We talk to many companies who are very concerned about their company's LinkedIn and Twitter accounts and how they share content on those platforms.  After watching the first 15 minutes of this video by Professor Mark Ritson of Melbourne Uni my response is you should not worry about promoting the brand too much.  Focus on the individuals you have in your organisation and their stories.  What they can do on social for you is far more powerful as they will open up their networks for the firm.

Ritson wanted to see the real impact social media is having when it came to the big brands in Australia and their customers.   He takes eight of the biggest brands in Australia and asked the question - What is the relative importance of social media for these big brands' customers?

What he shows is important - that the relative importance of social media is very very small.  In percentage terms it is often ones and zeros.   The fact is that very few of the big brands' customers follow them on Twitter or interact with them on Facebook or Instagram in any meaningful way.

When you look at the numbers on social what is absolutely apparent is that people do not interact with firms and brands, they follow people.  As Ritson says you do not want a conversation with your chips.  People are important - that is what the 'social' in social media means.  

To illustrate this, another example from the start of this video - if you build a league table of followers on Twitter the first brand that comes up is ABC (Australia Broadcasting Company)... at number 40!  All above and most below ABC are individuals, not firms, not products, not brands.  

Ritson goes on to make lots of other great points but for this Passle I just wanted to re-iterate this one message - use social to link your people with your customers.