Big Brands Want To Go Micro, And Micro Brands Want To Go Big

Hutch Carpenter had an interesting guest post Louis Gray's blog today about bloggers interactions decreasing with prominence. He notes

"One observation to make is this: the level of interaction seems to vary by the blogger's level of established reputation. As a blogger gets more well-known on the Web, the level of interaction declines."

The notion here is that as micro/personal brands go big their desire to communicate goes small. As their brands become established (and dare i say they get established in part due to the conversations that are occurring about them within the social media landscape) they no longer make the time or find themselves with the desire to communicate with the very audience that made their brand in the first place.

What I find interesting is that the exact opposite thing is happening for big brands. If anything, more and more large companies are starting to take social media (for lack of a better term) quite seriously as a platform to communicate with their community. They are looking for ways to credibly and authentically open new channels as the old forms of communication become less relevant. They want to invite those brand advocates and passionate communicators into their world any way they can. They know that their customers are creating their brands as much as they are and want to at least start participating.

It's a strange world out there and all i can say to the micro/personal brands out there is to watch out for this one. Keeping brands relevant on an on-going basis is hard to do if one loses touch with those that made you. As they say, what makes you can also break you.