Many business start-ups make much ado about what they should name their business… and so they should. Like everything else in business, you need to go through a process:

1) Define your business. What is it? What makes it unique?

2) Define your 3 to 5 year business objective. If you’re a consultant, it could be that using your own name is a good start…but what about after you start? If you want to eventually provide more than one to one consulting, maybe your name just won’t cut it.

3) Who is your target group? What’s their demographics…and don’t forget their psychographics.

4) Research the competition and see what names are out there in the same industry and geographical area. (Just Google it!)

5) Brainstorm and come up with a list of 10 names.

6) Take these 10 names and verify to see if the URL is taken, and if so by whom.

7) Verify if the name is trademarked within your industry and within your geographical area.

8) Get objective feedback for your top 4 names. Research for start-ups has become more affordable for business start-ups with software such as Survey Monkey and panel online advertising.

There’s much ado about the naming of businesses. I am of the opinion that the name is important, but what you do with that name is even more so. How are you launching? What media channels are you using? What’s your brand character, brand voice and how is that represented in your communications. Being first to market and being very visible when you are first to market is definitely the best approach to reap the benefits of longevity and recognition. Just to name a few: Kleenex, Coke…. and of course Google!

And just to close the opening thought of this post, I actually googled how Google got its name. Like all things in Google-like, I had many sources to choose from. The first link I clicked on was http://www.question.com/how-did-google-get-its-name-10903.html. Interestingly, I learnt that the definition of Google is quite appropriate for Google. The name Google is based on the mathematical term “googol”, coined in 1938 to equal 10¹⁰⁰, a number much larger than any practical counting operation would require

From a wiki.answers.com, I also got more of an anecdotal story: In September, 1997, so the story goes, some Stanford grad students were helping Larry Page choose a name for his search engine. “Googolplex,” said Sean ­Anderson. (They’d already sensed how big this could ­become.) “Googol,” Page ­replied. ­Anderson, checking to see if the name was taken, typed ­g-o-o-g-l-e into his browser and made the most famous spelling mistake since p-o-t-a-t-o-e. Page registered the name within hours, and today, Google isn’t a typo, it’s a verb, one with a market cap of about $160 billion.

Fact or fiction, it doesn’t really matter…what matters is that Google provided an innovative product that revolutionized how information was being delivered to the masses… I doubt the notoriety or the business outcome would of been different if their name was Googol.

Apple

Apple has continued to rank well on every published list of the “most reputable companies,” despite the fact that the company’s shareholders have found themselves on rocky ground in recent months. A big part of the Apple appeal comes from the company’s well-known commitment to customer service, coupled with its devotion to quality. Simply put, customers know that they’re not going to end up getting a lemon from Apple, and that if they do, the Apple Genius team will help them. Making your commitment to service clear from the start is a great way to engender the goodwill of customers and clients.

Johnson & Johnson

From Johnson & Johnson, we learn a different lesson. The iconic company has gone through a string of difficult product recalls in recent years, yet its reputation remains very positive, largely due to the company’s well-documented social responsibility. This is a company that is perceived as very caring—which dovetails with the nature of its product line—and that goes a long way.

Amazon.com

What’s the first thing you think of when you think of Amazon.com? For many of us, it is that smiley face logo, the one suggesting the company’s greatest interest is making people happy. It follows through with its excellent shipping policies and general dedication to service. That’s just the kind of reputation that any business wishes to have.

BMW

The German automaker was recently listed by Nielson as the most reputable company in the world—and not for the first time. The company summarized its secret in this way: It does not make promises it cannot keep. That’s something businesses can learn from. It’s good to make promises and guarantees to your clients and customers—but only if you are able to follow through!

Google

Of course Google is a reputable company; simply think about how many people use Google products every day, how ubiquitous they have become. If there is one largely-hidden facet to Google’s positive reputation, well worth noting and emulating, it is that Google takes great pains to keep its customers educated and informed. Whether you are a webmaster or simply a search engine user, there are documents upon documents available for you to peruse, explaining all of Google’s inner workings. Again, this is something businesses of all stripes can imitate: Seeking to enrich your clients’ knowledge base helps your brand to come across as more authoritative and more helpful.

Disney

Disney is another company that constantly makes “most reputable company” lists, and again, there are myriad reasons for it. To narrow it down to just one takeaway lesson, though, note the consistency that Disney has when it comes to its branding. Whether you’re talking about the cruise line, the movies, or the theme parks, Disney has an across-the-board public face, one that emphasizes childlike wonder, dreams come true, and clean family fun. That kind of consistent vision is what solid reputations are built upon.

All of these companies are reputable in the eyes of investors and consumers, and all of them have achieved reputability through different means. As such, all of these companies hold lessons for small business owners. Perhaps the single most important lesson: Taking a proactive approach to reputation management is essential for success.

The show probably wouldn’t have made much of a difference for the couple if they’d admitted their mistakes and, most importantly, stayed away from social media. That’s not what happened, though. Instead, the couple quickly took to their company’s Facebook page to denounce everyone who said anything negative about them or their restaurant, fueling the flames of Internet hatred and mockery.

Though they’ve made many mistakes while running their restaurant, Mr. and Mrs. Buzaglo would never have had to deal with the national scrutiny and scorn they’re enduring if they’d followed a few basic rules.

Let go of the past

In the first three minutes of the episode, it’s clear that neither owner believes there’s anything wrong with their restaurant; the only reason they chose to appear on television is to receive the admiration and recognition they believe they deserve from Gordon Ramsay. In their minds, Gordon will come in, find nothing wrong and declare their restaurant the Shangri-La of Arizona cuisine.

After meeting Gordon, one of the first things Amy talks to him about — before he even makes it into the kitchen — is the abuse she feels they’ve suffered from people on the Internet, beginning with a one-star Yelp review in 2010. That’s their first mistake. They now see everyone who criticizes them as a malicious Yelper, intent on destroying their brand’s reputation. The truth is, they’re doing it themselves by clinging to an old argument. If they’d just let go and focus on improving their business, they could earn the respect they desire.

Do right by the people you’ve wronged

The couple has fired more than 100 staff members in the past year — Amy even manages to fire a member of the wait staff during filming. After receiving negative comments on their Facebook page, they threw a tandem temper tantrum. Both events show that when confronted with their failings the couple doubles down and attempts to bully their way through the situation.

Instead of insisting that everyone around them is incompetent, ignorant and out to get them, they need to make amends. The best thing to do now is to acknowledge their faults — a step they both seem unlikely to ever take — and ask forgiveness. They don’t need to write apology letters to every employee they’ve fired or respond to every person they’ve railed against online, but they do need to publicly own up to their wrongdoing. The simple act of admitting to mistakes lays the foundation for recovering from a major public relations catastrophe.

Take a step back before you respond

The most public portions of the Amy’s Baking Company train wreck only received attention because the couple responded at the height of their anger. The American Psychological Association recommends that people suppress anger, then convert or redirect it to more constructive behaviors. That advice holds true for decisions relating to brands, too.

If the Buzaglos had just turned off the computer and focused on improving their food or providing additional training to their staff, they wouldn’t have set off the chain reaction that led to the national outrage pouring down on them. It’s okay to respond to negative criticism, but they need to pick their battles. If a man on Yelp says he doesn’t like your food, that doesn’t mean he’s trying to undermine your business and destroy your livelihood; it means he doesn’t like your food.

The Buzaglos have deluded themselves into believing that their problems are the result of a network of bullies attempting to ruin their business, when all along they’ve been undermining their own reputation and alienating people who don’t rave about their restaurant. They’ve taken all the wrong turns but expect to arrive at their destination anyway. It’s unlikely that Samy and Amy will change their ways and do the work necessary to build up their reputation, but good can still come of the situation.

Let this be a cautionary tale, something you laugh about and then learn from. All you really need to do is abide by Wheaton’s Law.

Image credit: John Aho

SUSPEND YOUR SKEPTICISM

Put your skepticism on the shelf for just a few minutes, okay?

I know some of you think you don’t need a brand. You might be thinking:

• Brands are just for cows.
• Brands are for the consumer products’ companies, or for larger law firms, but not for yours.
• “Branding” is what got Brobeck in financial trouble, thus causing their implosion because they spent millions advertising it on CNN and similar venues (hogwash).
• During the past decade, the “experts” convinced you it couldn’t be done without huge sums of money, so you abandoned all thoughts of developing and communicating your brand, right?

Yes, I’ve been around for all of that, and lived to tell the story.

In today’s AMA [American Marketing Association], AMA Today enewsletter, there was a snapshot of a blog post titled, Your Brand Needs Energy. I’m not a member, so I wasn’t allowed to read the rest of the article, but I didn’t need to because the opening paragraph is what caused me to write this post.

It said:

“Unless your brand is one of the exceptions, it needs energy. A brand that has insufficient energy has two potential liabilities. First, it will lack visibility and it will no longer be among those that come to mind when customers consider a purchase. It will be lost in the noise of the environment and will no longer be relevant. Second, and perhaps worse, it can see declines in key image items such as perceived quality and trust. In addition, it could see the degradation of its ability to drive differentiation and loyalty.”

MY DEFINITION OF BRANDING

It might help to review my definition of a brand, which I first discussed here in my post, Branding In The Age of Social Media:

A brand is the set of characteristics, the personality, the way of doing business with you that is evident to anyone who does business with you, or who observes you.

• It tells people who you are.
• It tells people what you’re like when they do business with you.
• It tells people what your personality is.
• It tells people what you know…or don’t know.
• It tells people what they can expect from you.
• It evokes a feeling based on all of the above.

My definition hasn’t changed since I wrote that post.

MY TRUTHS ABOUT BRANDING:

• Whether you want it to or not, your very being communicates your brand to those with whom you come in contact.
• If you never spend a dime on it, you are still branding yourself, your firm and your work.
• Your brand is not your visual identity.
• Your visual identity is but one translation of your brand…the visual translation.
• When you act a certain way, speak a certain way or fail to do either of these, you are communicating a brand.
• When your words or actions are inconsistent, you will confuse your marketplace about what you stand for.
• Individual lawyers, practice teams, industry teams, client service teams, law firm offices and law firms can all have brands.
• If you don’t get involved in determining and communicating your brand, someone or some others, will likely do it for you.
• You must take control of defining and communicating your brand for it to be accurate.

KEY TAKEAWAYS:

1. If you don’t take control of defining your brand at every level of the firm, from individual to overall firm, you risk miscommunication of what you have to offer your clients.

2. You can’t set it and forget it. Defining and communicating your brand doesn’t just happen once. It involves daily care and feeding, and that doesn’t have to mean spending millions of dollars.

3. If you want people to know what you and your firm stand for, you have to give them something to talk about, and that is your brand. Give constant spoken, unspoken, written, unwritten and many other examples of what you are like to do business with.

4. You need to do a reality check with your clients on a regular basis to determine whether their perception and evaluation of your brand matches your perception of your brand.

Your thoughts?

How would you define your brand?

Go ahead, give it a go below.

This is an easy chance to show others what you stand for, and what you’re like to do business with.

[Hint. Hint. This is one of those inexpensive written ways I mentioned above that you can use to communicate your brand to the world, so GO FOR IT!]

What is negative and positive space?

Negative space is the same thing as white space – it is essentially the space where there is nothing in a design, and it is really important to provide logic, emphasis and legibility.

Negative space is in contrast to positive space, which will be the image, text , graphic etc.

Why do designers love logos that play with negative space?

Logos that play with negative space are clever and creative – and yet they remain subtle and simple.

It’s about hiding a shape in the space between the logo letters, or inside the icon or illustration. You won’t notice it and then suddenly you will, creating a whole different level of appreciation for the design and the thought behind it.

How can a logo which uses negative space benefit your brand?

But logos that play with negative space do more than tickle design tastebuds. They also tend to bring about the following benefits:

• They are simple, so they adapts well to different contexts (i.e. they are future proof)
• They show that there is depth and a concept to your brand which naturally intrigues
• Those who figure out the ‘hidden secret’ of your logo feel included in your brand
• Once someone has clued in to this hidden element it will grab their attention, they will look at it longer and it will be very memorable to them

Famous examples of logos that utilise their negative space

FedEx – the most famous of them all. This logo design has won 35 awards and is lauded in all graphic design courses. You can read more about it, and the story of the hidden arrow here.

NBC – can you spot the peacock?

Toblerone – easy to miss, but once you see it its very obvious: there’s a bear in the toblerone mountain.

Yoga Australia – a small business favourite

Spartan Golf – can you see how the golfers swing creates the hat of a spartan warrior? The golfer’s elbow is his eye.

Even a small company with an amazing logo design using negative space will get shared and noticed at a very high level. Yoga australia and Spartan golf are well known in the UK only because of their logos.

Getting yourself a logo that plays with negative space

They don’t fall out of the sky. It can take hours of painstaking work to execute, and the ideas that form naturally and obviously will always be the best.

The best thing you can do to get a powerful logo design which perfectly captures your brand is to spend time refining your brand, and taking time over your logo design brief.

Like our tips? Subscribe to our small business and entrepreneur advice blog

Our blog is full of great tips on design and marketing to help you learn how to become a more successful and knowledgeable business owner. Click here to subscribe.

With that out of the way, I can say that I hope his overly lifted face rots in hell, where he will spend an eternity being relentlessly tormented and ridiculed by bullies. Now that I’ve given you a tiny hint about my personal opinion, I think it’s time to create a post that is open for debate.

My close friend Kevin Bergin stated that, while he didn’t support the message of the statement, he thought it was brilliant in an anti-hero fashion. No pun intended. We spoke at great length regarding the situation. Then I asked him to write out his thoughts, which I will share with you here:

“I won’t defend Mike Jeffries, CEO of Abercrombie and Fitch. The statements he made this week (taken from the 2006 Salon article) were cold, harsh and hard to swallow, but they were also branding genius and they just might work for the company.

I’ll start by saying that I’m not an Abercrombie customer.I’m old, I’m bald and I’m fat; I’m covered in tattoos and grow a beard about 11 1/2 months a year. I’m the antithesis of everything Abercrombie, I’m everything Jeffries wants to exclude from his brand. I should be upset at his comments, but I’m not, because I get it, I understand.

Every business has a target demographic. A group of people that they fight for, market to, and look to gain every dollar they can from. A retailer like Walmart has a huge demographic, whereas artisans of hand-tied fly fishing lures have an incredibly narrow demo. In essence, what Jeffries did was laser focus on Abercrombie’s ideal client: the fit, good-looking all-American teenager. He played to their emotions, perceptions and to how they are viewed in society, instantly added cachet to the Abercrombie name and branding, and created an air of exclusivity around the brand.

Steve Rubell, the famed owner of Studio 54, understood the value of the velvet rope. By controlling who could enter his club, he achieved two goals that propelled the club to stardom: those allowed entry were elated to be part of the “in” crowd, while the desire for acceptance in those left outside grew even stronger and they would do anything to get in. Jeffries has in effect created a velvet rope around his secretive, shuttered stores, and he certainly isn’t the first to capitalize on the dual headed snake of exclusivity.

Ferrari could make the world’s best $75,000 car, but they don’t because it would tarnish the halo of their higher end supercars. Louis Vuitton surely doesn’t have a line of bags for Target in its pipeline, and lets be realistic, Harvard isn’t admitting many C+ students. Tens of thousands of people have American Express cards, so many that no one even bats an eye when you pay with one; but pull out an American Express Centurion card (the uber rare black one) and a spectacle always ensues. A close friend of mine has one and very rarely uses it because the inevitable questions of “how much do you have to spend to get this?” and “you must be really rich, huh?” make it an annoyance. He’s had people ask if they can take a picture with it. With a damn credit card. Jeffries’ exclusionary comments handed the Ferrari keys to the “in” crowd. Wearing and buying the brand signifies a parting of the velvet rope. The teenage mind yearns for acceptance, and by limiting it Abercrombie has imparted Black Card cachet to its clientele.

With clothing prices bordering on exorbitant, Abercrombie needs to create a perceived value to entice buyers. Entrance into this exclusive club is the perceived value. When buying A&F clothes, the buyer who might not be so sure of himself now thinks “I am beautiful. I am fit, I am part of something that others can’t belong to.” To the core Abercrombie client this perception makes their $80 jeans better than Target’s $40 jeans. Playing to the narcissism of the “cool” American teenager is genius. It isn’t humane, it isn’t PC, but that cool American teenager doesn’t really give a rat’s ass about humanity or political correctness; they are self centered and vain, a little cruel and probably feel a little validated in purchasing from A&F after these statements were made. For those of you out there who think that the American Teenager is better than that, Abercrombie’s sales grew 50% from 2009 to 2012, so the marketing machine is fully functional and working well, the American teenager has engaged the brand.

As inflammatory as Jeffries’ comments were to most of us, the reality is that the only people alienated by them weren’t clients of theirs anyway. If your business is going to focus on a narrow demographic, who gives a damn what those on the outside feel, unless it makes them desire to purchase from you? I’m sure the marketing department at Ford doesn’t stay up at night losing sleep over how to convert those die hard Mustang hating Chevy fans; they focus on their clientele, build loyalty to their brand and hope to pick up a few new customers who were on the fence, but not fiercely brand loyal.

Jeffries took a big step off a high cliff with his comments; had he sung us a song of corporate legalese about rising costs of the global supply chain or reduced engagement due to over diversification in the brand, the nation wouldn’t be stewing about his comments. Jeffries chose honesty; painful, hurtful honesty, but honesty nonetheless. Most CEOs have tiptoed around being candid about their brands. Jeffries decided to shoot straight. Only time will tell whether his comments were brand Hara-kiri or pure marketing genius. But by focusing so intently on his core customer, I’m inclined to believe that Abercrombie will continue to see growing sales and engagement.”

To Kevin’s credit, I believe the most of what he outlined to be true from a traditional advertising capacity. As I said in a previous post that nowadays, “bad press is actually bad press” –  I think the same could be said in this instance. Additionally, I will support my point by mentioning the condition I refer to as “brand fragility.” At any time, it is possible for a previously loyal customer to do a 180 on a brand if they have a sense that the trusted connection has been broken. Everyone has a tipping point.

I also chose not to immediately post my gut feeling regarding this situation as I awaited the Internet’s response. And of course in dutiful fashion, the Internet did what the Internet does.

And last but not least we have some Madison Avenue PR firm desperately trying to assess the poorly constructed crisis management fix by getting the always expected, “that’s not what I meant to say” reply.

“I want to address some of my comments that have been circulating from a 2006 interview. While I believe this 7 year old, resurrected quote has been taken out of context, I sincerely regret that my choice of words was interpreted in a manner that has caused offense. A&F is an aspirational brand that, like most specialty apparel brands, targets its marketing at a particular segment of customers. However, we care about the broader communities in which we operate and are strongly committed to diversity and inclusion. We hire good people who share these values. We are completely opposed to any discrimination, bullying, derogatory characterizations or other anti-social behavior based on race, gender, body type or other individual characteristics.”

If you’re on the advertising end of a global, national, local or mom-and-pop brand of any kind, then you …

Wait Justice, that means just about everything!

Exactly. You never expect not to be punished by unforeseen backlash. That’s why it is unforseen.

One of the best things that you can do, however, his plan for every possible scenario within the context of your brand protection strategy. If you think that you don’t need one, well then you probably don’t need a business plan either.

Godspeed.

One of the many techniques I’ve utilized over the course of my career is that of a “pre” postmortem scenario.

What could go wrong? How could it go wrong? What should we do if it goes wrong? How can we ensure that we maintain and nurture the ecosystem of our consumers’ loyalty?

I would love to hear your thoughts on the subject. I think this is absolutely just the tip of the iceberg, we will see how well brands are prepared in the future.

Check out these 12 brands, each of which have implemented at least one of those values in their content marketing campaigns…

Trustworthy: The Honest Company

It’s practically in their name. The Honest Company focuses on stylish, safe, eco-friendly products for babies. I love how transparent they are on their blog and social media channels. Check out their series on chemicals, “An honest look at…” for a good example of trustworthiness.

Loyal: Amazon.com

When most people say “brand loyalty,” they’re referring to the customer’s relationship to the brand. As this relationship is on the downward slide, many companies like Amazon are increasing their loyalty to customers. As one of the top-ranked companies in customer service, Amazon goes above and beyond to show their dedication by offering tons of Prime membership benefits and the best shipping deals on the web.

Helpful: The Wild Cow

If you’re actively building your brand, then it’s essential to be actively helpful. Check out how one of my favorite local (Nashville) restaurants, The Wild Cow, does this on their Facebook page:

This isn’t an off-the-wall post for the Wild Cow either. The restaurant is always helping out in our community. How can you be helpful?

Friendly: Target

There are so many brands to pick from here, but I’ll just point you over to a recent example: Target on Twitter. Target does a great job on Twitter with their friendly voice. For such a large corporation, they certainly know how to get personal and project a friendly image.

Courteous: Chick-fil-A

Though Chick-fil-A has been on a bumpy ride for the last few months, the company constantly exhibits courtesy in serving its customers. Chick-fil-A has an online Story Archive where they feature tales about courtesy and customer service experiences. Great content marketing from a company that truly understands service!

Kind: Zappos

In researching this post, I came across a touching story about Zappos, the online shoe retailer, and kindness. To sum up the story: someone had a death in the family. While cleaning out the deceased’s home, they found unopened boxes of shoes. They called up Zappos, the company picked up all the shoes– no questions asked – and then followed up with a note and flowers the next day.

Obedient: Whole Foods

Great brands know how to obey their customers. Sure, the basic rules of economics dictate this principle, but companies like Whole Foods, which understood this principle early on, enjoy long-term success. Check out Whole Foods’ Core Values and you’ll see this idea of “obeying the customer” threaded throughout the copy.

Cheerful: Google

Google thrives on being cheerful and whimsical (as well as, you know, crazy high revenues). Google fans are head over heels for Google Doodles. How can your brand bring that same cheerfulness to your customers?

Thrifty: eBay

In the last week of April, eBay sent out an email to 40 million eBay users, asking users to petition their representatives on Capitol Hill to reject the Marketplace Fairness Act. (Read the email here.) Though eBay may have its own political/economic motivations, the email is also a nice gesture that could save some entrepreneurs and small business owners thousands.

Brave: SodaStream

In late 2012, SodaStream released a commercial advertising their product, which allows customers to make their own sodas at home. Clearcast banned the commercial from the UK, claiming, “The majority decided that the ad could be seen to tell people not to go to supermarkets and buy soft drinks, instead help to save the environment by buying a SodaStream. We thought it was denigration of the bottled drinks market.” And this is bad why? SodaStream hasn’t backed down, and continues to fight for advertising space.

(In fairness, I should mention SodaStream does not seem to uphold the other tenets…)

Clean: prAna

prAna is an athletic clothing company with a strong sustainability, eco-friendly bent. From their “Set Hemp Free” Pinterest board to their Sustainability page, prAna does a great job of building their brand with a focus on clean/eco-friendly practices.

Reverent: The One Fund

Shortly after the Boston Marathon bombings, Massachusetts Governor Patrick and (Boston) Mayor Menino set up The One Fund, which has collected nearly $30 million for victims of the April bombing. The campaign is reverent and tasteful with an encouraging live-ticker to draw in more donations. Now officials just have to figure out how to distribute the funds!

What values will you take on as you’re building your brand over the next few months and years?

Email marketing and social media together are powerful tools for building a following for your business. But how can they help you as a local small business owner?

Welcome to the tribe mentality. Your tribe is a fiercely loyal following of customers who are excited about your business.

Using the connecting power of social media and the communication power of email, you can effectively build your following where it matters most – right in your own community.

Start Offline

Building a “tribe” means building relationships with your customers. Email campaigns and social networks extend your reach to locals who might not have noticed your business before. But that doesn’t mean you can give up building relationships in person.

Get involved in community events. Growing a local business is about getting to know the people who support you. Set up a table at the annual street fair. Arrange events with other shop owners on your block. The more relationships you can build in your community, the more buzz your business will get.

Get Social

Social networks have the power of connecting people to each other – and if some of those people happen to be talking about your business, that helps create a bigger fan base for you.

Building a tribe means connecting people who are most passionate about your business with each other. As Seth Godin mentions, “It gives them a story to tell and something to talk about.” And social media talk = free buzz for your business.

What stories will you give people to tell? Here are a few ideas bound to get people fired up and wanting to support you:

Share Your Successes

Whether it’s winning a local competition or breaking an awesome sales goal, share it on your social networks so your customers can see what they’ve helped you achieve (and spread the buzz themselves!)

Lucky’s Last Chance, the People’s Choice Award winning burger joint in Manayunk, Philadelphia, PA

Share Insider Secrets

Nothing gets a fan base fired up more than a sneak peek at insider info. Beauty subscription service Birchbox knows this, and knows how to build up buzz with anticipation:

Share Your Customers’ Stories

Did a customer send you some positive feedback? Quote it on your social networks. Has your establishment done something to make a customer’s day better? Brag a little bit. This shows your human side and builds your cred when others see how much you value your customers. Who wouldn’t want to support a business like that?

Wexford Jewelers congratulates a new couple who got engaged with one of their rings.

Tie It Together With Email

Social media connects your customers to each other around your brand. Email connects you directly to your customers.

Email encourages loyalty from your customers. Someone who found you on a social network or stumbled across your storefront on a Saturday afternoon might not feel inclined to buy from you. But when you’re in their inbox regularly, customers who might otherwise have been one-time visitors will remember you first the next time they’re ready to buy something.

Your email campaign can also tell your business’s story to further connect with new customers. Write a welcome email that personally introduces you or your staff. Talk about how you got here and why. Let them in on a personal level.

Telling your story can even be as simple as using inviting language. DailyCandy is great at this, gushing about things they love and want to share with you, too.

Sharing your story can even be as simple as injecting a little personality into your emails. Shanalogic always includes a small anecdote from the owner:

Your Brand Is Your Community

Making your brand a community unites your customers. Who doesn’t want to be a part of something? And ideally, they’ll invite more people to join them.

What are some ways you’ve built a community around your own business? How has it worked for you?

“Harajuku girls. I’m looking at you girls. You’re so original girls. You got the look that makes you stand out”

Located in Tokyo, Harajuku is a place where every Sunday teens dress up in various unique and extreme styles of clothing and roam the streets. Mixing different styles and mismatching colors and patterns is encouraged. Basically, the only ‘criteria’ is that your outfit must be a thoughtful expression of your individuality.

Here are 3 Harajuku guidelines and lessons we can apply to personal branding.

Layering

Layering clothes (or giving the appearance of layering) allows Harajuku Girls to mix and match a wider variety of different styles and add more dimension to their outfits.

When branding yourself think of the different layers that define and add dimension to who you are. The layers of your brand are your “VPs” – vision, purpose, values, and passions.

• Vision: Your image of what you see possible for the world – your desired future.
• Purpose: Your role in turning your vision into reality.
• Values: The ideals or operating principles that determine how you conduct your day-to-day activities. Your values are true to you and you do not compromise them.
• Passions: This is what motivates and energizes you. Your passions get you out of bed in the morning, but have ‘pure unadulterated tenacity’ to drive your passions forward.

Customizing

Harajuku Girls are not afraid to get out the scissors, glue, needle and thread to transform ordinary store-bought clothes into something extraordinary and uniquely theirs.

Branding yourself is all about customizing. You need to stand out among all the others who offer the same or similar service, skills, experience, and background as you. If you don’t customize you remain ordinary, a commodity, and people simply do not get excited about commodities! When customizing your brand always make sure to follow the three C’s of branding – clarity, consistency, and constancy.

• Clarity: Be very clear about who you are and who you are not. By knowing your unique promise of value you are identifying the ‘customization’ that sets you apart from others. This is what differentiates you and allows you to attract brand loyalty among the people who are compelled to do business with you.
• Consistency: Once you are clear about your promise of value, consistently demonstrate your customized brand promise everywhere. This includes your social media profiles, your website, your business cards, your communications. Everything.
• Constancy: It is not enough to be clear and consistent if you are not always visible to your target audience. Strong brands are constant. They are always there for their customers, prospects, and those who can help them achieve their goals. For example, social media accounts are pointless if you are not constantly visible in some way or form. Of course you need to find the right balance but don’t run the risk of being forgotten.

Accessorizing

A key part of a Harajuku brand are the wild accessories – belts, earrings, hair clips, handbags, jewelry. Again, matching is not a concern and the louder and more colorful the better!

Think of the accessories of your personal brand as the visual vocabulary of your brand environment. This includes your appearance, how you decorate your office, the colors, logo, or tagline you use, and even the network of people you choose to surround yourself with. All of these accessories support how you brand yourself.

• Color: What color represents your brand? For example, if your brand attributes are ‘passionate’ and ‘energetic’, are you accessorizing your brand with RED? If you are seen as ‘mysterious’ and ‘spiritual’ are you using PURPLE. And always make sure your colors are culturally appropriate for your target audience.
• Logo / Slogan: Once you accessorize your brand with a logo and slogan they immediately become your brand identity. Make sure to invest the time in selecting the best logo, image/icon, and slogan to represent you. The images you select need to tie directly to your brand attributes. For example, if you value physical fitness, you should use active, healthy, and athletic images.

Take a lesson from Japan’s Harajuku Girls to build your brand: layer, customize and accessorize!

Author:

Peter Sterlacci is known as “Japan’s personal branding pioneer” and is one of only 15 Master level Certified Personal Branding Strategists in the world. He is introducing a leading global personal branding methodology to companies and careerists in Japan and adapting it for the Japanese culture. In a culture where fitting-in is the norm, his mission is to pioneer a ‘cultural shift’ by helping Japanese to stand out in a global environment. His background spans over 21 years in intercultural consulting, international outreach, and global communication coaching.

PKOM / Shutterstock.com

While most people are aware of the foundation, they may not have been able to articulate precisely what LIVESTRONG does. They know it’s something to do with cancer and helping those affected, but just how the organization helps may have been unclear. As well, some people were questioning whether LIVESTRONG could continue without Lance. But today LIVESTRONG is asking its passionate community to help share exactly how their free services have helped over 2.5 million people over the last 16 years, and how they are Still Strong and committed to helping millions more.

For example, did you know:

- 82 cents of every dollar donated goes to supporting LIVESTRONG’s programs.

- LIVESTRONG provides free emotional support to anyone affected by cancer- that means not only those fighting it but also caregivers, friends, and family.

- LIVESTRONG can help navigate insurance and financial concerns and coordinates fertility service discounts to help survivors still have families after cancer.

You can learn more at LIVESTRONGDay.org where they have made it easy to share these important facts.

LIVESTRONG has so many powerful stories to share, about survivors, families, and the heroic members of its own staff. As LIVESTRONG Foundation CEO and three time cancer survivor Doug Ulman says:

“We at the LIVESTRONG Foundation will always be listening to and communicating with survivors. We have a lot of work to do. And we cannot do it alone. Fighting cancer requires collective action from everyone.”

Support LIVESTRONG and cancer fighters and survivors by re-tweeting their messages today to raise awareness and support for those that need it and to empower LIVESTRONG to continue to provide such invaluable free services.

With the proliferation of social networks and profiles, comment systems and discussion forums, and other online services, creating an account for ourselves is now second-nature. What is not yet second-nature is an understanding of just how important your profile pic really is. If you’re using a website or service for personal use, you can certainly feel free to upload whatever image you want and go about your day. If you’re there for business though, think again.

Sometimes it’s an easy call to make. If you’re using Facebook just to connect with family and friends, than it’s not really for business use, and you can use a fun profile pic or whatever you’d like. Many people though will mix personal and professional use. For instance, you might have a Twitter account that you use to follow some celebs, as well as share business-related stories and articles.

The core question is this: do you have any hope or interest in gaining business leads from a particular network? If so, then you must come to the realization that even though that’s a personal account, you are representing your professional persona. You are creating a Personal Brand.

A great example for me is my personal Google+ account. I have brand accounts for The Social Media Hat on Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and LinkedIn, as well as personal accounts. On Google+, I share some personal information but the vast majority of my posts and interactions are professional in nature. I am working hard to create a personal brand and professional image there, just as on LinkedIn.

While there are a lot of elements that go into creating a professional brand image on a social network – posting great content and interacting with influencers just to name a couple – that brand image starts with your profile pic. Your profile pic is often the first image people see associated with you and your profile. It accompanies all of your posts and comments, and is prominent on your profile page. In fact, many social media users will determine whether or not they follow someone based on the profile image! With that much at stake, don’t you think your profile pic warrants a little more attention?

Use a Custom Image

First and foremost, if you’re still using the default image or not image at all, change it right away! Nothing screams amateur and disinterest more than a grey head outline or Twitter egg. One important goal for business owners on social networks is to attract followers so that when you say something about your business, you have an audience. Not having a picture of yourself as your profile image will deter people from following you and diminish your social media marketing goals.

Additionally, the image must be of you! It cannot be a group of people, family members, business logo, or anything else abstract. Profile pics are small on profile pages and even smaller when appearing elsewhere like on comments, so the image must be relatively small and focused on your face. People will want to see you, so let them!

Use a Professional Image

If you don’t have a professional image of yourself, make do with that you can find for now, but make it a point to have a professional-grade image taken. Fortunately, with the incredible level of technology available, professional-grade doesn’t have to mean paying a professional.

Professional-grade in this case means high quality, great lighting and color, and appropriate positioning and environment. Any picture you take should represent who you are professionally, so dress and carry yourself appropriately. If you work in the financial industry, for instance, that means wearing a suit and tie and being physically located in a professional environment like an office. Most people will look best in outdoor, sunny locations where the camera can take advantage of natural lighting.

Use the Same Image

Once you have a professional image, use that same image on every personal profile. Just as with a business logo, this consistent imagery will help define you and your brand across platforms.

For instance, while I use the same image all over the place, it is particularly important on Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn and Disqus. These platforms are where I interact with other people and potential clients most often, and no matter where a client communicates with me or sees one of my posts, it’s the same professional image every time. After a while, they’ll recognize my face and hopefully be more inclined to click on one of my posts if they happen to see it in their Twitter or Google+ stream.

Use an Updated Image

Finally, it’s really important that you use an image that is up to date. Using an image that is old and just doesn’t represent you any longer, for whatever reason, is not a good idea.

While it’s never a good idea to present yourself online in a way that’s not accurate, a more practical reason is because our whole purpose for going through this exercise is to create a more professional personal image of ourselves in order to encourage more business. It’s therefore likely that your efforts will result in business leads. If you ever meet a client in person or in a Google+ Hangout, you’re going to want to appear similar to your profile image. There’s nothing worse than going to a meeting with a new client at Starbucks and you can’t find your client because they no longer even closely resemble their profile pic (true story!).

Take the time to develop a professional personal image, and start with your profile pic. If you’d like help determining what other areas of your personal brand need work, please contact me.

So let’s delve in deeper and I’ll show you what I mean.

The psychology of the active and the passive

In Western Culture we negotiate life through a number of binaries, one of which is passive vs active. All language, activities, people and places can be put into one of these two categories and people will subconsciously label your business too.

The Passive

The passive is about stillness, sitting, and resting. It is a static state, perceived to be weaker and boring. The message which you are more than likely giving out if you had a ‘passive’ brand is that your customers have to do the work – not ideal!

The Active

The active is about going out, doing things, and experiencing things. It is an explorative state which is seen as stronger, and a position of expertise. The message that an ‘active’ brand gives out is that you have the experience to help your customers and the go-getting attitude to do things for them.

Creating an ‘active’ company logo

The principles of the active and the passive are easily applied to company logos. Creating an ‘active’ company logo isn’t necessarily about making big changes – a subtle tweak can make a noticeable impact on how someone subconsciously perceives you.

There are two different ways to take your company logo from the passive to the active camp.

1) The use of spirals, flicks, upward and forward lines and fonts

2) Icons and graphics which physically depict an activity

It’s about showing your activity and dynamism in a graphic form.

Take a look at some examples

Imagine what these logos would be like if the active elements described above weren’t there. Do you think they would be as effective?

Like our tips? Subscribe to our small business and entrepreneur advice blog

Our blog is full of great tips on design and marketing to help you learn how to become a more successful and knowledgeable business owner. Click here to subscribe.

The Force and the Doctor Are No Match for the Police

Recently in Norwich, United Kingdom, a sci-fi convention was held at the University of East Anglia. In many cases, these conventions are great ways for sci-fi brands and their fans to let loose and show how cool they really are.

However, bringing certain groups of nerds (and I use this term lovingly) together can cause problems, especially when they are all brand fanatics. Apparently some threatening Facebook messages prompted the Norwich Sci-Fi Club and the Norwich Star Wars Club to suggest their members keep clear of each other at the recent convention, according to The Guardian.

But that’s not quite what went down at the University of East Anglia. In a story that is making for excellently nerdy headlines all over the web, things got somewhat violent (maybe) between Doctor Who fans and fans of Star Wars. As Stan Schroeder writes on Mashable, “the two groups got into a heated argument” and Norfolk Police “were called to calm [the] Star Wars and Doctor Who fans.” Fortunately, after further review by the Norfolk Police, no assault had occurred, fans were simply getting a bit too rowdy.

This might seem comical as the secretary of the Norwich Star Wars Club stated in Stan’s article, and it is. But it’s also a great example of the power a product and a brand can have over people when they feel connected and engaged in it.

Not Just in Entertainment

Many companies and fans have been utilizing social media for years to promote conventions like the ones held at the University of East Anglia. Hollywood and TV often focus heavily on their fans, because they are after all, their customers. Recognizing those who go above and beyond a regular fan is easier to do now than it ever has been before with YouTube and other social media platforms.

Doing this turns people into brand enthusiasts. It’s the best a business could ask for from its customers. Granted, it’s much easier to do when you provide an entertainment product as these are designed to directly connect with people. However, if you look at some of the biggest companies, their branding shifts from a focus on their product, to a focus on the person or how their product fits or improves a person’s life.

Coca-Cola, Pepsi, and Nike come to mind immediately. They know that quality branding is about focusing on the customer first, not touting your product like a traditional salesman does. Companies are making connections with people first, and the brand enthusiasts follow.

With the tools of social media, content marketing, and traditional marketing much more accessible to businesses and agencies of all sizes, focusing on your fans – I mean customers – is easier than ever and it can help you shift your branding strategies. You might not get people dressing up and pretending to be your product, but all businesses can use more enthusiastic brand enthusiasts in their corner.

What does your business do to create brand enthusiasts?

Though it’s a relatively simple concept, branding is not necessarily easy. Good corporate marketers invest heavily — in time and money — to infuse their brands with strategic personas and messages that make them stand out and appeal to certain types of customers. Successful companies back up their brand promises with delivery and experiences that their desired customers want — all to get target customers to identify, buy and experience the brand and then lather, rinse and repeat.

The Nature of a Brand

People have come to identify, sometimes quite strongly, with the brands they buy and use. Starbucks for $5 is better than coffee for a quarter, right? A person who goes out to buy a Mercedes, for instance, probably isn’t coming home with a Chevy. And a girl out looking for Toms shoes isn’t likely to bring home Louboutins. The point: Brands convey a sense of quality, accessibility and personal ethos.

So, I’m strangely fascinated by the public firestorm that erupted recently over comments that Mark Jeffries, CEO of Abercrombie & Fitch, made in January 2006 — right, that’s seven years ago! — about the company’s strategic decision not to offer plus-sized clothing. If you were busy then and distracted enough this week to miss it again, here’s what Jeffries said in an interview with Salon:

“In every school there are the cool and popular kids, and then there are the not-so-cool kids. Candidly, we go after the cool kids. We go after the attractive all-American kid with a great attitude and a lot of friends. A lot of people don’t belong [in our clothes], and they can’t belong. Are we exclusionary? Absolutely. Those companies that are in trouble are trying to target everybody: young, old, fat, skinny. But then you become totally vanilla. You don’t alienate anybody, but you don’t excite anybody, either.”

Out of the In Crowd

So, here’s the deal. I’m a woman, a mother of daughters and no stranger to weight anxiety; but I’m not bothered by this guy’s corporate branding decision. Yes, his comments were uncouth, but a company peddling luxury clothes for college students (and people who want to look like college students for whatever reason) can’t be too accessible. It’s basic business marketing. Value and desire for a thing increases as it becomes less attainable — even if getting left out hurts a little.

Differentiation is the name of the game for potent branding. Successful companies must be brave enough to boldly declare what they’re selling and for whom. By definition, a truly targeted message isn’t intended to appeal to everyone. Jeffries simply validated A&F customers by implying that cool kids wear A&F. Who doesn’t want to think of themselves as cool?

Under Jeffries’ leadership, according to Salon, A&F went from a struggling company that was losing $25 million a year to an enterprise earning $2 billion a year in revenue in just over a decade. But differentiation and separateness — and let’s just say it, size discrimination — aren’t exactly fashionable concepts in modern Western culture. Protesters say that Jeffries comments encourage eating disorders, bullying and poor body image among teens. Still, the company has not apologized for Jeffries’ declarations. Why would it? Scandal and emotional drama is tough to beat when you’re trying to appeal to teens.

My opinion: Jeffries may be pompous and arrogant. He certainly seems to have an inflated sense of self and the company he leads. But he definitely has a knack for branding his business and reaching his target market — and yep, it burns.

Image credit: Mordy Steinfeld

There’s even more competition out there online, so you need to create a logo that grabs attention wherever it’s placed.

There are many benefits to having a logo designed specifically for your company:

1. Logos Create Business Identity

When you’re creating your business logo, remember that this is the image your clients will remember you by.

Think about it — you probably recognize other large corporations in your world because of their logos.

When you look for a caffeine pick-me-up, you probably glance around to find the nearest green circle filled with a mystical mermaid, the universal symbol for Starbucks Coffee.

This is the type of corporate identity you want among your customer base. A good logo will allow them to recognize you in seconds.

Put your logo everywhere!

Once you’ve settled on the design, use it consistently throughout all of your marketing materials. Include your logo on your merchandise, and wherever your company is mentioned online.

The more places you put your logo, the quicker your customers will recognize it and the faster your brand identity will develop.

If they see your brand on your Facebook page, they will remember to “like” your page in order to receive more updates. Or if your logo is on a local sponsorship banner, they’ll know you’re investing resources in your community.

2. Logos Provide Visual Enhancement of Your Brand

Your logo should represent your company and what it does.

When you create your logo, you should:

• Choose a color that will stand out, and make it a clean, crisp logo that is easy to read and understand.
• Include the name of your company in some form, in order to intertwine your business name with your visual identity.
• Try to give some sort of idea of what your business does, either with imagery or text.

Here’s a good example from one of our customers, Go Car Barcelona:

Brand strategies are an important part of developing your business and helping it grow each year, but they are essentially incomplete if you don’t have a logo.

3. Logos Make You Look Professional

People are more apt to work with a company with a well-developed logo. Even though in reality it doesn’t mean that one tour is better than the other, people might think that way because first impressions count.

For example, which logo looks better?

A good logo gives the impression that you have invested significant time and resources into developing your brand identity. The underlying message is you’re a successful and legitimate company with enough money behind it because you can pay for such activities.

Your logo is a worthwhile investment.

This is your chance to get creative and develop an image that represents your tour or activity so be excited! Invest the time and resources necessary in order to create a logo that instantly conveys your mission and tells customers what they can expect.

If you’re thinking about changing your logo, remember that consistency is key – even when you radically change it. Notice in the example above, Best Buy kept the yellow price tag incorporated into it.

Don’t rush. Develop a logo that you love, one that you feel truly represents your business. If you can’t decide between a few images, test it out with 10-15 of your customers at the end of a tour to ask them which they prefer.

In an online world where people make judgment calls in a nano-second, your logo could be the factor that gives you the upper hand against your competition (provided your website looks professional, too).

For more online marketing tips for tours and activities, download our free ebook:

Did you like this post? Subscribe to our blog to receive updates via email.

This IPL, Cadbury Dairy Milk launched the #ShubhAarambh League with the message ‘T20 ka #ShubhAarambh’, which was promoted on the brand’s Facebook cover page in addition to print and TV.

The #ShubhAarambh League

The campaign executed by digital agency, Pinstorm had a team set up at work that only watched the IPL matches till past midnight, throughout the week. During a match, the team had to note down new beginnings worthy of a celebration and turn them into tweets. Simultaneously, graphics would be created for the brand’s Facebook page in real time. These were then posted on the respective social networks after Cadbury’s approval. (News Source: AFAQS)

The #ShubhAarambh initiative has also been spread to the community in the form of a fun, creative contest with gift hampers to be won and also a grand Championship winner. All you have to do is share Cadbury’s #ShubhAarambh related tweets on Twitter or share the same on your Facebook walls. You can also use the hashtag #ShubhAarambh to create your own interesting content.

The social reach and influence for each participant will be measured on a daily basis, through the ‘Social Quotient’ score. The score factors your social sharing i.e. the number of times you share, and the number of people your message reaches out to. It also takes into consideration the quality of content you create, which is judged by a brand team after every match. The highest ‘social quotient’ score at the end of the #ShubhAarambh league, will take home the Championship award.

A special jury of cricket evangelists like Harsha Bhogle and Ayaz Memon decide the daily prizes based on creativity. The campaign involves a microsite designed like a dashboard:

The left pane pulls up all the content from Facebook and Twitter related to #ShubhAarambh along with the total number of shares at the bottom. Right now, the shares are close to 90K. The middle pane displays a leaderboard featuring the top ten participants with the highest score. The right pane shows the jury awards throughout the campaign duration with the #ShubhAarambh virtual bat at the bottom along with the latest ad film videos created for Cadbury.

Interestingly, the virtual bat is made up of Cadbury dairy milk chocolates, where every 1000 tweets make up a bar. The bat has 90 chocolate bars at the moment!

#ShubhAarambh has been pushed in a number of creative ways t00, be it the one-word description contest or the moments spent with mom during Mother’s Day.

Hats off to @prasadrdesaiYou’ve won the Jury Award by @cricketwallah for one word descriptions ka #ShubhAarambh! twitter.com/DairyMilkIn/st…

— Cadbury Dairy Milk (@DairyMilkIn) May 8, 2013

How cool is the #ShubhAarambh league?

The campaign is a winner in terms of the concept and the timing. ‘Shubh Aarambh’ has been etched on our minds as something that brings an instant recall with Cadbury and new beginnings. Launching during the IPL, roping in cricket evangelists, connecting with social media influencers are some of the things that have helped to promote the campaign too, apart from the cool idea. The one thing I couldn’t find in the campaign is the prize for the Championship award – a chocolate trophy perhaps?

The significant touch created by the campaign can be attributed to its quality tweets or Facebook posts by being topical, witty and catching the pulse of the youth. As stated in the AFAQS article, the campaign would be extended beyond the IPL season, which would be exciting to watch. Besides, connecting with youth, the #ShubhAarambh league will go a long way in creating a relevant and engaged online community, what do you think?

“They’re the model for everyone today,” he says in the first few minutes of our conversation. “They’ve created something so cool, something so different, that their supporters do all of the marketing for them.”

No, we aren’t talking about Apple, but charity: water, the most innovative, forward-thinking non-profit of the 21^st century.

If you haven’t heard of charity: water, their mission is a simple one (which, by the way, is part of their marketing success):

charity: water is a non-profit organization bringing clean and safe drinking water to people in developing nations.

It’s an important mission, but not necessarily the most exciting thing in the world, right? Yet the organization has received support from President Obama, Richard Branson, Tyler Perry, and charitable “tycoons” like TOMS’ Blake Mycoskie. (Similar to Code.org in this regard.)

So, how do they do it? And how can other non-profits tap into the magic?

charity: water Markets a Product

How many non-profit websites have you seen that try to sell you on how great they are as a non-profit? They’ve got testimonials from donors about transparency, quotes from recipients, and they definitely make sure you know what credentials they have.

charity: water doesn’t play that game.

Instead, charity: water is marketing a product, and the product is the solution of clean drinking water. But there’s one other product here: you. charity: water wants to have the hippest of the hip to stand behind its “product.” The non-profit knows that when you have support from people with a following, everyone else will file into line.

This “people with a following” category can be sectioned into two types:

• Celebrities/Leaders
• Social media savvy Gen-Yers.

GenY Targeting & Social Media

Founder Scott Harrison understands one of the basic principles of content marketing: create something valuable that people will want to share, and they’ll do the bulk of your marketing for you.

When asked bout his social media policy, Harrison smartly replies, “It doesn’t start with an ask, it starts with a give. We don’t use our social media to ever ask for money.” Rather, the social media raises awareness and gets people excited. Then they give.

Total Transparency

Secondly, charity: water makes a big deal out of transparency – as they should. The group operates under a 100% Model, in which every single penny donated goes directly to fund water projects. Other operating expenses like salaries, office supplies, and even the credit card transaction fee associated with your donation is covered by private donors, foundations, and sponsors.

The website also has a neat feature that shows the location of the specific well your dollars funded on Google Maps. You can then read information about that specific well and the village it serves.

Design & Copy: Clear & Concentrated

Poke around the site a bit and you’ll see that charity: water uses clear, bite-sized copy and very little of it. Simplicity is everything when trying to get people interested and passionate about your cause.

charity: water has figured out what most non-profits are just now realizing: people aren’t really that interested in knowing about every facet of your organization. Rather, your average donor wants to see what you’re doing and know that all the money goes to the cause. Long-form copy is out in this game!

What’s your take on charity: water’s business branding? Where do you see the future of non-profit branding headed?

This is a quiz.

What’s the best definition of “brand?”

1.  Noun – A type of product manufactured by a company under a particular name.

Verb – Mark with a branding iron.

Synonyms:

• Noun – mark, stamp, sort, kind, make, trademark
• Verb – stigmatize, stamp, mark

[Source:  Wikipedia]

2.  “….While many people refer to a brand as a logo, tag line or audio jingle, a brand is actually much larger. A brand is the essence or promise of what will be delivered or experienced.“

                   [Source: Persuasive Brands]

I used to think that it was Definition #1.  I thought a brand was a visible symbol for a consumer product, i.e. the Nike swoosh, McD’s golden arches, etc.  I certainly didn’t think branding applied to consultants and other professionals.

I was wrong.

Your clients and colleagues expect you to deliver something. That is your brand.

You know you have a brand if two things happen regularly:

• Clients and colleagues refer you to great opportunities.
• Out of the blue, people contact you about your services.

What Is a Brand, Anyway?

A professional brand has very little to do with appearances: logo, business card, color pallets, etc.  It’s all about perception.  The real benefit of a brand is its ability to generate referrals and new business.

Your brand consists of the following:

Expertise + Credibility + Visibility = Brand

• Expertise—Your Services, Your Target Market, and the Problems You Solve.
• Credibility—Your Message, Your Reputation.
• Visibility—Awareness in Your Marketplace.

You build a brand by doing three things:

• Making your clients evangelists by doing terrific work for them.
• Having an niche and explaining it clearly.
• Showcasing your expertise via networking, social media, speaking, and writing.

What Do You Do?

Start with your expertise/niche:  what you offer, whom you serve, and the problems you solve.  If you don’t get that right, you’re toast.

Clients and referral sources won’t know how to refer you.  And you’ll send a very fuzzy message to your larger target audience.  You’ll spin your wheels.

Your prospects and referral sources want to do business with specialists, not generalists. They want to understand what you do and how to differentiate you from your competitors. If you position yourself as someone who can do anything for anybody, you’re in big trouble.

First, define the services you offer.  Get very specific:  new product launches, marketing strategy, branding, etc.  Don’t just say you’re a marketing consultant.

Next, what is the market you serve?  Break it down very specifically:

• Industries.
• Products.
• Company size.
• Geography.
• Title of decision-maker.

Then put it together in a sentence.  Something like—“I help Fortune 500 companies launch new beverages in international markets.”

Credibility

Your next challenge is to create a compelling message.  This is where many professionals fall short.

They not only fail to explain what they do.  They don’t stress the results and benefits of their work.

I think this is the main reason some professionals don’t get more referrals.  Their colleagues simply don’t understand what they do and can’t identify opportunities for them.

I think this is a good example of a market researcher’s elevator speech.  It clearly explains what he does, whom he serves, and the results he produces.

“I help large packaged goods companies (Target Market) understand why consumers decide to buy one brand over another (Specialty).  For example, just last week I presented findings to a client where we uncovered X, Y, Z (Results).  It’s…likely to lead to $200 million in new sales (Value) over the next three years…”

Market Awareness

OK, now you’ve got a well defined niche and a great message. But you can’t just tell your five best networking buddies and expect the business to pour in.

Certainly, you want to be in regular contact with key clients and referral sources.  You also have to showcase your expertise to a wider audience.

The best way to do this is by speaking and writing.  Find venues where your target market hangs out.  Then get some speaking gigs.

I publish a biweekly newsletter and send it to some 700 contacts.  This has generated numerous speaking engagements for me and also produced some new clients.

I don’t pretend to be a savvy shopper, but when I dive wallet-first into the clearance section at The Gap, I tend to stock up on accessories in my favorite color — black. Why? It’s a universal truth that black goes with everything.

So does branded journalism. In the words of veteran digital content guru Ann Handley, “Content is the new black.”

Handley is right, branded journalism (also known as brand journalism or branded content) has caught on like a wildfire this year. From Tory Burch’s fantastic branded blog to Mint.com’s MintLife section, brands realize the value of consumer-facing content like articles, photos or videos, and are rushing to create some with the company name on it.

Why? Because consumers are demanding it. As brands become more accessible to fans through social media, people want more from brands than their products and services. So much so, even Twitter is looking to hire a Head of News. That leads us to branded journalism.

But branded journalism breaks the natural order of business that advertisers, journalists and businesses have subscribed to for decades. This makes some people nervous, traditionalists angry and opportunists jumping on the branded content bandwagon faster than Baltimore fans during the last Super Bowl.

So that leaves the question, if you’re going to start creating content for a brand, be it a local business or a Fortune 500 company, what are the best practices? Better yet, how do you do it ethically?

Try these simple steps for better branded journalism:

1. Build a process

Journalistic content should be more than an article or blog post thrown together quickly. Create an editorial plan, support whatever content you create with strategy, edit it, review it with key company team members and a set time to distribute it via a medium that will reach your intended audience.

2. Share something valuable

Share something that your target market will respond to. For example, Home Depot’s YouTube page features an array of do-it-yourself garden tutorials. Completely different from Red Bull’s adrenalin-pumping YouTube page that offers an array of video features on the brand’s extreme athletes. Both give their fans journalistic content in the same medium, but do it completely different ways to reach separate audiences.

3. Know your boundaries

Producing journalistic content doesn’t equate to producing a Pulitzer winning news article, so stick to your industry and the topics surrounding it. Create content targeted at a company’s audience, on subjects related to your company’s industry. Find creative ways to make content relevant to trends and new stories without reporting the news.

4. Stick to the facts and cite your sources

People want transparency from their favorite brands. Always support your content with facts from experts and credible sources. Back up your claims with research, data or testimonials from credible experts that you mention by name.

5. Strike a balance

Don’t use branded journalism as an opportunity to knock a competitor’s product or service, use it as an opportunity to share valuable content. If needed, acknowledge competitors professionally when it’s appropriate. Focus instead on sharing real insight about a subject consumers are interested in.

6. List a byline

If possible, list the author or producer of a branded journalism piece. This gives your work credibility and gives audience members a face representing the brand to connect with. Melissa Lafsky Wall left her job at USA Today to head up content production at dating site How About We, where every article or column in the site’s Date Report section is credited with a byline.

7. Track results

Producing branded journalism is useless if it doesn’t reach the correct audience to support business goals. Use analytics to track your results and SEO to shape the strategy behind your content. This ensures that you don’t just produce quality branded journalism; you produce branded content that gets results.

Business cards are a necessity to anyone looking to advance and extend their network. Everyone should have a business card because they act as a reminder to your contacts about who you are and what company you work for. Business cards are important for a number of reasons. Probably the most important reason – business cards help people define how to perceive you professionally, and depending on the success of your business card, whether they do or don’t remember you.

There are a lot of things to consider when deciding how you are going to make your business card. Your business card should be sharing the information that is most important for people to know about your business. This includes your full name or the name you want to be recognised as, your contact information including an active mobile number and email address and also the name and logo of the business/company you’re working for. All of these things are essential to include because they will help people to recognise your business and understand how to communicate with you. You should also include your business’s physical address (if applicable) as well as a link to your website.

Make your business card stand out. A lot of people hand out their cards, but you want yours one that won’t be easily forgotten. Make it creative and colourful. Use images, colours and fonts that are appropriate to the type of business you’re operating. You should also consider what type of paper you’re going to use, how thick you want your business cards to be and how you want them to be cut. These are all crucial elements to consider because after an initial introduction with someone, your business card will be a tangible reminder of how they remember you. You need to make sure it looks professional and creative. Take into account the spelling and spacing of the words and logos on your cards. Consider the things that will be noticed first on the card and make sure the important information stands out.

The main thing to consider when designing and printing your business card is that they are a reflection of you and your business. You want people to be impressed and remember your details. Vistaprint business cards are among one of the high quality ones available to purchase online while you’re also able to customize your own design.

What are some of the more unique styles or concepts for business cards you’ve seen?

Image courtesy of Mitchell Bartlett, Flickr.

Google Alerts only sends you email if new articles, webpages or blog posts make it into the top ten Google News results, the top twenty Google Web Search results or top ten Google Blog Search results for your query. If the top results remain the same for a while, you won’t receive email on your topic.

Perhaps this reduces the processing power they have to devote to Google Alerts. But it means that you’re only going to get alerts for a fraction of the actual mentions of the keyword or phrase that you’re monitoring, because most mentions aren’t going to break into the top 10.

So what’s the alternative? I recently signed up for a free trial of Mention, another brand monitoring service, and I’m finding it to be a much more effective tool than Google Alerts. Let’s take a look at how Mention works.

How to Get Started with Mention

Go to the home page and click the “Signup for free” button. You can sign up using your existing Facebook, Twitter, Google, or OpenID account, or just enter your name, email address, and a password to create a new account.

If you sign up using an existing account, you’ll be asked to enter an email address. Then you can choose how to use Mention:

You can download Mention for Windows, get the app for iPhone or Android, install a Chrome extension, or just use the web app. In this review, I’ll be focusing on the web app.

Creating a New Alert on Mention

Once you click through to the web app, you’ll a screen where you can create your alert (click the image to enlarge).

Then just fill out the form:

• Name your alert: I created a Mention alert for my name and called it “Selfie” because I’m cute like that. I also created a brand alert called “WordStream.”
• Include and exclude expressions: Type in the words or phrases that you want to get alerts for. You can include common misspellings or variations, and you can also exclude terms, i.e. tell Mention not to send you alerts for pages that include a given word or phrase.
• Choose your languages: English is the default, but you can choose to receive alerts in French, Spanish, German and a bunch of other languages too.

In the next step, you can manage and filter your sources. I chose to get alerts from all sources (the web, Facebook, Twitter, news, blogs, videos, forums and images) but you can exclude some of those sources if you want, or block a specific site.

On this screen you can also choose whether you want to use “Priority inbox” (a feature that flags mentions they identify as more important or influential) and “Anti-Noise Technology” (which removes mentions similar to those you have deleted).

Then click “Create my alert.” At this point, you can choose to share your alert other users. Anyone can then see the alerts, but you’ll be the owner with the ability to edit and manage settings, add or delete users as well as delete the alert.

Using the Mention Web App

Google Alerts are bare-bones emails with links to the pages that mention the word or phrase you’re monitoring. They look like this:

Mention also sends you an email when you have new results:

As you can see, the Mention email is a little more designed (with a look and feel somewhat similar to what you’d get from Pinterest, or the excellent Twitter emails) and it also has more options: Click the blue button to go to the page, or click one of the links below the entry to react to the mention, mark as a favorite or delete the mention. Clicking any of these links opens up the Mention web app, which looks a lot like an email application (again, click the image to enlarge):

In the far left column, you have a list of views. The default view is Mentions, which you can see in the next column over, with the most recent mention at the top.

You can filter the mentions column by source and toggle the view between all, unread, and priority. (The “priority” mentions have red flags.)

On the right, in the main view, you get a preview of the page with your mention. This is really cool because you can see the context of the mention without having to actually visit the page – it’s obviously much more robust than the little search-style snippet you get in the Google Alert email. From this view you can choose to click through to the original URL or the source, and you can also favorite the mention, block the source or trash it using the little icons at the top.

There’s also a Statistics section where you can get some basic reporting on your mentions, like your average mentions per day and what sources those mentions are coming from.

Similar to Google Analytics, you can adjust the date range and export your reports.

What I Like About Mention

I think Mention works about a million times better than Google Alerts. Here’s why:

• Way, way, way more results – My Google Alert on my name is still active, but I get maybe one or two alerts per week, whereas Mention usually finds 5-10 new results per day. Because this is all Mention does, they’re able to devote all their resources to crawling the web for your brand mentions. Google obviously doesn’t consider brand monitoring to be a priority for the company.
• Social results – Google Alerts never really picked up on mentions from Twitter and Facebook. It’s cool that Mention finds these too and shows me a snippet of what’s being said about me on Facebook (even if I can’t see the actual Facebook pages, because I’m not on Facebook!).
• Email-style layout – I also really like the way Mention’s web app is set up like an Outlook-style email program, so all my mentions are housed in one place and I can refer back to them.
• Stats – Plus, reporting! This isn’t something I’ll get a lot of use out of on my little “Selfie” alert, but I think brands and businesses will find this really useful. It’s cool to be able to see big spikes in brand mentions and where those spikes are coming from.

What I Don’t Like or Am Unsure About

I’m not sure about the “Priority Inbox” algorithm – Mention seems to be flagging some pages that aren’t really substantial mentions; for example some of them are just static blogroll links. However, this feature may be more valuable if you’re a huge brand getting hundreds or thousands of mentions a day, like Coca-Cola or Demi Lovato or whatever.

In addition, I really can’t speak to the quality or usability of the mobile apps, because I don’t own a smartphone. (I know, I know, I work in technology, blah blah, but I don’t cover gadgets and WordStream ain’t payin’ my mobile bill.) For what it’s worth, Larry found the mobile app “unusable,” so “try before you buy.”

A Note on Pricing

OK, so Google Alerts is free, but that’s part of the problem with it – it doesn’t make money so Google isn’t putting any resources into maintaining quality.

Mention also has a free tier, which gets you three alerts, 500 mentions per month, and 1 month of history.

The next tier is the Pro Plan. This is the plan I reviewed, as Mention comped me a month when they saw me say I was trying it out on Twitter. The Pro Plan is $19.99 per month and gets you unlimited alerts, 50,000 mentions per month, unlimited history, and access to stats and data export tools.

The highest tier is Team Plan, which is $99.95 per month and gets you everything the Pro Plan does plus ability for multiple users on the same account. This doesn’t seem like a great deal; to get five users on the team plan, you’re paying five times the amount of the Pro Plan. You’d think there would be a bit of a discount. But this might be a worthwhile option for bigger businesses with bigger budgets.

Mention vs. Google Alerts: What Do You Think?

Have you been looking for an alternative to Google Alerts? Have you tried Mention? What do you use for brand monitoring? Let me know in the comments!

“I’m not a brand, I’m a person!” they demand.

Except you are. As Kyle Lacy and I said in Branding Yourself, “A brand is an emotional response to the image or name of a particular company, product, or person.”

Basically, people have an emotional response to us, our work and our experiences, our relationships with them, and even our face. For good or bad, people like us or don’t like us, based on all of this stuff.

When they think of our name and our face, they have an emotional response.

But Seth Godin made a great statement about branding that may explain why it’s an important term to use:

I believe that “brand” is a stand-in, a euphemism, a shortcut for a whole bunch of expectations, worldview connections, experiences, and promises that a product or service makes, and these allow us to work our way through a world that has thirty thousand brands that we have to make decisions about every day.

In other words, when we use the term “personal brand,” we’re not talking about a corporate reputation, a logo, and a tagline. You can’t/shouldn’t reduce a person to a tagline and logo.

To paraphrase Seth Godin, “personal brand” is a euphemism, a shortcut for expectations people have of us, our network and personal connections, the experiences we offer, the promises we make, our reputation, and our accomplishments.

If we accept that the term “personal brand” is a shortcut word for all of those things, then maybe it becomes a little more acceptable to people.

Because I’m going to get tired of launching into that entire explanation.

Author:

Erik Deckers is the owner of Professional Blog Service, and the co-author of Branding Yourself: How to Use Social Media to Invent or Reinvent Yourself and No Bullshit Social Media: The All-Business, No-Hype Guide to Social Media Marketing. His third book, The Owned Media Doctrine, will be available this summer.

What Is Brand Building?

There is no one definition that actually captures the essence of brand building in its entirety. Many people think that brand building is all about communicating and exposing your brand. That is just one side of it. The best way we can define it is that it is a process of creating value to consumers. It encompasses all things that consumers know, feel, and experience about your business in its entirety.

Having defined brand building, we shall now look at 3 popular types of brands and what they stand for.

• Service brand- this brand is built on knowledge, culture, and experience that one has with the service delivering agency/company/people. Think of Geek Squad or Molly Maid.
• Retail brand- this brand is built on a mixture of products and service experience. Think of Chick-fil-a, Kroger, or KFC
• Product brand- is built on the experience that one has with a specific product. Think of Nike, Ford, or Sony.

Having looked at the 3 popular types of brands, we shall now proceed to look at steps involved in brand building.

1. Define Your Brand

The first stage in brand building is defining your brand. This is a very critical step as it ultimately determines what your brand truly stands for. When defining your business brand, you should create a checklist of its core strengths. Similarly, if you’re defining a personal brand, you should look at the skills and expertise that you possess especially those which stand out. On the same token, you also need to know what your brand stands for and what is important for your brand (brand values). Your values should in one way or another show that you are contributing to environmental, social, and economic well-being of consumers. You may not realize some of these important aspects of brand building immediately, until you look at them objectively.

2. Differentiate and Position Your Brand

Before embarking on brand building, you have to take time to differentiate it so that you can attract attention and stand out from competitors. To differentiate your brand, you have to create a unique advantage in the mind of consumers not merely getting attention by brand building colors or logos or other superficial elements. Once you come up with a unique value proposition, you should use a good branding strategy to position your brand in a way that will help consumers see and appreciate the greater value of your brand over competing ones in the market.

3. Build and Expose your Brand

As I indicated earlier, brand building is not a one off thing. Building a unique and powerful personal or business brand takes time and consistency. To build your personal brand, you have to keep reinforcing your values and skills by taking up new roles and assignments that will give you more exposure. Alternatively, you can use promotional channels, blogs, forums, and social media (LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook) to create a voice for your personal or business brand.

When building your brand, you should also endeavor to develop brand personality (what people know, think, and say about you). This is what drives or motivates people to identify with and engage with your brand. The truth is; if you execute your brand building strategies consistently, then you will easily establish a pattern that will forever be associated with your brand name.

4. Personalize your Brand

If you want your brand building campaign or brand to be successful, then you have to personalize it. It is important to give your brand an identity. Let consumers see and experience the personality of your brand in its entirety. Look at your brand as something that a consumer wants to identify with pretty much as they would with their favorite cars, cellphones, or computers.

As you engage in brand building, you should also invite customers to be co-creators of brand values so that they can feel that they also own it and relate with it. Top brands encourage consumer-brand interaction by personalizing products to meet the needs and preferences of consumers. When you personalize your brand, you give consumers reason to participate and engage with your brand for a lifetime.

5. Review Your Brand

Your brand is not static; it will go through a range of motions in its lifetime. Depending on your brand strategies, your brand will either grow in strength, or remain dormant, or recede with time. In the brand cycle, new events, changes, and circumstances bring challenges and opportunities to enhance the value of your brand or re-establish it. All these possibilities should give you the impetus to take charge of your brand building activities.

As your brand name grows, so do the responsibilities and expectations to continue with brand building. The best way of ensuring brand growth is reviewing your activities and evaluating your successes through metrics such as levels of brand awareness and levels of engagements. Regular reviews will help you seize and exploit new opportunities while upholding your commitment to remain true to your vision and brand strategy. It will also help you steer your brand in the right direction and keep it relevant as you move into the future.

As you can see, brand building is not a one off thing. You have to define your brand, differentiate, present it, and review what your brand stands for from time to time. It is very important to be clear about your branding strategies and how you’re going to implement them. You should also adopt brand strategies that will add value to your consumers and help them develop the right impression of your company and what it truly stands for.

1. By Any Other Name

Although it may not seem important compared to some of the more logistically centered concerns, a company name plays a very large part in how well your business is going to be doing in the future. Don’t simply go with your last name and attach a “co” to the end of it; try to get across—at least on some level—what your company is. Ideally, your company name should be easy to remember and even easier to spell. Although you may want to name your new software company after the mythical king of the Tengu from Japanese mythology, the fact remains that many Americans will have trouble remembering, pronouncing, and spelling the word “Sōjōbō.” If you’re stumped, you can always hire a professional naming service to come up with something innovative.

2. Tag!

If you’re name doesn’t say everything about your company that you want the average passerby to know, then you’ll need to come up with a tagline. A tagline is a short phrase or sentence that communicates to your potential customers what they should be feeling about your company. There are many different types of taglines, such as descriptive ones (“Great Taste, Less Filling”-Miller Brewing Company), or comparative ones (“Melts in your Mouth, Not in Your Hand”- M&Ms candy). Humor is a great way to go, if you can pull it off, because then you’ll be able to use the tagline in entertaining commercials and other advertisements (Where’s the Beef?”-Wendy’s). However, some of the most recognizable tags of all time have been simple and to the point (“Just Do It”-Nike).

3. Media Well Done

Although it goes without saying that you’ll need to advertise your company if you want to make dollar number one, many startup businesses forget about how much help the local news media can offer; regularly issue press releases so that others can stay informed with what’s happening in your business. At the same time, be sure not to neglect other forms of media as well. We live in an age of unbridled digital advancement. Advertise your company through social media sites such as Facebook or Twitter and buy advertising space on popular websites that have something to do with your product. And although we may be moving towards a paperless society, we’re not there yet — newspaper and magazine ads along with banners, billboards and brochures still play a part in connecting with customers. Basically, if people see it, you can use it to promote your company.

4. What Gives?

Another great way to get your name on the minds of your customers is through sponsoring charitable events. If you can help people make a connection between your services and their own favorite causes, then you’ll have a ready-made customer base. Most charities are more than happy to display the names of the businesses that have made the event possible, and getting your name into the program or the news surrounding the event can really pay off.

5. Get Help!

Of course, there’s more to branding than just names and advertisements. Before you can really show the public what your company stands for, you’ll have to figure it out for yourself. Luckily, there are services known as “branding companies” that can help you get everything in order. They can help you design logos and web pages and anything else that you might need to successfully establish your brand in a competitive market. And while this kind of outside help can set you back a few thousand dollars, it might just be what keeps your business out of the hole.

Not surprisingly, a business’s online reputation can play a major role in its success or in its collapse. The reality is, customers pay attention to the things they read and hear about a company. If your business’s online reputation is less than positive, it could be driving away customers.

Cleaning Up Your Company’s Online Reputation

Social Media Sites
Reputation management is an ongoing task. Business owners should take the time to regularly monitor comments and feedback about their company at social media sites.

According to a survey by eMarketer, almost half of all consumers expect customer service complaints to be resolved on social media sites. Many consumers consider this method more convenient than calling customer service departments. When businesses ignore these complaints, customers and would-be customers become alienated. In addition, other followers at the social media site will see that a complaint has been left unaddressed. This is unprofessional and disrespectful to the person with the complaint. In general, not responding to comments, feedback, and complaints can create a negative image of the business.

Online Review Sites
According to a study by Nielsen, when it comes to trust value, online reviews are second only to word-of-mouth recommendations for consumers. In other words, consumers value online reviews more highly than TV commercials or online banner ads. With that in mind, monitoring what is being said about your business on online review sites is very important. It’s a fact that unhappy customers are more likely to write reviews than those who are satisfied. Cleaning up negative reviews begins with responding to the person(s) that submitted the less-than-favorable comments. Besides working to resolve the problem with the unhappy customer, it is also a good idea to encourage satisfied customers to leave reviews about their experiences.

Google It
Every business owner should take the time to regularly Google the name of the business. Search results will probably include the business website, various business listings, social media profiles, listings at review sites, and other online mentions. Most people do not search past the first or second page of results. With that in mind, it is not too difficult to bury any negative results found (but that doesn’t mean they should be ignored). Savvy business owners create new, appropriately optimized content, which will quickly move up in search engine rankings.

Reputation management is key to the success of your business.
The reputation of a new and developing business may seem unimportant or nonexistent. However, every business has a reputation of sorts, and it can take years to establish a solid reputation of integrity and honesty. Sadly, without careful reputation management, that reputation can quickly be crushed.

Whereas a positive reputation can definitely help ensure the success of a business, a negative reputation can lead to its demise. With that in mind, taking steps to build and maintain a stellar reputation is an essential part of business management.

Image courtesy of basketman at FreeDigitalPhotos.net.