Tag: Brand

Here’s my approach to blogging and social media in a nutshell…

“You’ve got to accentuate the positive
Eliminate the negative
Latch on to the affirmative
Don’t mess with Mister In-Between

You’ve got to spread joy up to the maximum
Bring gloom down to the minimum
Have faith or pandemonium
Liable to walk upon the scene”

Whether you’re a solopreneur or the ‘Director, Corporate Marketing and Brand Communications Worldwide’ for a large farm implement manufacturer you can use good, fast and cheap social media tools to implement the ‘Perry Como’ approach to publicizing your business. Did you find some great news about your company on the web? “Accentuate the positive” by posting it to your corporate blog. Is someone harassing you online? “Eliminate the negative” by posting positive content and feeding your fans. Get the picture? Old Perry had it right, even if social media didn’t exist in 1958 when he recorded that song…

So, you latch on to the Perry Como method when you think about promoting your own personal brand…

PS Originally posted 02/24/2010, updated 9/21/2012; still true over two years later…

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Sundays are all about blogging here at e1evation. My fundamental belief is that blogging is foundational for content marketing success and that a blog should be at the center of everything you do online. Why? Here are a couple of reasons that come to mind at the moment…

  • You own your blog. You do not own Facebook. You wouldn’t build your dream home on rented land — why build your brand on something you don’t own and control?
  • Blogs give you more control over how you express yourself.
  • Websites that blog actively get 7x more traffic than static sites.

It would seem that big brands are starting to get the picture…

The big three social media platforms, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, were the most widely used in 2011, followed by YouTube, and publishing a blog. Across the various platforms, brands cited the following adoption levels: Facebook (87%), Twitter (83%), LinkedIn (76%), YouTube (66%), and blogs (57%). In 2012, blogs are expected to gain the most ground: An additional 28% of brands that don’t currently publish a blog plan to do so in 2012—bringing the percentage of brands that publish a blog to 85%. Social Media – Blogs Top List of Social Media Investments for 2012 : MarketingProfs Article

To my mind, blogging is the ultimate ‘content marketing for thought leadership’ tool. Maybe it’s time you took a page from their playbook and started business blogging as well?! Contact me if you’re not sure where to start…

Here are some of the best blogging articles I found this week…

Sundays are all about blogging…

Sundays are all about blogging…

Sundays are all about blogging…

Sundays are all about blogging…

Sundays are all about blogging…

Sundays are all about blogging…

Sundays are all about blogging…

Sundays are all about blogging…

Sundays are all about blogging…

Sundays are all about blogging…

Sundays are all about blogging…

http://storify.com/e1evation/trending-topics-for-1-29-2012

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I just started digging into Craig Bading’s book “Brand Stand” and it looks very promising…

There is a growing need among consumers for brand authenticity and informative content from which they can make up their own minds. Audiences are asking for and, in some cases, demanding true engagement with their brands. With the expectations and buying patterns of customers aligning more closely with their values, fertile ground is now provided for thought leadership campaigns.

Badings, Craig (2009-07-08). BRAND STAND (Kindle Locations 86-89). BookPal. Kindle Edition.

Lots of great info on ‘thought leadership’ marketing for brands. I’ll update this post when I’m finished…

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Francine Hardaway of Stealthmode Partners has some good thoughts about brand building for beginners here…

So you’ve made the resolution that in 2012 you are finally going to “get into” social media and use it to build a brand for yourself or your business. You’re not a geek, and you’re not with a big corporation that already has a social media team or a fairly savvy marketing department. For you, time is of the essence. You don’t have all day to give to this endeavor which is why you haven’t done it already. So here’s what to do in ten easy steps:

1) If you don’t already own it, buy the domain name for yourself and/or your business. I gave my grandchildren their domain names when they were born.

2) If you have some area of expertise that you would like to showcase, start a blog. Use WordPress or Blogger because they are free, hosted, and have some built in SEO (Search Engine Optimization) juice. Point the DNS to your brand domain. Your domain registrar can help you do this. This will stop your blog’s address from being http://buppythepuppy.wordpress.com and make it http://buppythepuppy.com.  (Yes, I branded my golden retriever). Shorter and easier for people who want to go there. And don’t expect traffic or comments. That’s not the objective. Authority is the goal.

No worries, you won’t have to blog every day. Just sit down once a week or so and write 500 words about your field of expertise or your major interest. Or take pictures, make video, or record sound. Just contribute to your blog, and keep the subject matter related to what you want your brand to be known for (fishing experts should not write about wine, even if they love it). Your blog is found by its keywords, so write about something in which the same keywords might occur in almost every post.

Source: 10 Steps to Beginner Brand Building

I agree with and have applied these 10 steps over the years – you can go to the source if you want the rest. To her observations about blogging I would add this; I’m an advocate of posting every day to drive traffic to my site. I agree that at least once a week, you should do the ‘thoughtful creation post’ about your field of expertise or your major interest. On the other days, however, I think it’s a good practice to showcase other thought leaders in your industry through curation like I did here…

Questions? Feedback?

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Connecting (Chris Brogan)
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If you want better answers, ask better questions. I most recently heard that by listening to a Tony Robbins CD (wrote about that here), but I’ve heard it before. The thing is, with all good advice, if you don’t hear it often, it falls under the waves. So, I’m here to repeat it.

“If you want better answers, ask better questions.”…

I was reading the latest issue of Entrepreneur magazine, about the guy who started the Ace Hotel, and about how it’s turning into a branding thing. I felt a bit of joy and a bit of envy. I started thinking, “What can’t I have a brand like that?” Of course, if you look at the phrasing of the question, what I’m asking is for all the negative reasons why I don’t have that. So, I rephrased:

“What could I do to roll out a brand that means something and transforms across more than one platform?”

This answer was much better. It then made me think of ways that I could grow what I’m working on and really get it into the mindset of a brand. How?

via chrisbrogan.com

Couldn’t agree more with Chris Brogan — I believe intelligent question asking is the single most important skill anyone can possess. Agree/disagree?

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The key to zooming in on purpose and usefulness within social channels starts with the realization that there is no one audience. Nor is there a sustainable market for branded messages, marketing campaigns, or “Tweet/Like to Win” contests. Indeed, every channel created to represent the brand must carry a purpose, mission and corresponding value. One of the most common questions I’m asked by businesses of all shapes and sizes is, “What is the right number of accounts we should have in each social network?” Or, “How many profiles is too many or too few?”

The answer is as simple as it is revealing. Create the number of channels that meaningfully extend the focus of your business. Only create channels that enhance the brand message without diluting it. And make sure you have the capacity to keep all the channels relevant.

So what are the best practices for creating an engaging social stream? Let’s take a look at the traits of some of the more successful and regarded brands in the business.

via mashable.com

Another awesome article by Brian Solis. You’ll have to follow the ‘via’ link if you want to get all 14 best practices. My favorite? “Construct a Listening Framework: The best listeners make the best conversationalists. Build a listening framework that monitors the brands as well as the distinct conversations related to each account.” There are still a few seats left for my ‘Google Reader Rockstar’ event next week. Sign up here — you’ll get the listening framework Solis recommends…

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…on the Top 10 Tactics and Tools for Social Media. Here’s my mindmap. What’s missing? You can grab the map and move it around or make it full screen if that helps by using the menu bar at the bottom of the map…

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via thingstodoingreenbay.com

There are few people I know that have leveraged the internet more effectively to build their personal brand than ‘Green Bay Greg‘ Dallaire. The video is one that he shot for a client of mine, Tailwind Flight Center, and it demonstrates the quality of the work he’s doing at ‘365 Things to do in Green Bay’ along with Tony Rouse from MindSeed Labs. If you want to know how to use the internet and social media to build your brand you don’t need to look much farther than Greg Dallaire…

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Your Brand On Facebook: TMI?

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Yesterday morning, I logged into Facebook (as I do each morning) and saw a post from my cousin’s wife that my cousin had suffered a major heart attack the night before and had open-heart surgery. Thankfully, he will be ok, but the shock of this happening to my cousin at such a young age was intense.

His father wasn’t too thrilled to learn this had been posted on Facebook before he had a chance to let family and friends know what was going on. He was fairly upset that another family member put it out on Facebook but concluded, due to her age, “That’s just this generation, I guess.”

We are living in a time where generations are divided about what constitutes too much information, or “TMI.” To younger generations, putting the word out about significant life events through social media is a quick way to keep friends and loved ones informed. It helps avoid the hassle of individual phone calls, text messages, or emails — and helps keep attention on the task at hand, in this case, helping care for my cousin.

Now that this situation is known, the family is less sensitive to using Facebook to stay on top of the situation. Why? First, because it’s not private anymore. Second, because the updates are relevant and important for those of us following his progress.

The question of brands over-sharing on Facebook is a bit different. The dynamics of what should and what shouldn’t be shared are very different. But there are similarities, too. Posts need to be relevant and they need to come at the right pace. Not surprisingly, there is a direct relationship between the two. The better the posts, the more often people will want to see them.

via mediapost.com

You can follow the ‘via’ link above to go to the source and read the rest of the article if you’d like to dig a little deeper…

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What do the latest social media stats mean for your business?

Social Media Life - Workstation
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A global business I’m working with is run by a very successful woman who is rarely in her office–or in her home state, for that matter.  She spends a large percentage of her time developing relationships with her clients in other parts of the world and making them wildly successful.

She’s right where she needs to be. And because she is, she trusts her online media presence to others like me who can launch timely social feeds that generate buzz.

Most of my clients dabble in social media, but don’t have the time to stop running their businesses to manage their online marketing and media presence.

But the latest trends show us that someone at your company absolutely must be keeping an eye on what your customers are seeing, hearing and feeling from your brand.

via spreemancommunications.com

You can follow the ‘via’ link above to go to the source and read the rest of the article if you’d like to dig a little deeper. Favorite quote from this post? “Imagine not tapping into that enormous potential! Gone are the days when we can dismiss social media as a fad or something that only the younger generation is into.”…

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The brand called you

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Tom Peters wrote this article over 12 years ago, but it’s truer now than it was then…

“The good news — and it is largely good news — is that everyone has a chance to stand out. Everyone has a chance to learn, improve, and build up their skills. Everyone has a chance to be a brand worthy of remark.

Who understands this fundamental principle? The big companies do. They’ve come a long way in a short time: it was just over four years ago, April 2, 1993 to be precise, when Philip Morris cut the price of Marlboro cigarettes by 40 cents a pack. That was on a Friday. On Monday, the stock market value of packaged goods companies fell by $25 billion. Everybody agreed: brands were doomed.

Today brands are everything, and all kinds of products and services — from accounting firms to sneaker makers to restaurants — are figuring out how to transcend the narrow boundaries of their categories and become a brand surrounded by a Tommy Hilfiger-like buzz.” Source: The Brand Called You | Fast Company

Must read! Go to the source and devour this article…

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How often should I post?

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Let’s start here…

“Without question, blogging provides an effective way to market your business, be a valuable resource and build your personal brand online. And most folks know that, generally, the more frequently you blog, the higher your traffic. But does that mean you should follow the advice of many to create a new post every single day?

Focusing only on traffic numbers, instead of the concentrating on sharing content and building relationships will send you down the path to burnout. Here at WebWorkerDaily, we have multiple writers contributing to help keep the content fresh. But for one-person blogs, blogging daily works for some and not for others.” Source: Just How Often Should You Blog? – WebWorkerDaily

Go to the source for some good thoughts on ‘how often’ — it’s really good stuff! In the meantime, I’m heading in another direction…

I just closed out my best blogging month ever traffic-wise. What was significant to me was that I did it in a ‘short’ month with no speaking engagements. Usually, when I have a chance to speak, my traffic spikes because all the seminar attendees check out my site — it’s usually good for a couple hundred pageviews. In February, however, I did it all on my own, post by post by post. I’ve already laid out all my tactics and tools in the series “Top 10 Tactics and Tools for Tightening your Tribe” and yes, I used them all this past month. I did make two significant changes, however. #1 I redesigned my site using the ‘Thesis’ theme which promises some kind of magic SEO foo and really seems to have delivered for me. #2 I experimented with spreading my posts out throughout the day. Instead of posting 3-5 posts at 6:00 AM, I spread them out every two hours or so throughout the day. Whether it was one, or the other, or both, my traffic’s going nuts!

HubSpot gives me a grade of 96 on my site, Google tells me I have 6,076 pageviews over the past 30 days and Alexa tells me my site is ranked 484,123 in the US. Not much left to prove from my perspective and the thing that excites me most is that my success is the result of a systematic process I can teach to anyone. I usually benchmark myself against local radio station WTAQ because I like to see how I fare against ‘old’ media in my market. They have an Alexa ranking of 116,615 which is really awesome. It thrills me that I’m actually ranked higher than local social media wunderkind Dana VanDen Heuvel [a good friend to e1evation], although I’m sure that won’t last long. He’s at 520,219…

I’m certain my traffic will drop some during the upcoming month as I’ll be directing a great deal of my creative energy toward three projects I announced in February. They are the Social Media Academy — an online training class on the top tactics and tools for effective social media, The Damn Good Social Media Guide — the accompanying ebook, and last? A weekly podcast. I’m currently looking for beta testers for the Social Media course. If you’d like to save yourself the $499 fee and get all the content in a rough format for free, comment, call or contact me and let me know. As always, thanks for reading…

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define:brand

I got this from Seth Godin who got it from the Google dictionary…

“A brand is the set of expectations, memories, stories and relationships that, taken together, account for a consumer’s decision to choose one product or service over another. If the consumer (whether it’s a business, a buyer, a voter or a donor) doesn’t pay a premium, make a selection or spread the word, then no brand value exists for that consumer.

A brand’s value is merely the sum total of how much extra people will pay, or how often they choose, the expectations, memories, stories and relationships of one brand over the alternatives.

A brand used to be something else. It used to be a logo or a design or a wrapper. Today, that’s a shadow of the brand, something that might mark the brand’s existence. But just as it takes more than a hat to be a cowboy, it takes more than a designer prattling on about texture to make a brand. If you’ve never heard of it, if you wouldn’t choose it, if you don’t recommend it, then there is no brand, at least not for you.

If you hear a designer say this, “A TCHO Chocolate bar, with its algorithmic guilloche patterns, looks like a modern form of currency. “Modern” was always part of the brand brief — no faux traditionalism, but resolutely forward-looking for a new generation of chocolate enthusiasts…” then I wonder if there’s a vocabulary disconnect.

Design is essential but design is not brand.

(Believe it or not, I didn’t make that quote up).

PS a Google tip: you can find the definition of any word by typing “define:” followed by the word into your search box.” Source: Seth’s Blog: define: Brand

This goes hand in hand with the earlier post I did about Facebook pages…

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The Brand called You…

Starbucks logo
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…is not a new concept — Tom Peters rolled it out a couple of years ago — but it’s just as relevant today as it was then. Even more so!

“That cross-trainer you’re wearing — one look at the distinctive swoosh on the side tells everyone who’s got you branded. That coffee travel mug you’re carrying — ah, you’re a Starbucks woman! Your T-shirt with the distinctive Champion “C” on the sleeve, the blue jeans with the prominent Levi’s rivets, the watch with the hey-this-certifies-I-made-it icon on the face, your fountain pen with the maker’s symbol crafted into the end …

You’re branded, branded, branded, branded.

It’s time for me — and you — to take a lesson from the big brands, a lesson that’s true for anyone who’s interested in what it takes to stand out and prosper in the new world of work.

Regardless of age, regardless of position, regardless of the business we happen to be in, all of us need to understand the importance of branding. We are CEOs of our own companies: Me Inc. To be in business today, our most important job is to be head marketer for the brand called You.

It’s that simple — and that hard. And that inescapable.” Source: The Brand Called You | Fast Company

I strongly encourage you to go to the source and read the rest of the article. It’s foundational reading for any thought leader…

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Persistence…

“Persistence isn’t using the same tactics over and over. That’s just annoying. Persistence is having the same goal over and over.” Seth Godin

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