Facebook | JenniferLev.com

So, another one of the great things about me is that I’m a very enthusiastic fan. If I love a band, brand, store, bar, or whatever else, everyone in my life will know it. I like to call myself “a very enthusiastic consumer”.

So, when given the opportunity to “follow” a brand or band through multiple channels, I usually do. What drives me nuts is when all the social media representations are exactly the same. In some cases, I get it. You’re launching an upcoming tour, so you promote that information through all available channels. But, for some of the non “big announcement” type things, I think that organizations need to do a better job of differentiating their message based on channel. I’m not an expert, but I think the profile of an average Facebook user is slightly different than that of the average Twitter user and drastically different than the average Tumblr or Pinterest user. If you don’t have enough meaningful content to support multiple channels, pick the ones that make the most sense and be very good at those.

Off the top of my head, there are a couple of brands who do this very well – popular TV commentary site TelevisionWithoutPity.com supports content on their site, Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, and Pinterest and it’s all different (and all hilarious). I follow Tommy Hilfiger (the brand, not the man) on multiple sites with few repeats. One of the best examples is probably President Obama’s campaign. The Tumblr offerings are markedly youth oriented, fitting the audience while his Twitter and Facebook commentary have broader appeal.

What do you think? Should I quit being annoyed and just start unfollowing? Are there any brands you think do this audience segmentation well?

From a social commentary perspective, there are a lot of things that can be said about Oreo’s facebook photo this past week-end that have already been said by better writers and more reliable commentary sources, mainly how great it is for such an enormous corporation to have taken such a public stand.

From a marketing perspective, I have to wonder if Oreo knew what they were doing here – since I grabbed the above screencap, the numbers have gone up; this photo has been “liked” almost a quarter of a million times and shared close to 70k times. This photo has made the rounds of a variety of online and on air news sources and has sparked conversation and controversy around a cookie that is, literally, 100 years old. This has been, possibly, the most fervent discussion about baked goods since Atkins. Was that the intent? Or was Oreo just stepping out in support of pride week-end?

The other thing I love, more than anything, about this photo is the disclaimer at the bottom, “Made with creme colors that do not exist.” You’ve got to love covering yourself legally while starting a media storm.