Integrated Brand

Facebook: the social media brand to beat in 2010
December 31st, 2009

In the onslaught of social media throughout 2009, one brand stands out more than others because of the social revolution it continues to propel–Facebook. From giving people a place to share their lives or connect with long lost friends and family to giving brands new ways to connect one on one with their customers, Facebook has continued to evolve with the many ways users are using it.

It has embodied the spirit of social media in constant transformation and innovation based on listening. While some can argue its usability or the efficacy of its design, Facebook has listened to these arguments and continues to improve the experience–upgrading its interface ongoingly, adding new features monthly, and making its data more usable for marketers and casual users alike.

And, with its steady growth of users (over 350 million as of this month) and stable retention rates, it has beat out Twitter and MySpace for audience share. My prediction: in the shake out to come in 2010, we will see a very clear distinction between Facebook and Twitter. Facebook will continue to evolve and deepen its relationships with all of its users, as well as become an invaluable data source for brand managers and marketers, while Twitter will solidify its position with companies and thought leaders by providing a valuable public relations and communications channel.

Anybody want to wager?

–Jen Travis

Live music rocks my world!
December 28th, 2009

The brand that’s made me the happiest this year is Wolfgang’s Vault. I go there on a regular basis, often on Friday afternoons when I’m finishing up administrative tasks and need some ear candy. The more I listen, the more often I return. I’ve heard concerts by artists I wish I’d gone to and concerts from the same tours I saw “back in the day” by artists that hadn’t made it big yet. I started going to the site a couple of years ago to relive some great musical moments in my life—but now I’m getting much more.

I love that the Vault has branched out to newer artists and more recent concerts. Their A to Z list of performers is huge and inclusive, so I can experiment. There are artist interviews as well as concerts. There are lots of free downloads as well as ones you have to pay for. Plus concert listings in my area.

The website has improved steadily. It’s become increasingly easy to use and what Wolfgang’s Vault is adding, I’m enjoying. I must be in their target demographic—they’re hitting me in my soft spot and I love it!

What’s the brand lesson? Do one thing really well and build from there. Innovate around what you know and give your customers and fans an easy path to follow as you lead the way. If the substance is there and you demonstrate that you’re listening, you’ll keep your die-hards and win new ones.

Have a great 2010!

Beth Woolley

Managing the dark side of social media
November 25th, 2009

A colleague of mine has a great printing company—having worked with many printers, they are the best of them all at customer service and helping people figure out the best way forward with their printing needs. So imagine a scenario when they made a mistake, and thought they had resolved the issue to the clients’ satisfaction, only to find out that the disgruntled client used every social media venue, from reviews on Dex and Google Maps to Yelp, to flame and rant.

This is the dark side of social media: the ability to really hurt a good company. So what are the best practices when your reputation is under attack?

First, listen. My friend, Kevin Sullivan of CCS Printing, said:

“I had no idea these reviews were on Google (maps) and being seen by hundreds of customers a month until I did a search yesterday and saw the low star rating. So we’ve probably been losing some opportunities for 90 days due to our lack of inspection on reviews online. So, multiple morals to the story; First, take care of problems promptly (very promptly), second, inspect your brand online everywhere all the time, and third, have a plan in place to drive positive reviews from your willing and happy customers. The vocal minority often seem to outshout the happy majority. Happy customers don’t feel a need to take the time to say good things. But they might if they were asked nicely. One unhappy customer can assume multiple online personalities and trash your brand if they are vindictive enough.”

Kevin went on these sites and explained the situation in a reasonable and transparent way, a good response to a negative event.

So, if you’ve used CCS and had a great experience, take a couple of minutes online to say so. And keep listening to what the market is saying—and respond when you need to.

-Lynn Parker

A Story of Personal Triumph from the Facebook Frontier
November 12th, 2009

bachelorette auction

I’m a member of BEAN, a scrappy young professional network constantly innovating new ways to make a positive difference in the community. We donate our time and effort to engage an often fickle demographic, 25-35 year olds, and as any thrifty club or nonprofit can relate, it’s often a challenge to get the dollar bills flowing.

This year, we learned about a local nonprofit called Roses and Rosemary that supplies medication to HIV-positive orphans in Africa and decided to support their cause. With absolutely no budget, we focused our efforts on a fun event—a bachelor/bachelorette auction. Yes, we put ourselves on the auction block for a good cause and only used the web (because it’s free!) to spread the word.

The results?

We sold out 200 tickets within the first 20 minutes of opening the door and ended up raising $16,000. Not too shabby for $0 in marketing, no fancy ads, no press release—just a group of kids with a fun idea, some excitement and a lap top.

Here were our tactics, which can be easily mimicked by any nonprofit:

Created a Facebook event and sent out invites.
We each posted the event to our personal profiles periodically and talked it up. (To do this: A. Click the “share” link on the event page. B. Write a comment. C. Click the “share” button)
Created fan pages for each bachelor/ette. See our example.
Created a landing page with bios to generate excitement.
Sent out reminder messages to people who accepted the Facebook event invitation.
Posted on other free websites such as IloveSeattle.org, Craigslist, and Twitter.

Kudos to the TGAL committee, Roses and Rosemary and everyone who played a part!

–Bianca Abate

Follow me on Twitter

What makes you different, creates buzz
November 5th, 2009

Buzz isn’t something you scientifically produce. It is a little mystical in nature in that you never quite know for sure what is going to catch on and become buzz-worthy. However, the best way to create buzz-worthy content or events is to focus on your brand–what makes you different in the first place. How do you uniquely do what you do? How do you express yourself in your visual and verbal brand that sets you apart? Identify that, harness it and use it to drive your content creation for the best chance to create buzz. And, remember, it’s what makes you different that is of value to people that is important. Not just being different for being different’s sake.

Check out this example of a website that clearly demonstrates its brand difference through its content, tone and manner, and the way it uses YouTube to create an engaging experience.

–Jen Travis

Beware Sub-brand Fever
October 12th, 2009

A recent client of ours has almost twenty loosely related sub-brands, making their website difficult to navigate and leading to confusion in the marketplace. The company was pushing the master brand, but consumers were left clueless as to what the master brand actually did and how it all fit together.

Purchasing decisions are complicated enough without making it hard for people to understand who you are and why you do it. If you can zero in on the specific role you play, you make the decision making process one step easier. A defined brand strategy and brand architecture can enhance focus and clarity. As an added bonus, you can internally focus your budgets and energy more strategically.

So, how to get focused?

Ask yourself the fundamental questions of brand architecture: is the right strategy to create a strong corporate brand or is it to create a portfolio of strong sub-brands—or a combo of both? Always look at your brand architecture from the point of view of the customer, not how you are internally organized.
Clarify (for both employees and consumers) the roles that the various brands play and how they interplay.
Lastly, use your website’s navigation as a visual guide to communicate this road map.

-Bianca Abate

Brand, then strategy, then execution
September 23rd, 2009

In that order. Seth Godin’s post on the hierarchy of success aligns with our thinking. Too many times companies just want to execute, but they haven’t outlined what (brand), why (goals) or how (strategy).

–Jen Travis

Culture drives brand communities
September 10th, 2009

Companies have internal cultures that either have the capacity to support their use of social media or they don’t. What they need to realize is that to build brand communities that support their business goals, they must look at how they develop the strategic direction for the organization and the cultural fluency with their people to support a multi-directional dialog among customers, employees, and other stakeholders. David Armano points out that it is a people issue not just a technology issue.

We couldn’t agree more. Becoming, what we call, a social brand is the lifeboat for this sea change in communication that the web enabled. We will be talking more about social branding in subsequent posts, but briefly, it means building a shared promise among all your constituents (bringing together how your employees, customers, partners and stakeholders value the brand) so they can influence and shape the brand community in a way that provides value to all. People are key to this, and the way your culture is shaped is key to success in this new paradigm.

–Jen Travis