Branding 2.0

Branding Disconnects

Disconnect #1

After writing a blog and using Facebook and Twitter for awhile, I am starting to see why some people are confused with social media.

Twitter, for example, has a split personality.  Some people, about 45%, use it for telling what they’re doing; while another 40% are trying to engage in conversation.  Then there’s the 5% news, 5% spam and 5% other.  Basically, Twitter is half babble, half branding.

It’s disorienting when you open up a Twitter home page and are confronted with a big “What are you doing?”  You might think it’s none of your damn business, and second, how are you going to help me brand my business?

I believe it is this split personality that makes it hard to get a handle on Twitter, and to connect the dots, so you can appreciate it’s branding potential.

Disconnect #2

Most of you have probably also heard the social media mantra, “to succeed you need to provide content that has real value.”  It sounds like a cop-out.

But, the mantra is true.  The problem is that there is often a disconnect between what a brand manager thinks is real value and what the reader thinks it is.

For example, a brand manager might post a link on Twitter or Facebook for a press release about their hot new product.  They might think this level of marketing is OK.  On the other hand, the reader may be thinking “this is a pitch,” — too much like selling or spam.

The bottom line is brand and marketing managers need to walk in their customer’s shoes if they are going to successfully use social media to talk about their brand.

Please comment on this blog.
Twitter us with your thoughts @  twitter.com/BrandingComm or visit us on Facebook.
#branding #social media

 

Brand Promotion’s Golden Age

Social media’s big advantage vs. old media is its efficiency.

Brand promotion use to be an afterthought, and, as big-agency types would distain, a below-the-line marketing tool.

It wasn’t that you didn’t do promotions, it was just that they weren’t viewed as sexy or a top priority.  How could a lowly promotion compete with the glitz and sizzle of a T.V. campaign?

Sales promotions (sampling, coupons, sweepstakes, etc.) have always been part of the marketing mix, but they were often viewed as an add-on, and only somewhat effective.

Promotions take a lot of work to produce and are time consuming to implement. A national campaign could often take 3-6 months to plan and implement, and could cost upwards of $5 million, not counting the offer.

With the advent of real-time social media, and mobile marketing, all that has changed.

Today, online and mobile promotions are becoming the rock stars of the branding world.  If you want to move the needle fast, now it’s a Facebook/Twitter/YouTube campaign — not old media.

Social media promotions are basically free (not counting the offer), and are easy and quick to put together.  Promotions are no longer considered a second-class marketing tool, but are now sought out for their quick, viral results.  Because of the maturation of social media, we are now entering the Golden Age of Promotion.

Please comment on this blog.

Twitter us with your thoughts @  twitter.com/BrandingComm or visit us on Facebook.

#branding #social media #promotion

Branding’s Recession Boost

Every cloud has a silver lining, or so they say.  Even in the worst of times this axiom seems to hold true.

Over the first six months of 2009, millions of marketing dollars have been saved (silver lining) by companies shedding their knee-jerk habit of using T.V. advertising as the foundation for their marketing programs.

If it were not for the deepest recession in 75 years, most, if not all, would have continued to buy expensive T.V., because that’s what they have always done.

The bold decision by these companies to drop T.V. has boosted the support of the ever-improving, integrated social media campaigns — those integrating media-rich Web sites with Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, iPhone apps, etc.

The recession experience has quickly reset, and broadened the options of, what goes into a successful media mix. 

T.V., as a branding tool, is not dead, but shrinking.  T.V. is not king of marketing anymore because more and more, people are discovering that mass media is not efficient, and it’s time has passed.

Daniel Boorstin’s quote that, “Nothing is real unless it happens on television,” is no longer true.

Please comment on this blog.

Twitter us with your thoughts @  twitter.com/BrandingComm or visit us on Facebook.

#branding #social media