SOCIAL MEDIA

I remember finishing university, around 10 years ago, and starting to see brands invading social networks. It was a bizarre phenomenon because it was a takeover of “my space” reserved for my circle of friends. Suddenly it was commonplace to receive a friend request from a paint brand. Stranger still was that I’d accept it.

What was happening?

This situation occurred before Facebook created pages, when there were still only personal profiles. At that time, brands had already realised that it was important to break the door down to get in, to have a seat at the table, side by side with the common man. Naturally, I invited them in and served them tea, more curious to know what they wanted from me than to find out how comfortable the insoles they advertised were.

For me, the most peculiar thing was that all these brands seemed to have a birthday. Sooner or later, their special day would come round. I don’t know if it was real or just a random date (for example, whoever from the company had opened the profile). I’d find myself, on the same day, sending birthday wishes to António and a brand of coat hangers. I’d ask both if they’d be buying me a beer later. Most of the time the coat hanger left me hanging, as you’d expect.

This dissonance between reality and a brand echoed in my mind for a long time. Brands seem to have reflected on this too and something has changed.

So why do I deliberately follow a series of brands on my social media today? Why do I accept that texts and images from brands criss-cross with those of my friends?

Because brands really can have something to say. They have an identity, which existed before social media, continuously created subconsciously in the minds of every consumer. A juice brand might not have anything to say in the first person. But in my head it can represent the memories of a lifetime! It was with me, without knowing it, at my childhood birthday parties, it was university cocktails, Sunday hangovers and long lunches with my emigrant family. That juice was there. What makes me want to be friends with this brand has much to do with defining my own identity. Feeling that it’s honest and that we speak the same language, it can’t be wrong to empathise with an apparently abstract entity (which, incidentally, is always built by people like us).

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A profile on social networks can bridge this gap between the brand’s identity and the identity of the consumers themselves. When it’s natural, there’s harmony. Today, I find myself following a series of brands that inspire me, show me an idea, bring a genuinely fresh and new vibe to my life. There are those who say that it’ll always be a brand rather than one of our friends. But to what extent do our friends share content or information that interests us? I honestly think I could do without Nuno’s photo of his frozen lasagna.

Brands realised what role they could play on social media, and luckily did so in time, because after all these years, I really wouldn’t want to have to go back to wishing happy birthday to a brand of hubcaps.

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