Drugi jezik na kojem je dostupan ovaj članak: Bosnian
By: Milica Marković
Speaking at the Direct Media Academy (DMA), Ana Mirković, executive director of the Institute of Digital Communications in Belgrade and lecturer of the Institute of Digital Marketing in Ireland, in her lecture addressed the influence of emotions, and use of rationale in building personal image on social networks, but also in digital communication of brands.
Ana is a psychologist, a leader of the communication team of digital agency Razor Communications, lecturer of Cambridge Business Academy program, as well as advisor to UNICEF Serbia for digital communications.
Media Marketing: What is the greatest challenge today in the digital communication of individuals and brands?
Ana Mirković: The same one that has been the most important thing in communications for years – how to choose the right message and address it to the right audience at the right time through the right channel. Digital media are a new channel, and a lot of time we listen to what is the real content for a medium that is often called new (although it really isn’t anymore), how our audience spends time on this medium, how they behave, what they expect, and to which messages they respond. Two-way and multidirectional communication that is completely transparent and runs without interruption is certainly the biggest challenge for individuals and for companies and brands alike.
Media Marketing: How much do we lean on rationale in building a personal brand on social networks, and how much on emotions?
Ana Mirković:
When defining a communication strategy, we fully lean on the rational, but we strive to evoke emotions in fans and followers with all our activities, because that’s the only way to keep our message longer in their memory, in a sea of messages that bombard them from all sides. And the emotion is what you strive for – it gives the opportunity to content to be noticed, to be interacted with, to make a connection, and ultimately to be remembered. We used to say that a brand is the awareness of a product, and today we know that without an emotion – a strong emotion – there is no brand.
Media Marketing: If social networks have become our personal media, can we determine who plays the main, or more significant role in the process of building a personal brand on the social media – we or the people who follow us?
Ana Mirković: We have the role of the sender of messages about ourselves, and in order to properly communicate the values of our brand, it is necessary to listen, analyze and understand how people behave, what they react to and what kind of reaction is characteristic for them. But since a brand is based on what other people are saying about us, and not on what we say about ourselves, the answer is that our personal brand receives its strength from the people who follow us. In the era of digital media, power is in the hands of users and consumers, and not in our hands. What is in our hands is to work on being better every day, to truly believe in the values that we promote and to listen carefully to others, because listening is a key segment of any communication – especially digital.