The quick rise of Facebook Pages as a product designed for brand communication efforts on the platform confirms a growing trend in Social media: branding. Marty Neumeier describes that in todays fast-changing environment the barriers to competition are no longer means of production, access to capital or intellectual property but brands. The immediate and swift surge of brands onto online Social Media environments can be understood by quoting Walter Landor’s famous words “products are created in the factory, but brands are created in the mind”. With over 400 million users (greater than the world’s 5th largest country by numbers) more than 50% of which are active 55 minutes / day on average, Facebook (certainly the largest platform but not with the largest growth) has proved to be a powerful and neutral conversation platform for brands. Now brands are seeing an opportunity in Social Media platforms like Facebook, Twitter and popular Blogs among others, to address the later part of Landor’s words: creating a fantastic impression in your mind about them. Brands have been building brand loyalty through consistent and positive interactions for years, and now they are understanding how to manage their online environments through two-way conversations with their tribe in the effort to spur a favorable and trustworthy gut feeling among its viewers worthy of being shared with their friends.

“products are created in the factory, but brands are created in the mind”  -  Walter Landor

Browsing the groups I admin in thumbnail format. This thumbnail view states consistent also while browsing member groups, the groups your friends have joined and public groups.

The groups section found by clicking the “social network” button on mygeni, allows a brand to have its own bespoke visual space. It’s Facebook Pages, Twitter lists and Google Maps all in one. The main feature of groups is multiple content streams. This allows the admin (content creator) to create an unlimited number of “streams” (main topics of planned brand conversation) that a member can interact with. Each stream has its own name, description, display image and background image therefore mygeni allows the brand to totally recreate the entire user environment per stream.

Streams exist to be filled with interesting and engaging brand content. When the admin creates content they are prompted which stream of which group (if admin of multiple groups) to “target” the post into. This appears in the viewer’s content stream as content produced by the group and not the individual creator (same functionality as Facebook Pages). As we know, sharing is caring and good for business. The group admin is further empowered by being able to share any post to a Facebook Page, Twitter, blog and other popular platforms. This functionality points the viewer of the external platforms back to the content item on the groups bespoke visual brand environment. You don’t need to be a member of mygeni to view the post or browse through the streams provided that the group is public.

The J+ (Jil Sander for UNIQLO) stream has a different background to the other streams and the group landing page because it is specific to the collaboration between German designer Jil Sander and her 2010 J+ collection for UNIQLO.

Mygeni’s groups product was not designed to be a replacement of any one platform in a brand’s online Social Media landscape, rather to be the principle content creator and the focal environment for viewing brand content.

As an admin, I can create many main topics of conversation (streams), some as specific as “J+ (Jil Sander for UNIQLO 2010)” and others as open ended as “I love UNIQLO”. I can create thousands of posts which are relevant to my brand and interesting to my viewers. I can export every single one of them if I like to one or all of the online Social Media platforms my brand uses. The viewers of those platforms (that may not be members of my brand on mygeni) will see the post and be directed back to my bespoke environment to experience what I created. My environment will be unique because not only have I designed a different and visually appealing background for each stream on my group, I have successfully partitioned my viewer’s experience to the specifics of the stream (a main conversation topic) and not the entire brand. If, over time, a stream becomes outdated or irrelevant (for example its now 2011 and Jil Sander no longer collaborates with UNIQLO) but the content which resides in the stream is still relevant, I can merge my J+ (Jil Sander for UNIQLO 2010) stream into my I love UNIQLO stream getting rid of the former and slotting all the content into the latter.

The viewer can link any stream directly to one of their chosen interests to make sure that all posts get directly fed in. They can unlink just as easily.

As a member, I can visit the group as often as I like and browse different streams in an environment that is partially or entirely brand tweaked by brands I associate with and like. If I fall in love with a background I can click “get background” and use that as my background for my entire mygeni experience (not just when I visit the group page like mygeni.org/UNIQLO). If I associate only with J+ (Jil Sander for UNIQLO 2010) I can link that specific stream to one of my interests, say Branding and Design. This will prompt mygeni to push all content targeted to J+ (Jil Sander for UNIQLO 2010) by UNIQLO’s group into my “Branding and Design” interest and ignore the rest. If I want to browse the other streams, I’ll have to physically visit the group by clicking “social network >> my member groups” and selecting “UNIQLO”. I can unlink it at any time and repeat this for multiple streams and multiple groups. Similarly to admins, I too can share any post to my Facebook profile or page, Twitter and all other supported platforms by mygeni.