Brand

The Path from a Social Brand to a Social Business

I’ve been a long-time supporter of MediaTemple’s (MT)Residence program along with Gary Vaynerchuk, Neil Patel, and many others whom I respect. I wanted to share my “7 questions to answer to become a social business” with you here..

Social Media is pervasive and is becoming the new normal in corporate marketing. Brands who get this right are starting to build their own media networks rich with customer connections numbering in the millions. Right now, Coca-Cola has over 34 million fans on Facebook, but they’re hardly alone. Disney follows just behind with 29 million fans, Starbucks boasts 25 million, and Oreo, Red Bull, and Converse play host to over 20 million fans. If we were to look at other networks such as Twitter and Youtube, we would see a recurring theme. People are connecting en masse with the businesses they support and new media represents the ability to cultivate consumer relationships in ways not possible with traditional earned or paid media.

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The Importance of Brand in an Era of Digital Darwinism

Part of an unpublished appendix for The End of Business as Usual…

Think of your favorite brand, and the first thing to come to mind is likely a logo, such as the Coca-Cola scripting, a tag-line, such as Nike’s “Just do it,” or a jingle – remember the Oscar Meyer Wiener song? These may be the aspects of a brand you remember, but they are no longer the most important aspects of branding today. Identity, persona, essence and promise, are the new kings and queens of the branding kingdom, thanks to technology and the deeper connections it opens up between brands and consumers.

Markets, consumer behavior and how businesses connect with customers are all directly impacted by technology. Looking at the rapid erosion of Blockbuster’s business model, it’s clear to see the impact that technology can have on consumer behavior. During Blockbuster’s initial bankruptcy filing, CNBC’s The Faber Report summarized it this way, “At the end of the day, this is one of those bankruptcies that’s not really about a financial situation as much as it’s about seminal changes in how people ultimately watch video.”

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Inaccurate labels and why we need them (and need to improve them)

If I tell you, “I’m going to the baseball game,” it seems as though you’re likely to understand what I mean.

Of course, you won’t. When George Will goes to a baseball game, it’s a religious experience. Me, I don’t even like baseball. Or maybe it’s my nephew’s ball game (the playoffs), or maybe going to the game causes me to miss an important event, and on and on.

We label the experience with just two words, and two words can’t possibly capture the emotions and circumstance surrounding an event.

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Courage and minimalism: A new view to focus on your target

Courage. Now, there’s a word not often used in marketing – though often used in business. We call leaders courageous when they make unpopular decisions, usually internally, that change process significantly enough to create a turnaround. Perhaps to drive costs down, perhaps to drive morale up – but always to make a significant change. In marketing, in my humble opinion, courage is the ability to very clearly identify, select and stick with a target audience.

I believe those (marketers) who are most courageous are the ones who dare to dabble in the psychology of status – a concept first introduced by Herbert Hyman (1918-1985) in 1942. The premise of the psychology of status is that individuals use groups of reference to evaluate aspects of their lives – both positively and negatively.

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The Content Marketing Fail, aka “the Twinkie Effect”

Creating fresh, valuable content for your company’s website not only improves your search rankings and gives your brand a voice, it also shows your customers, your prospects and your industry that you have something to say. And, more importantly, it shows you’re listening.

Content is king, long live the king. Digital content lives forever.

There is, however, a downside. I call it the “Twinkie Effect.”

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#MMchat with Cd Vann…LIVE and unGEEKED!

For our tenth MarketerMonday Chat #MMchat our SPECIAL guest was Cd Vann, @ThatWoman_Is. As Founder of unGEEKED retreats, Cd has established a series of intimate events across the continent allowing small groups to meet and interact in close quarters with the movers and shakers in social media today. Our topic for #MMchat this evening was Issues Surrounding Brand Authenticity vs Personal Integrity!

This is only the tenth #MMchat we’ve held and see #MMchat for more details on MarketerMonday Chat our previous SPECIAL guests, transcripts and our upcoming schedule.

Thanks again to Cd as well as all of you AWESOME #MMchat tweeps who joined us and participated in getting down and unGEEKED in this very interactive chat!

Check out the full transcript of the chat at http://bit.ly/CdVann and please join us next week as Bill Boorman, @BillBoorman beams in October 11th at 8:00 pm EST to discuss the Marketing Benefits of Employee Engagement! See you all then!

Cheers

Jeff Ashcroft

@TheSocialCMO

It’s not about collecting, it’s about connecting!

As a social media practitioner, I find inspiration in the social world, not just in marketing and advertising. I wish I had come up with this phrase but I owe it to an episode of Arthur, the PBS series for kids.

Arthur’s friend, Muffy, an avid collector, sets to buy out as many dolls as she can in a place mirroring American girl; on the other hand, her friend only wants to buy an accessory for her one and only doll that she nurtures. I had watched the World Girl’s episode several times before with my daughter, but that sentence never stood out until that day where I heard Sue Ellen say to Muffy : It’s not about collecting, it’s about connecting.

I had an *Aha* moment. This short sentence has a very significant meaning in my social media practice. It is that sentence, sounding like a mantra, that should be the core mission of companies; instead, most set out to collect as many fans and followers as they can in a very short time. Therefore, Collecting is done with little to no regards to the value they bring to their following. Of course, collecting a fan base is not the only objective of social media initiatives. Many other marketing initiatives, such as email marketing campaigns, greatly focus on this notion that a success is measured by the number of people one can collect.

Brands, companies, marketing departments, digital agencies and entrepreneurs are all guilty of promising their clients the holy grail of social media: voraciously amassing as many unsuspecting people on their social pages as possible; some brands manage to commit friends/fans/followers into liking them, thereby, building a base of relatively qualified prospects. Some companies even go as far as buying friends for their Facebook account or followers for their Twitter account. I would not see anything wrong with it if it wasn’t for a smalldetail: Once people like you, then what?

Social media has smashed the door open for people to take back some control; now, consumers don’t only want to like your brand, they want to emotionally connect with your brand personality and identity, pretty much like with friends. Yes, people want to have a relationship with your brand. This cultural change within the business and social worlds reflects a shifting balance of powers; the nature and level of the interaction between a brand and a person has totally changed.

Having a huge fan base on your facebook page or twitter account doesn’t reflect the relationship with your audience. Whichever way your fans and followers are acquired – whether you buy their affection by giving them free stuff, tease them with a contest or just because you are such a strong brand that it is alright to like you – the staying power of friend/fans/follower is reflected by how well and how deep you connect with them. And this requires the RIGHT strategy for your audience. Duplicating what another company does and succeeds in, doesn’t cut it. Each audience requires a custom message and interaction from a brand.

Brands are still measuring the traditional way, they are still equating success with impressions and eye-balls; Decision-makers are not fully comprehending that social media is not about campaigning only. Social media is about long-term relationships. Unfortunately, most brands and businesses are still in the race to collect and convert and totally overlook the connect part. The three Cs of social media business Collect, Connect, Convert are each equally important, as part of the brand management.

Brands who consciously make the decision to dip more than one toe into the social media arena, have to make that same conscious decision to start connecting with their people in a way that is true to the brand and to the customer, to allow the relationships to develop and grow; this includes assigning an appropriate budget and empowering the resources.

Collectively, brands have to start treating people as informed, connected, and savvy consumers who clearly demand more than just a business transaction.

What do you think?

Karima-Catherine Goundiam

How Social Media Gives The Public The Power Over Your Brand

Now more than ever, the public have their own media channels through Blogs, websites, social media sites. Market Research firm, IDC, reports that North American online users spend about 32.7 hours a week on the Internet, almost twice as much time as spent watching television (16.4 hours) and more than eight times as much time as spent reading newspapers and magazines (3.9 hours).

People have the ability to produce their own content, share their opinions and experiences and can access a reach far larger than traditional media if their content gains a viral following. For this reason, the public can now have a distinct and powerful advantage in a crisis over many corporations.

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The Face behind your brand

elmo

When I say Elmo, you think… Sesame Street.
When I say Miss Piggy, you think … The Muppets.
When I say Steve Jobs, you think …Apple.

…I was in Starbucks this morning getting my coffee and I received an email from a friend who was announcing his resignation from his current job. There was a level of secrecy as he hadn’t made the announcement public. It made me wonder why I was one of the few selected to receive this special announcement. I checked to see who else was cc’d and was rather honoured and surprised at who else was also getting it. Then I realized that these were high-caliber, young, professionals who owned or represented a brand. He was reaching out to us for a very specific reason. It got me thinking…although some of these individuals don’t own the company they are working for, they are the face of the brand. They are the front line go to person. I wondered if these companies made the right choice in choosing such people. Although they are outgoing, intelligent, personable people, I wouldn’t say that some were the right people for the job. Perhaps I am wrong.

If you are a small business owner hiring for a brand rep., PR, community manager, community type position, make sure you select wisely as these people or this individual will be your mascot, the person and face that people will think of when communicating with or about your business. Make sure their personalities match that of your organization and that they will consistently and professionally represent your brand to its fullest potential.

The Strategy and Tactics of Social Brand Building

I was recently asked to lead a Round Table at Humber College PR’s Personal Brand Camp here in Toronto. Participants included University post-graduate students taking a one year Certificate Program in PR, with an emphasis on Social Media. My assigned discussion topic was, “What are simple Social Media Routines I can use to Build my Personal Brand.”

Deb Weinstein at Personal Brand Camp

Anyone who knows me will attest to the fact that I am not a techie. While I adore the instant access to info and the joys of power sharing on the Internet, I’m hardly a guru when it comes to SEO and SMO optimization. Plus, my personal use of Social Media is so heavily focussed on Twitter, that my LinkedIn, Plaxo and Facebook (I’ve already folded MySpace) languish, sporadically tended to and virtually ignored.

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