Tag Archives: branding

Don’t hide behind the brand

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In part deux of my series on social media best practices for Ari Herzog’s blog Ariwriter, I had planned on talking about elaborating on the need to “experiment with effort” or “experiment with engagement”. By that I mean don’t just sign up or register on a lot of different social sites and expect the relationships to bubble up from there. Put forth some effort.

But in lieu of expounding on that I give you the second part in the series which covers hiding behind the brand. See what you think and let me know your thoughts.

As a follow up. I want to add that from the conversation that I did have with “the brand”, a dialogue did evolve, and a relationship with the person behind that brand was created. And you know what? That person turned out to be very engaging, enlightening, and earnest. And that would not have happened prior to our discussion about “People versus Brands”.

Transparency-Where are you drawing the line?

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Susan (Kang) Nam, aka @pinkolivefamily in Twitter asked the following question late today on Twitter: Point of transparency = where do u draw ur line? I said, The line has been drawn in the sand.  It’s changing fast.  Don’t believe me? Read David Armano’s latest post.

Would you rather have a budget for offline marketing, online marketing or sales?

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Below is a conversation I had with Fred Yee, President of ActiveConversion/FoundPages in regards to a question that I had posed to the Linkedin group. The Question Details are below, but the main question is in the title of this post.
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Me: I once had a colleague who told me he rather would have a 2 sales people rather than x amount for marketing. I had another colleague or vigorously defended marketing and branding as something that could not be ignored. It ended in a stalemate. Is it possible to have one without the other and still be realtively successful?

On 4/23/08 11:50 AM, Fred Yee wrote:
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Marc, I think I understand your question and although the ‘mix’ is important, and having all is important, I may have your answer if there is only one allowed.
Today I would say online marketing. You can do a lot with a website, search marketing and email marketing, which is low cost and bring leads in, so that even non-sales (owner, manager, admin and technician even) can engage to produce sales. It’s also why Google has 800,000 customers now…
Offline is good for branding and credibility but short on producing tangible sales. Sales people can close but they need leads and without decent marketing, it’s expensive sales.
Of course, there are situations and industries where online marketing doesn’t work that well or is outperformed by the others but in general I have noticed that it works well for most.

Links:
http://www.activeconversion.com


On 4/23/08 12:52 PM, Marc Meyer wrote:
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Fred, I would have to agree with you in that given all of the online productivity tools that are out there, the advent and rapid acceleration of user generated content and the ability to leveredge them at little or no cost, an inhouse team that consists of everyone from the folks in HR to the folks in IT, to the people down the hall in management, all have the opportunity to brand and market and create sales leads and marketing materials and opportunities. Which means that a collaborative effort and a sense of ownership can do more for growing a company selling a product than a single marketing department operating out of a vacuum, an autonomous sales force working without sales leads or a management team demanding results without a budget.

Thanks for responding to a great thread.

Marc, what can I say? Having been pained by this for over 15 years, I totally agree. Great minds must think alike! Fred.

Marc

Word of Mouth Marketing

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In my efforts to spread what I think is a very apt representation of viral or word of mouth marketing, I give you this:

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Digital Narcissism and The “Me-Brand”,

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One of the more facinating aspects of Web 2.0 these days, is the emergence of self made online stars, and social media experts. Or for that matter, self-created personas.  Not that it’s something that has appeard overnight, but it is something that seems to be growing at  an exponential rate.

Let me explain. Part of the reason that YouTube, MySpace and Facebook, to name a few, have become so popular is the freedom to express oneself in creative ways. The tools that these sites provide empower the user. 7 years ago we wanted to package these tools and sell them as “content managment solutions”. Someone beat everyone to the point and said, why don’t we just release these tools as a  free web service that users can use to communicate and share and interact with others.

What this has fostered though, is the desire for people to show the world or their web audience what they’re all about.  In some cases, with all it’s flaws, cracks, and boorish moments. It’s their way of creating their own star vehicles without the assistance of PR companies, 8×10 glossies and breakout movie roles. All it takes is for someone to virally pass the message, the image, the  words or whatever of that person on to another, and it spreads faster than dead grass burning in the summer. It will appeal to someone. In some cases, it will appeal to a lot of people.

If that happens, some web savvy individuals take that to the next level and parlay their instant web street cred stardom in dollars.

It’s perpetuated though by the users, the audience and the readers who for whatever reason have this voyeuristic thirst for this type of content. Amateur content if you will, thrives online because it’s real. Why do you think Americas funniest videos was able to thrive? Because, we were seeing people as they really were. In their worst and best moments. That same premise exists today currently with the social networking sites, and historically with online chat. The package isn’t packaged, it’s not watered down, it’s real. Real to the extent, that who we are watching or what we are reading is who they really are. Or what they want us to think.

Lets not forget that the Net has a way of distorting things, even when it comes to social networking. We can create a version of who we are, and we can step into that skin and be that person, even to the extent that that person can go on a webcam and be someone that they are not. Why? Digital narcissim. A desire to be something that we are not. To enjoy the exposure of our nameless and faceless peers to the extent that we are willing to go farther online then we would ever go in our real world lives.

It’s almost as if the 20 minutes of fame can be extended online indefinitely. Because the lights never go off online, there is always an audience somewhere for your brand. Even communication has taken on a new meaning online. A new universal language is spoken online. TTYL, BBL, OMG. Your brand, as niche-like as it can possibly be, has an audience somewhere. Because of the diverse nature and universal appeal of everything digital, you can feed the habit, grow your brand and extend it as far as you can, merely by finding your clan. Your pack. Your tribe.

Once you find it, you can be whoever you want to be and market and package yourself, whatever way you want to be perceived; and people, Your people, have no choice but to buy what you are selling, because you have found each other. You’re the brand they were looking for. My only other question would be, How cannibalistic are these tribes?  Do they eat their own? My guess is that there are unspoken and unwritten rules that are played out time and time again. If the rules are violated, regardless of your brand. You can flame out pretty quickly. So my guess is yes, the web does eat its own.

Web Sites with Bad Design

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Web Sites with a bad UI. They are not hard to find. But what I find hard to fathom, is large companies and organizations which green light projects that produce such fodder? Where is the disconnect? I once worked for an interactive web design company, and we would sit in these meetings and this is what happens: 10 people providing input into what “they” would like to see on the “new” website. No central voice, except that all were allowed to participate and contribute.

What happens is the website loses all workflow and navigation sensibility. Why? Because you have decisions made by committee. By people who have no background in web design and UI design. This seems to be more prevalent the larger the organization, but can also happen on a smaller scale, when decision makers fancy themselves and the masses for that matter, as intuitive web designers.

One of the areas where you would think that creativity would reign supreme but does not, is on college campuses. Why? In a lot of  academic settings, each department may be autonomous of each other and thus have an idea how their departments “look and feel” should be articulated online. Trust me it, it doesn’t work. What you get is 20 departments with 20 different looks. All sites should flow, they should have the same layout so that students and parents and prospective students know exactly where to look for critical information.

Which leads me to the bigger picture. At all large corporations and small as well. You need to have a plan. But the plan needs to work in the context of a) does it meet and serve the needs of the visitor and b) does it meet and server the needs of the search engines and c) is it visually effective.

Unfortunately, form over function sometimes wins out and thus what you get is, sites that are not so hot.

Let’s critique a few really quick, shall we?

Harvard I’m a little shocked by the lack of interest this landing page conveys. It’s almost arrogant in nature. The thought being, “We’re Harvard, so having a cool website is not a priority. So Much for PR.

Oxford  Not bad.  At least it’s a little more inviting to visitors than Harvards. It still has a stuffy academic “We are Oxford” feel to it.

Coke Might have been cool but the load was slow, but interactive and engaging, maybe a little too busy, but then again it’s a brand that really has to speak to a lot of different demographics, so it’s understandable. But still slow and confusing.

Pepsi  Absolutely love this. Very fast load (because its PHP?) The UI is broken into segments immediately, it’s hip and engaging and Clearly they understand who is hitting their site. Mad props to the folks at Pepsi. they get it. They understand their brand and their users and how to get them where they need to go.

McDonalds I’m surprised at the corporate nature of this. given the amount of urban advertising and the tremendous push for fresh and new, I’m not feeling this from the landing page.  They have one little drop down called,”havin fun”… NOT!

Burger King Not Bad, but the initial landing page is a map and you have to choose your country. I get that for an internationaly branded product but.. After selecting the proper country there are some nifty flash pages but overall I would think it needs to play up current themes versus current specials??? Who’s your audience?

Los Angeles  The city of Los Angeles, I know, whenever you venture into the public sector, especially government sites, expect the worst. so I wasn’t surprised by what I saw.  As citizens, you expect to muddle your way through any type of state or local government site. I wish they(the sites) were better, but they are because they are.

NYC I actually liked the NYC site. It was laid out a bit better than the LA site; and it also has a feel for who might be hitting the site. The LA site was like their freeways. Confusing. The NYC site actually understands it’s sites visitors better and what they need and want. Kudos to the Big Apple.

I’m curious as to what others might feel about this and would not mind seeing some examples of good and bad sites. I know some orgs. know they have a bad site and others are just clueless, maybe we can help them? Let me know.

Cheers