Your brand is a person. A person on Facebook

Sometimes when we talk “brands” with clients, we refer to them as "people". It's a way of helping clients understand what is at stake in their brand, how to manage its growth and direction. A brand, after all, has a personality, it acts in the world and it makes promises. Referring to a brand as a person is a way of bringing it right down to earth.

So I’ve had this thought: “if brand X is a person, what kind of presence would brand X have on Facebook? And would Facebook be a good place to understand brand X?

What if you used Facebook to better understand your brand?

I don't mean that your brand needs a real Facebook profile - unless of course Facebook is part of your marketing mix. But the Facebook model could be used to flesh out many important aspects that drive brand strategy.

Consider some of the core features of Facebook:

1. A Facebook profile has an image (could this be a logo?)
2. A Facebook profile supplies answers to a number of questions that reflect the person's personality and interests (what makes your brand different? what is your unique sales proposition? what is your unique selling language?)
3. Facebook invites networking (what is your sales force doing?)
4. Facebook includes e-mail (how do you communicate with your customers? does your brand reach consistently across all touch points?)

So here is a test you can try:
- Create a hypothetical Facebook profile for your brand
- Fill in all the blanks using the various features offered
- See how your brand behaves from the highest strategic level down to various brand touch points.
- See what you learn, and apply that learning to your brand.