October 19th, 2009
It has been a while since we have posted new articles to this blog as there has been some down time as we rework the blog and put it out there independently of wordpress.com. We thank the free hosting and spot at wordpress.com for giving us the tools and press to start our blog and will continue to let people know that they provide an excellent platform to start their blogging careers.
Now on with the show. In today’s article sent to us by EMarketer.com we are going to help show some of the the myths and facts behind social media. Perhaps the biggest myth is that Social Media is going to directly increase your sales numbers. This is a flat out myth. In fact in most cases it will make little direct difference in your sales numbers.
It will however help create a higher level of brand awareness and help the brand increase its reputation online as well as increasing the hits to the main brand website. All of these things can help “indirectly” increase sales for a product and service. If you are looking at the best way to recreate your brand or reestablish brand awareness then social media is the best route at this time.
Click here for the full article and graphs.
Categories: Digital Marketing, Important News, Marketing, New Marketing, Social Media
October 5th, 2009
Something that many people have a hard time understanding is that to the masses there is very little difference between the perception of a situation and the reality of the situation regardless of whether or not that is the actual case. For the most part people on a large scale never take the time to truly get to know each other. The excuses can be numerous but the simplification of it is that very few people truly care. However that does not keep those same people from being judge, jury and in some cases the executioner of an individual they have known for less than a minute.
That makes the Image you project out to the world one of vital importance. This is something even well known people have a hard time understanding. There is a saying that “Press is press” or “Bad press is still press” but now that is not really the case. It is the case now that people are being more picky about everything from the money they spend to the people they choose to care about. This means that you now not only need to get “press” but it needs to be “good press”.
Now I am referring to the word press here because it is an easy way to describe the idea of presenting a broad story with multiple short judgements being made by a large group of people. However in the case of someone who is just in their own network there is a “press” and that is the broader group of people you come into contact with. As you deal with these people they are watching you. This not done maliciously, it is human nature. We are naturally a curious lot that is constantly looking and observing, hoping to see something new or be a part of something new.
So how do you control perception, you control perception by taking stock of who you are and what you are. You have to have self-confidence because it is that self-confidence that is going to make you stay consistent.
Now I don’t want anyone to miss understand this, honesty and reality matter. A fabricated image can only last so long before you begin to realize that something is not right and you start to rebel against yourself. That rebellion will kill all the Image and perception you have built up for yourself and you will have to start all over again. So if you are thinking that you are being perceived in a way contrary to what you believe is true about yourself, you need to ask what is it you are doing that is causing this perception.
Categories: Marketing, New Marketing, Personal Branding
October 5th, 2009
Well in case any of you are wondering why the site was not being updated for a while it was so we could get the site moved and up. We are no longer tied to the WordPress Servers. That’s right the blog is now hosted and on its own. This provides us with much more flexibility and as you will hopefully notice you will no longer be redirected to another address when you come to our site. We will once again start our daily updates once again helping to guide people on the road to creating a successful brand. Our first new official post will be coming out later today.
Categories: Important News, New Features
October 1st, 2009
Recently, I received a Google Alert on “Personal Branding Atlanta”. The article that came up at the top was entitled “The Downside To Personal Branding”. This peaked my interest dramatically because I was curious to see what the author of the article was referring to when they spoke of the potential negatives. As I read the article I realized that while the author of the article, Ray Subs, is obviously a very knowledgeable individual I have to disagree with the ideas set forth in the article and I felt I needed to respond. I first want to provide links to the original article “The Downside To Personal Branding” and a link to some information on Ray Subs and the company with which he works N2Growth. My reason for this is that while I might find some disagreements I believe everyone should have access to the original information.
All that being said I want to directly address some points in the article and respond in kind.
He starts by asking the question, “what happens when something goes wrong and personal branding is revealed as something less than the miracle that it’s purported to be?” This is a question that obviously is very important, and while I think it is a valuable question I believe the answer is what shows Personal Branding to be one of the stronger ways in which to market, brand and manage the image of a business or individual. If something goes wrong with a personal brand, then it is very easy to spot the reason as to why. The problem is the individual or the people handling that persons brand. I know that sounds simplistic, but truly it is the essence of responsibility. If a person is out there creating for themselves a brand and image and they are not sure what they are doing or they think that there is going to be a true separation from the brand and the individual then they are dreaming. This does not mean that a person has to be perfect, but it means that they have to hold themselves to a standard with which they expect the brand to perform. What could be detrimental to one brand might be the secret to making another work perfectly. A great example of this would be someone who writes for a publication like “High Times” has different rules and branding imaging that they can follow then an individual writing for say “Guideposts”. Neither one is is wrong for the field they are in and the individual is making a choice that they are branding themselves a certain way.
This leads to the first issue that Ray brings up in his article that once you have branded “yourself” in a particular way that it is difficult if not impossible to transition into another area. I find this statement to not be true. He uses Donald Trump stating that what if tomorrow he wanted to go “from Real Estate to diving in the Olympics”. I find this to be a slightly extreme example. One that I think fits more into place would be Will Smith or The Fresh Prince. The fact that Will Smith was also teenage Rap sensation “The Fresh Prince” was perhaps one of the worst kept secrets ever. Yet when it came time for Will Smith to go from Teenage Rapper and Sitcom Star to serious actor, there was not a problem in repositioning his “personal brand”. In fact, he became even bigger in that he was able to effectively transition from one to another and showed himself to exceptional at both. Whether it was “Men in Black”, “7 Pounds” or “The Pursuit of Happiness” he has shown that a Personal Brand can be changed. So is the case with any individual even if you are not famous. The key in the transition is that you know you are transitioning into something that you are good enough to truly excel at. I will give you an example of a famous person who did not make a solid “personal branding” choice and it did cause him some flack and that is the great Michael Jordan. He went from being arguably the best player in Basketball history to being not even close to average on the baseball field. He tried to reposition himself, but he wasn’t as good and therefor the transition failed. Had Michael Jordan been a 30 Home-Run 100 RBI guy in baseball then the transition probably would have worked and we would know a different Michael today.
The next statement that is made is that “personal branding is not like company branding”. Once again I distinctly disagree and I think that companies through out history have proven this. Time and time again a company takes on the personality of those that run, sell, create or execute the company’s purpose. A prime example of this would be the restaurant business. It doesn’t matter if you have the best drinks, food and decor in the world. If the cook is screaming so the diners can hear, the wait staff can’t smile to save their life and the bar tender is drinking as much as the customers then the business falls. Take it one step further say that the establishment has the best staff, food, drinks and decor, but the owner comes in on the busiest night of the week and offends customers. Once again this is a failed business. We as individuals are always branding ourselves. This is more true today than ever before where “Relationship Selling” has become the basis for growth in over 80% of businesses. This is based on the individual and their interaction or branded image with another person. So I would say that personal branding is in essence the same as marketing a company, except this time you don’t have to worry about that 10% differentiation to make it work.
The last issue he brings up is the fact that a person is tying their personal brand with the company and if one messes up then the other is messed up as well. Ummmm… I don’t see anyway to avoid this anyway. I don’t care if you are a person working with a large corporation or the sole proprietor of a one man shop, you are going to be held accountable for the mistakes you make. In the corporate world they call it downsizing, changing direction, moving on, over-qualified, under-qualified or your fired. All of them mean you are the one that messed up (even if you weren’t ) please leave. In the case of a small business it means that you lose a customer and possibly the ability to go after a specific market ever again. However, in both cases your “personal brand” or “image” was tied to that of the company. Going the other way, if your company say depends on virtual assets and is based in Texas and ruins the retirements and lives of millions of people, it doesn’t matter if you were the CEO or the person selling bankruptcy insurance. Your “personal brand” or “image” will be affected by that it is just human nature.
The big question is, how do you avoid or lessen the chances of any of the negative things happening? How do you go about making sure that whatever “brand” or “image” you are building is not just a house of cards? You do it the only way it has ever worked. Find your beliefs, values, core and individuality. Discover the areas of expertise that you have and then work to not only do your best in those areas but continue to self-improve, train and attempt to perfect those areas. Hold yourself accountable and take responsibility for the things you do. Realize that you are not the only person looking at you and that when you are creating a brand try to get an outside observer to help you see what are the possible pitfalls and obstacles. Lastly, follow the one rule that everyone should know “have the knowledge of knowing what you don’t know” and when you find those things you don’t know, don’t be afraid to ask for help.
Categories: Digital Marketing, Marketing, New Features, New Marketing, Personal Branding, Social Media
October 1st, 2009
This month we are looking at small and medium businesses and the situations they run into when it comes to focusing their marketing strategy. With this in mind I am posing the following situation for you.
Jillian has a business in the flooring industry. Due to the down turn in the economy the first area of the business hit was the housing market falling and therefor no longer people building new homes. The second nail driven into the coffin was the fall of the commercial industry and fact that business are no longer going into new commercial properties. These two things have cost Jillian large amounts of business and she is either going to have to find new ways to reach out to the market or close the company. What plans would you lay out to help her reinvent the way she delivers her message and brand to the prospective clients in this changing economy?
Please post your answers below so that other business owners can get the help from you. I look forward to the interesting answers that are delivered.
Categories: Digital Marketing, Email Marketing, Important News, Marketing, New Marketing, Personal Branding, Social Media
October 1st, 2009
We had an article earlier showing how EA proved how important image can be, well now an even bigger statement in an article from the Wall Street Journal. This article explains how in the first 6 months the sports drink Gatorade has experienced a 17.5% drop in the sales figures because of the “G Campaign” bringing about change in the Marketing positions at PepsiCo and the dropping of the Omnicom Group which has been the Madison Avenue firm handling the Pepsi brand image for decades.
Click here for the article.
Categories: Important News, Marketing, New Marketing, Transcendental Brands
October 1st, 2009
Today’s post is links to articles for teachers. I find that good teachers never get the credit they are due or paid what they are worth. This means that they have the stress of knowing that they have limited budgets both at home and at work (government spending not a good thing) and have class sizes in most cases that are larger than they need to be. One of the things I try to do is make sure that I let the teachers know I care, and if a teacher asks me to come speak to their class about image management (online and off) or branding, I will talk to classes for free many times during the year.
That all being said as the schools once again get ready to start up here are some articles that you can enjoy and get some information from as well. God bless all of you for what you do.
If you are a teacher looking still for a position here is a map for places where teaching is in demand.
Here is an article on the reform coming to schools that states that teacher accountability for progress is part of an overall plan.
This is information on the Race To The Top Program which would be the largest discretionary budget for education ever.
I would like to thank the Apple Newsletter for their information as they are the source for the articles referenced about and I offer links to the articles here to make sure that there are as many ways to get to this valuable information as possible.
Categories: Important News, Inspirational Stories, Job Help, Links, Marketing, New Features, Personal Branding
October 1st, 2009
Today’s update is very short. We are going to be adding a new twist to the blog starting next week also in August. We are going to start putting out a question of the month. That could mean a scenario, a question from another reader or simply something that I have put together. That way others can sound in with their expertise on how they would solve the problem, see the issue or the advice they would give. Talk to you tomorrow.
Categories: Important News, Marketing, New Features, Personal Branding
October 1st, 2009
Once again the purpose of this site is to help people with the tasks of branding and image management. To best facilitate this we offer as much information as we can about the tools necessary to accomplish these goals. Today eMarketer.com has sent out an incredible newsletter email with 2 great articles. I am linking them both here.
This first one deals with the demographic breakdowns and uses for Twitter.
This second one gives advertising growth numbers that are up to date, and talks about the only one showing positive growth.
Enjoy the second update on this great Tuesday morning.
Categories: Digital Marketing, Email Marketing, Important News, Inspirational Stories, Marketing, New Marketing, Personal Branding, Social Media
October 1st, 2009
Now I very rarely show a negative story on this blog and forum, but I am making an exception this time because of the most frequent question I am asked. That question is “Why do I have to worry about image?” Well the answer to that is normally longer than I would like, but today I can simplify it by drawing a direct line to a gaming company. Not just any gaming company, but one of the largest and most prolific gaming companies EA. They have come under public fire now for the third time because of huge “marketing” risks that were not only poorly thought out, but also extremely poorly executed.
There is an article you can read by clicking here that tells how a company with millions of dollars and a well created image needs to spend more time managing that image because of how fast it can be called into question.
Categories: Digital Marketing, Important News, Marketing, New Marketing, Transcendental Brands
