Tag: Branding

personal branding

A Marketer’s Guide to Getting Started with Personal Branding

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A brand is not only a company, logo, or trademark; it is anything that identifies or differentiates one thing from another. That could be one company from another, such as Coca-cola and Pepsi, or  one person from another.  As marketers in the digital space it has become more critical than ever to develop and grow our personal brands. A strong personal brand shows that you know how to successfully market yourself, your skills, and your brand, giving you the credibility needed to land your first job, first client, dream job, or dream client. Continue reading →

Building Your Blog [SlideShare Presentation]

Blogs have become the life force behind a brand’s online identity. Blog posts fuel social media efforts, give search engines content to crawl and index, provide companies the opportunity to showcase themselves as thought leaders in their industry, and much more. As such, diving into creating a blog should not be taken lightly, but you also should not be scared of developing your own great blog. It can be a fun, exciting, and very educational journey (for those of you who love to learn as much as I do). Continue reading →

3 Lessons in Brand Passion from Winning Brand Builders

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Brand PassionWhat separates two brands in an industry, from one being successful and another not? Brand passion! The passion that company founders have for their brands is transferred to their customers, so customers not only purchase products but they become brand advocates because they are as passionate about the brand as the brand creator.

There is no one formula for creating a successful brand, and while passion is often a key factor, it does not guarantee brand growth. To achieve phenomenal company growth and brand awareness, brand founders need to strategically focus their passion for their product into the right marketing outlets, i.e. newsletters, social media, website design, product design etc.

To better understand how brand passion, combined with strategic marketing, can lead to brand success I want to look further into three passionate company founders: Brian Scudamore, founder and CEO of 1-800-GOT-JUNK?, Pete Cashmore, founder and CEO of Mashable, and Susan Gregg Koger, founder of ModCloth.

Continue reading →

All Marketers Feel the Ups and Downs at JC Penney

JC Penney has been going through a lot of changes lately, and that is an understatement. After changing their logo, leadership, strategy, and pricing model, they have been losing both their identity and their customers.

But, they may have a plan to turn it all around. Check out this great article by Lisa Arthur about the renovation of the JC Penney brand. I really enjoyed her analysis of the different and creative ways that JC Penney is re-branding themselves moving forward.

Do you think that they can create a clear identity that their customers can connect to, and turn around their sales numbers as well?

Marketing Explained Using the Laws and Principles of Physics

Dan Cobley, a marketing director at Google, gave a presentation at the TED Global 2010 conference titled “What Physics Taught Me About Marketing”. When I first saw the title of this presentation I was hooked, I had to know how can marketing and branding principles be explained using physics. Well, Dan Cobley explains just that using Newton’s second law, Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, the scientific method and the second law of thermodynamics. Continue reading →

Jenna Langer: 5 Ways to Humanize Your Brand

I recently read a great article by Jenna Langer, on how brands can better connect with their customers by creating a brand that is “human”. As we all know, humanizing a brand is not a small request; Humanizing Brand Imageas  medias (i.e. social media) and customer expectations continue to change, this challenge becomes more difficult.

In the article, Jenna breaks down 5 humanizing tips, why they are important, and ways in which companies can implement them. These tips can help companies not only connect with their customers, but also turn them into brand advocates. Continue reading →

Why Your Klout Score is Important

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So what is a Klout score and why should you care?

Klout.com is becoming one of the most popular sites for understanding and growing your online network successfully. Klout was created to measure and understand, as well as leverage your brand’s influence online.

A recent article on Forbes.com by Dorie Clark breaks down why your Klout score is important for your brand. It also includes great tips from Alex Lightman, a high ranking Klout member, on how to increase your score.

Why You Should Care About Your Klout Score – Forbes.com

Your brand’s online influence can not truly be measured solely by the number of Twitter followers or likes on Facebook you have. True influence (Klout) is measured by the content you share and how frequently you interact with your community, as well how often they interact with you. Klout has created a process to convert your brand’s online influence into a number on a scale of 1 – 100. Some of the factors that influence your Klout score are:

  • Twitter: Retweets and Mentions
  • Facebook: Comments, Wall-Posts, Likes
  • LinkedIn: Comments, Likes
  • Foursquare: Tips, To-Do’s, Done
  • Google+: Comments, Reshares, +1

Even though the list above mentions “likes” and posts, Klout is not measuring your level of “activity” it is measuring your level of influence!

My favorite feature on Klout is the “Klout Style” report. The report measures:

  • Whether you share or create content
  • If the information you share is focused or broad
  • If you are more of a listener or if you participate in online conversations
  • Who you influence and who influences you

Based on these factors and more, your brand is categorized into one of 16 categories, including:Wendy's Facebook Page Timeline Format

  • Curator
  • Broadcaster
  • Dabbler
  • Conversationalist
  • Networker
  • Observer
  • Specialist

For example, Klout categorizes me as a Networker. Klout defines a Networker as:

“You know how to connect to the right people and share what’s important to your audience. You generously share your network to help your followers. You have a high level of engagement and an influential audience.”

Also, you can find out what topics you are most influential on, compared to those you assume interest your followers. Klout helps you better understand your brand and determine if your strategy is successful. Check out my Klout profile to find out more about what you can learn about your online community Being Your Brand Klout Score

Have you already signed up for Klout? If so, where you surprised by your score or how Klout categorized you? Leave a comment below, I always appreciate your thoughts.

Related articles

Why Branding is so Important

Your brand is the core of your business.

Company Branding

As I have written in some of my other posts, maintaining brand consistency extremely important to customer relationship management, marketing, product development, advertising, company relationship with employees,and basically every facet of your company.

This article by Ben Erickson is a perfect breakdown of why maintaining your brand should always be at the top of your list. He does a great job of explaining how branding is important to your customers, differs by business size, and the team you will need to maintain it all. I highly recommend checking out his post What is Business Branding?

Image: KROMKRATHOG / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Top 10 Favorite Takeaways from SXSWi

This week, my twitter feed was full of quotes from SXSWi. I was not able to attend the conference myself, but agencies from all over the country have been tweeting and blogging about their experience there, so… I thought I would share some of my favorite takeaways that they have shared.

Agencies

  • Moosylvania – an independent full-service agency in St. Louis.
  • 4orce – a digital agency in St. Louis
  • Big Fuel – a social media and branded content company in New York

Top 10 SXSWi Takeaways

  1. Look forward to scary awesome targeting of ads – Moosylvania
  2. It’s becoming even more vital that brands focus on additional value and continued relationships with their customers. It’s all about the experience, and the ways a brand engages on an emotional level. – Moosylvania
  3. Social media ROI discussion haven’t evolved. Ever. Your social ROI comes down to determining which KPIs are important to your brand and what you need to measure to determine success, there isn’t a magic bullet ROI formula that works for all brands. – Moosylvania
  4. Agencies must migrate away from vertical hierarchy to horizontal hierarchy… Resist large teams at all cost. – 4orce
  5. ROI metrics are to validate not to justify social media spend. 4orce
  6. Lots of debate and confusion regarding social media ROI. Bottom line: we should measure results against upfront benchmarks. 4orce
  7. So your brand is sharing content, but is it also capturing content? Makes it less promotional & more authentic – Big Fuel
  8. Think of your brand as a host to a conversation. Morph and change with it. – Moosylvania
  9. Providing value on an ongoing basis creates relationships. Be authentic, be relevant, but don’t be creepy. – Big Fuel
  10. Products are the new marketing. We’re seeing a shift in leading-edge agencies understanding that to succeed they need to be creating digital products that benefit consumers, clients, and the agency, not selling services. Brands are starting realize this too. – Moosylvania

What have been some of your favorite blogs or quotes from SXSWi?