$5000/year for a ticket to your own show? I don't think so.

The old adage goes something like, "There's no such thing as bad publicity, as long as they spell your name right". If that's truly the case, then I'd love to hear the thoughts inside the inner circle of Seth Godin's latest venture, Brands in Public, which went live just last week. If you haven't heard, Brands in Public is a website which aggregates many of the public conversations surrounding a given brand, and displays them in one location. Sounds great, right? Well, maybe not... if you're the brand. Brands in Public launched with the plan to create brand "pages" on their own, without the prior consent of a given brand, and then charge companies $400/month for the ability to "own" their page, thus allowing them to manage the content. This created quite an uproar across the social media spectrum, including allegations of "brandjacking", and in response, Brands in Public backed away from their initial plan, now planning to only create pages for brands which have opted into their user agreement. This may have tempered some of the initial public outcry, but I believe the situation highlights many of the questions which top brands are pondering internally in recent times. How can we best engage past, current, and future customers online? Which social tools should we embrace, and which should we shy away from? And most importantly - how can we translate all of this effort into new customers and sales growth?

In today's world, there are the few social business essentials that all brands should treat with the same regard as their homepage URL - a Facebook Fan Page, Twitter username, and Yelp Business page, which all serve as important communication channels to reach different segments of potential (and existing) customers. These tools can't guarantee that the conversation will always be positive, but they do allow brands to actively participate in the public discourse, and when appropriate, engage their detractors. We all know by now that we can't control the conversation surrounding our brand, but we can manage it - by promoting our objectives, highlighting our successes, and responding to our critics. Where I differ from Seth Godin's approach is in how we manage it - and more specifically where we manage it. 

Simply put, although there may be many online tools available to help promote your brand, your company website should still remain the focal point. It's where you deliver your message, make your pitch, and convert customers.  

So why send your prospects, or existing customers, elsewhere to hear the "whole story" behind your brand? This is where Brands in Public erred - in their initial approach with potential customers. From the beginning, their model for attracting paying customers (or brands) was built on an adverse relationship; "We've collected all the dirt on your company, good and bad, and made a third party webpage displaying it - but if you want in on the action, you're gonna have to cough up $5000/year to be a part of it." Not only does that premise lean awkwardly towards extortion, but it suggests that the primary value that Brands in Public offers is access to your own information. IMHO, their value proposition should have been centered in how they can help you manage, process, and refine your content; instead, it appeared to simply be the price of admission to your own show. Not mention your show now appears on a different channel than that shiny new website you just built. Whoops, sorry about that....that will be $400 please. 

If your website is to remain your focal point, why wouldn't you also use it to centralize the various online conversations about your brand, and maximize the engagement with your visitors?  

There are various tools to help aggregate your content from around the web.  We’re working on a solution at TurnSocial.com to help websites with just that – bringing your content and conversations directly to your pages. That being said, there are many other strong, innovative products out there which offer valuable engagement tools for far less than $400/month, which is quite a hefty price to pay for admission to your own show. I'm curious to hear what readers think - is too much being made of the Brands in Public story, or is this an important step in understanding what's publicly acceptable in regards to the management of your social content online?

Matt Hendrick

Co-founder, Turnsocial.com

matt@turnsocial.com

As a shameless plug, we’re happily giving out 25 invite codes to our private beta and looking for feedback.  Reach out for me if you'd like to be an early adopter.