Quick visual analogy from our friend at The Brand Builder blog:

–Jen Travis

ROI in a social community isn’t about the number of page views or downloads; it’s about generating and leveraging brand value to create deeper and more meaningful relationships with your audiences.

Social networks are live focus groups, they:

• allow marketers to listen in and learn what customers really want 
• facilitate the monitoring of trends and benchmarking of competitors
• reveal market gaps
• identify the perceived value of a brand
• drive innovation in products and services

Social networks may not deliver traditionally measured ROI, but successful dialogue can be measured in terms of engagement, share of voice and advocacy. 

Not sure what success might look like?  DING!

~Rachel Olmsted

Let me give you an example of a brand that I can’t stop talking about—DRY Soda Company.  I walked into a room knowing nothing about the company, but by the time I left I was a true brand champion.

So, how did they hook me?

There was, of course, the mom-turned-business tycoon: a pregnant foodie diligently strives to invent a beverage to fill a much needed beverage niche, experimenting with thousands of recipes in her own kitchen, pairing food with different flavors until the perfect sparkling elixir is crafted. And then there was the product, which is also divine—unique, fresh, a true sensory delight.  And the packaging was sleek—in fact, it was as clean, fresh and hip as the product itself!  As was the user-friendly web site, which utilized a lot of white space—creating a fresh and clean online atmosphere.  Their headquarters, located in Pioneer Square, aren’t the typical atmosphere—in fact; here you’ll find a modern take on the soda fountain staffed with a Soda Sommelier.  And, not to be forgotten, are the people. Take Jeanette Thebeau, CMO, she’s bright, funny, engaging, a fellow food-lover who dresses hip and fresh and is the kind of woman I for one want to be. Are you seeing a pattern here? 

In case it’s not already clear, I’m excited because this brand is truly living their brand—they are delivering upon their promise: they’re walking the walk and talking the talk, they know who they are and they’re comfortable in their skin, every touch point rings true, every interaction between their customers and prospects is turned into a full DRY experience.   This isn’t just another beverage……..

It’s a cornucopia of engaging experiences—a kaleidoscope of sumptuous liquid libations that not only squelch my thirst and enliven my palate, but also enhance my lifestyle.

I love this brand—and it’s not just the fizzy bubbles giving me goose bumps…..

-Rachel Olmsted

The strongest brands aren’t the ones with the biggest ad budgets, the highest profile celebrity endorsers, or the snappiest jingles. No, strong brands have at their core one thing in common: they know what they stand for and they execute against that knowledge in everything they do.

Over the next few weeks, I’ll be sharing the seven secrets to strong brands: here’s the first:

Secret number one: Be yourself. There’s nothing sadder than a conservative company trying to be hip. There’s nothing more confusing to a customer than being bombarded with company messages, all with different personalities. Figure out who you are, and then be more of that. It’s one reason your current customers are with you: be more of who you are and you’ll attract more customers like the ones you have.

Any time you try to be something other than what you are (like the hardware manufacturer who wanted to be known for innovation when they spent nothing on R&D), you set up the conditions for cognitive dissonance with your customers. The minute they figure out the emperor has no clothes, they scoot (think Qwest and their Spirit of Service promise).

-Lynn Parker

Your brand is the sum of all the experiences your customers and employees have with your organization. Your web site is often the first experience a customer or potential employee has with your brand. Therefore, your web site is more than just a marketing vehicle, it is a brand delivery vehicle (or critical customer touch point if you prefer). These are the top five things you should know when it comes to ensuring your web site delivers your desired brand experience.

1. Know your brand.
While this may seem obvious, it is actually something many companies forget when developing their web sites. They start with what they want to say or how they want the customer to act on their web site, but forget to think about what the customer values and wants from them. If you have a research-based understanding of not only what you do well, but what your constituents value about you, you will be able to develop a web site that delivers this more thoughtfully and consistently through its content, architecture and design.

2. Know your landscape.
If you know how other’s in your industry are using their web sites to deliver on their brand, you can determine how best to use your web site to position your organization for differentiation–through the types of content you offer, the way users can interact with you online, and the overall experience your site provides.

3. Know your user.
This means that you know not only who they are (demographics), but what their needs, motivations and online behaviors are so that you can develop a web site that delivers on those. Your users may be your customers, your internal stakeholders, the media, partners or others. Profile each of your audiences in a way that allows brand managers and web site managers to implicitly understand users’ needs and what the site should do as a result.

4. Know the possibilities and your limits.
The web has become a magic and wondrous thing. It can inform, engage and build community. There is an online application for just about anything you want to do. And, it is easy to get carried away with technology. The key is in knowing what is possible and then carefully selecting only those applications that help you deliver your brand experience for your users. For instance, if you know your users are less web savvy and have 56K modems, you may not want to build your site in Flash or have video or other large files on your site that keep your users from being able to get what they need due to long download periods.

5. Know what to measure.
Web analytics these days are also very rich. You can drill down on nearly every aspect of each user’s visit. However, that often requires full time employees to do so. If you use your brand and business goals as criteria for what to measure, you can more easily tie your measurements to business and brand strategy implications. Because, for every online action, there is a corresponding offline reaction that must be carefully managed to make sure you are delivering on the expectations of your brand.

–Jen Travis

Move over Reverend Wright, there’s a new controversy that has the country in an uproar. It’s the risqué photos taken of Disney’s “it girl” of the moment, Miley Cyrus, for next month’s issue of Vanity Fair. Yes, I’m aware that Rosie has already exhausted the issue on her video blog, Access Hollywood has covered every square inch of it and Keith Olbermann has even included it in his top ten. I, like everyone else in this country, have my own personal opinions on this issue. However, I wanted to share my thoughts from a brand manager perspective, so as to demonstrate just how important a consistent brand experience really is.

Miley Cyrus’s alter ego, Hannah Montana, seemed to explode out of nowhere. Parents were paying a fortune to get their hands on concert tickets and before we knew it, she had infiltrated every possible product marketed to the pre-teen audience. Why has she become so popular, so quickly? What I believe makes her so popular is that she is a breath of fresh air to parents everywhere, especially in an age of over-sexed, repeat rehabbing, young, Hollywood starlets. Parents love Cyrus because she acts her age, dresses appropriately and stays out of trouble. This good girl image is her brand and every decision she makes in her professional life should be in line with that brand. Although Annie Leibowitz’s photos of Cyrus were solely for artistic purposes, and one could argue whether or not they were in fact risqué, the finished product contradicts the Miley Cyrus brand. Cyrus’s decision to pose for these photos is inconsistent with her brand and thus the huge backlash from her fans and their parents. Can Cyrus reverse the damage that this decision has caused to her brand? If you were her brand manager, what would you do?

-Hiley Spaet