalities.

At one point I had four twitter accounts, three Facebook accounts, and I still maintain half a dozen Skype accounts. So what’s that all about? Well, I once made the mistake of tweeting under my own name for a while, but then the Synovate CEO began following me. Nothing like realising that your CEO is reading your thoughts to make you reassess your social media footprint.

These sites and accounts connect me with a huge global network of people, some of whom I have known for years and would classify as my closest friends. And yet the theoretical limit to the number of stable social relationships an individual can maintain, known as Dunbar’s Number, sits at a mere 150 people. So how can one maintain relationships with over 900 friends on a single Facebook account, let alone that many on three of them?

In short, you can’t. Trust me on this. And if this is true of individuals, it is just as true for companies who wish to maintain a relationship with you via social media. They can’t hope to do that by simply becoming your friend on Facebook – and who would want to befriend their brand of washing powder? So quite literally, the rules of engagement for brands have to change.

Brands have to accept that while they can influence outcomes on social media, they can't prescribe them. Successful social media experiences all have one thing in common – they hand control to the consumer. This is a huge leap of faith for many brands, but it is a leap that is essential if they are to do more than pay lip service to social media.

Brands also have to recognise that they are no longer the authority figure, but rather a facilitator or enabler. This means a move away from broadcast communication and towards creating experiences that are engaging without imposing any constraints. Social media is all about instant gratification and the freedom to be heard. Brands that go against this by building rules or constraints will fail. 

So for brands, social media isn’t about the number of friends they have or about building one-to-one relationships. It is all about allowing your brand to be owned, shaped and reshaped by your consumers.

The good news for our clients is that Synovate can support them in the development of their social media strategy, both through our Buzz Tracking tools and through the know-how of our Global Digital Centre of Excellence headed by Phil Shaw.

So while I attempt to integrate all of my different online personalities and begin virtual therapy on my aging Second Life account, think about your brand’s social media strategy – what it’s doing and what it’s not – and ask us how we can help.

Contact Jason Tagg, Director of Synovate Brand & Communications, for more information on using social media in branding.