Rivers and Streams

Think about how people consume information: it’s not from one source, app or platform. People prefer information from multiple streams rather than from a single river. Streams are varied ideas, voices and media converging into a platform that becomes the river.

Take Flipboard and Zite, two of the most popular apps for the iPad. Users customize exactly what sources they want information from to create a digital magazine. Companies need to think the same way when developing social media platforms. It requires a shift in the mindset from, “Here’s what we’re going to tell people,” to asking, “What does our audience want?”

We often talk about a brand speaking in “one voice,” but it’s easy to misinterpret this when it comes to a social media.  While a unified voice is important, the voices that make up that collective voice provide more personality to a brand while showcasing the spectrum of its employees’ expertise. Information coming from one person or focused on the same idea – regardless of how good a company’s social media channel is – is only a large stream, not a river.

The perfect example of this is Intel IQ, a social-publishing platform curated by Intel employees. Stories comprise original content written by employees along with news from other sources that employees share. Stories become more prominently featured to reflect clicks, shares, likes and recommendations. While topics are grouped under media, life and planet, employees have a tremendous amount of latitude as to what they can post. Intel has empowered employees with a voice in their brand with a very simple mantra: if it’s interesting to one person, it will likely be interesting to many. 

              

As Bryan Rhoads, Editor in Chief of Intel IQ told AdAge, “The goal is to connect with a younger audience and tell them the bigger story of who we are as a brand. Many of them don’t know, so we need to tell them the story of Intel that is beyond PCs and beyond processors.”

Intel is using streams to create a river that’s far more powerful than if it was simply one source of content. Would people still visit the site if it was only about their company and products? Probably, but it would be a very niche audience who would only come back if they needed information related strictly to Intel.

By creating an ever-evolving and organic destination, Intel has added an entirely new component to their brand identity to appeal to a much broader audience and create a reason for more people to visit the site with greater frequency.