Anna Barham Kumar: Brands Need to Respect Audiences on Socials

Anna Barham Kumar has been with Communicado for more than 12 years, a testament to her evolving career and the workplace culture. Starting with the company in 2013 as a community manager before experiencing every facet of social from crisis management, to paid media, to content strategy, Anna took the reins of the newly minted content and social department in 2023.

Anna originally studied philosophy and was destined to be an academic before social media caught her attention, and the rest, they say, is history. Fascinated by how people think and what motivates them to act or engage, Anna is now able to put theory into practice, and measure the response in real time.

An early and practised adaptor, Anna is careful to approach every challenge with an open mind. The social space and user behaviours are constantly evolving, and moving with them is her key to delivering and maintaining impact.

An inspirational leader, Anna is the quiet power behind the throne of her all-female team, nurturing and empowering them with her extensive knowledge and experience, delivered in her considered style.

LBB> What’s the most significant development or trend shaping the social space right now?

Anna> It’s definitely nothing new, but taking a longer-term lens on what’s had the biggest impact it’s, firstly, the overall quality and complexity of content in the space -- brands are up against a practically unlimited stream of engaging, insightful content made for social content. Brand social now needs to be all of those things to cut through.

Secondly, it’s the demand for talent in content -- it used to be enough to include hands or style scenes to imply human interaction, now it’s voice over at the very least. Audiences expect access to the people behind the brand.

LBB> Every platform functions so differently -- and the way they function evolves over time and there’s a lot of fun to be had on social, from shoppable livestreams to AI filters -- so where are you finding the most satisfying or exciting creative opportunities right now (and can you give an example of a campaign that demonstrates that)?

Anna> I love a shiny new feature (and the performance boost you see when you adopt early) as much as the next social media manager, but honestly, we consistently see the most impact from strategic and insightful content campaigns supported by considered and responsive paid media. KIND Collective’s recent Woolworths launch across TikTok and Meta is a great example of how impactful that can be.

LBB> Social media is a space for brands to be a bit more human -- but how do you walk the line between personable and twee?

Anna> It’s always about the underlying strategy. If you’ve clearly defined the role of and approach to social for a brand, then you know exactly how and where you can play.

LBB> What does ‘craft’ mean to you in a social context?

Anna> Flexibility, resourcefulness, and above all, humility. The social space broadly challenges a lot of people in our industry, I think because it subverts the expected path from novice to expert so extremely. Social content now needs to be polished, but feel handmade and candid, tomorrow? Who knows.

Experience brings perspective and expands your toolkit, but you always need to be ready and willing to move on and let go when things change.

LBB> Organic, paid, influencers, social search -- how do you approach figuring out the best way to reach audiences?

Anna> We would always look at the audience and be guided by how and where they’re engaging. There’s almost always an element of paid though. Organic social can work, but the majority of brands can’t be authentically outrageous, so it’s generally a long and expensive game to get to a place where you’re reaching the right people on a scale that justifies the investment.

LBB> Social media can be brutal -- on a personal level, how do you deal with that aspect of the role and helping your teams on the front line?

Anna> I started my career as a community manager during the era of organised anti-halal trolling, so I’m acutely aware of how ugly things can get and the toll that can take. We always recommend proactive planning for issues management, so we have robust and clear processes ready and waiting if (when) something goes wrong.

Beyond that, maintaining an open dialogue with my team and ensuring it’s clear there’s no expectation that anyone will deal with heavy things in isolation -- we vent, workshop, and step in so people can step away as needed.

LBB> Social media has been accused of driving polarisation and spreading misinformation, while others call it the marketplace of ideas. Whether or not that’s the whole truth, it is certainly shaping discourse and is one of the key venues for culture war-ish behaviour. What’s your take on the role of social media in society and what responsibilities do brands and individuals working in social have?

Anna> If only anything in life were black and white. Can social media fuel division and create harmful echo chambers? Yes. Can social media fuel positive change and facilitate connection and understanding? Also, yes.

Social media isn’t perfect because people aren’t, we actively seek connection and validation, both of those tendencies are being exploited by algorithms prioritising more time on platform, whatever the cost.

Knowing that means that we do have some degree of responsibility to consider the potential impact of our work but at the end of the day, it isn’t brands using social to groom people to hate one another and that problem is for platforms and governments to solve.

It's worth noting too, that this is nothing new or unique to social, propaganda has been distributed by every form of mass media and before that, through gossip. Social is just the latest vehicle for the unfortunate human tendency to divide, other, and manipulate.
Where I’ve landed is acceptance that I’m not a moral authority and it would be arrogant to overstate the impact of our work.

We act in accordance with our values and meet people where they choose to be.

LBB> What are the biggest missteps you see brands making most regularly on social media?

Anna> Buckle up… no, I’ll keep it brief. Two major things:

1. Viewing paid and owned social as separate channels. Audiences experience all your content in the same context and, yes, you can pay to put just about anything in front of people, but you can only secure their attention with contextual and engaging ad content.

2. Essentially point one but bigger. Not respecting its audience. Unfortunately, it’s not uncommon for brands to focus entirely on what they want to convey and how it’s convenient for them to roll out on social, which at best will flop and at worst will do damage to your brand.

LBB> Inevitable AI question! How are you applying AI in your day-to-day role and what have been your key insights/observations about the best way to approach it in the campaigns you’ve worked on (feel free to share examples)?

Anna> Communicado has a really robust policy and AI toolkit in place which has been fantastic to ensure that we’re all using it really intentionally. Personally, I use it most to mockup concepts and summarise information but that will shift as tools and our agents become more sophisticated.

LBB> Thinking longer term, where do you see the biggest risks and opportunities when it comes to AI in social?

Anna> I honestly don’t know. One thing I’ve learned working in such a fluid space for so long is that big changes tend to be exaggerated, then assimilated. I am concerned by a lot of what I see, but I also know that people have been lamenting the evils of change since they had the words to do so. We will adapt, and hopefully come to a place of balance, where AI facilitates some amazing (human-generated) creative ideas.

LBB> When you’re not working, what social platforms and content do you personally enjoy engaging with and why? What creators, influencers, and social communities do you really love?

Anna> I make a point of opening all my apps regularly, but I particularly love TikTok and Pinterest. I browse TikTok from my personal accounts, as well as my logged-out desktop. All to try to avoid the echo chamber effect!

I am secretly (?) interior design obsessed, so that’s my Pinterest feed. My TikTok feed is very eclectic, but I do particularly love POV ‘lunch of ordinary Korean office worker’ content, recipes, and home renos.

Like most people (the numbers don’t lie), I still spend plenty of time on Facebook, mostly engaging with local community groups and things I won’t buy on Marketplace.

LBB> What advice would you give to people who are looking to get into social, whether as creatives, strategists, or producers?

Anna> A good social marketer is a lifelong learner and a student of the human condition.

Consume culture and content outside of your own interests. Try out every new platform that launches. Find, follow and try to reverse engineer the strategies of brands that are doing great work across a really broad range of categories and target markets – it’s easy to be engaging on social if your product is sexy and made for Gen Z, but there are brands out there killing it across the spectrum. Look at what they’re doing on other channels and how they translate that to social without diluting their message.

That, and practice filming in public and listening to your own recorded voice until it stops making you cringe.