Today’s guest post is written by David Horne.

You want to build an incredible brand. This is one reason you became a marketing professional or started a company in the first place.

Who doesn’t want to create the next Google, Apple, Nike, or Coke?

Who doesn’t want to drive an incredible brand, one people love, that affects lives, and changes the world?

 “We are no doubt in the Great Age of the Brand.” – Tom Peters

Before you can build a brand that has market ubiquity, fosters loyalty, and promotes advocacy, the proper foundation must be set.

That foundation is credibility. Continue Reading »

Today I (Lisa Gerber) ramble from influence to bartending to staying out of trouble.

Last Friday. 5:45 am. I just read and commented on Danny Brown’s post about Marketing and the Emotional Connection. The airplane doors closed. I am on my way home to Idaho for the week.

I dutifully shut down my phone and opened my book. See? There is always something to keep my attention.

The flight attendants launched into their safety presentation as I continued to read. Except this time they won the competition for my attention. I watched. Not because of that Seinfeld episode. (You know, the one where Jerry thought they were going to crash and frantically asked for a refresher course?) No, I closed my book and looked up over the seat in front of me and watched this guy re-enact escaping the plane and running, banging his feet heavily and noisily on the floor, down the lighted aisle. Don’t ask me why, I thought it was hilarious. I watched him snap himself with the rubber band of the facemask and I laughed out loud. Continue Reading »

An entrepreneurial attorney with an MBA, Adam Zuckerman is a blogger and people connector inspired by the intersections of business, law, media, technology, and all things outdoors.

You may have noticed that Maker’s Mark has tapped actor, comedian, and television personality Jimmy Fallon to narrate it’s most recent TV commercial, “It isn’t about hype.”

For those unfamiliar, Jimmy is an ex-SNL cast member, now hosts NBC’s Late Night With Jimmy Fallon, and has had roles several movies such as Almost Famous and Fever Pitch.

Now, I have no problem with Maker’s Mark selecting Jimmy Fallon as a spokesperson.  He’s cutting edge, personable, and someone I genuinely imagine throwing back a few Makers Mark cocktails.  On the rocks, Manhattan, or even a classic Old Fashioned; it’s all plausible.

Yet, I do take issue with the script.   Continue Reading »

Adam Zuckerman is a blogger and people connector inspired by the intersections of business, law, media, technology, and all things outdoors.

The best products in the world can fail with lackluster branding and marketing. Even some of the most successful companies of all time have experienced this phenomena. Take Coca Cola’s New Coke, Pepsi’s Crystal Pepsi, Google’s Wave, Microsoft’s Zune, and Apple’s Newton for examples.

On the other hand, products that many would pass over at first glance frequently enjoy great success with innovative branding. One such company, White Wave Foods, (owner of the Silk family of products), knows this all to well. Made from soybeans grown without genetic engineering in North America, not a single product in the entire Silk product family contains dairy.

Their soy milk, for example, is a stable emulsion produced by soaking dried soybeans and mixing them with water, vitamins, and other goodies such as antioxidants and minerals (see how they do it here).

 In other words, soy milk isn’t milk at all. Plain and simple, it’s soy juice. (Doesn’t sound too appealing, does it?) Continue Reading »

Becky Johns is a PR professional, blogger, and photographer.

American Idol fans were outraged the last two weeks as we watched some of our “favorite” contestants get eliminated from the show. How could this happen when the results are based on the popular vote?

The judges were shocked, the media played up the story as a huge upset and many people were confused why perhaps the most technically talented singer was the one to leave the stage. There was even discussion of changing the voting system to prevent this situation again.

Stop shaking your head. This isn’t really about American Idol.

It’s about branding.

There are many factors in play to determine  success, other than talent alone. Continue Reading »

Steve McKee, the founder of McKee Wallwork Cleveland, BusinessWeek advertising columnist, author of When Growth Stalls, and friend wrote recently here about branding and how the tide has shifted. He says you no longer control your company’s brand; your customers do.

Think about that for a second. You no longer control your company’s brand; your customers do.

It used to be that the big, Fortune 500 companies would spend millions of dollars on fancy advertising and huge global PR campaigns and years and years and years to tell their customers and prospective customers what they wanted them to think about the brand. If someone was happy with the product or service, they wouldn’t tell anyone. If they were unhappy, they’d tell five to 10 people and hope to get attention through a nastily written letter to the CEO that almost always went unanswered. Continue Reading »

Yesterday our newsletter focused on tips to begin to build your community. I thought I’d repost a portion of it here.

The time in the early life of social media has come where people are beginning to question if it’s valuable. Many of our clients, friends, and peers have mentioned to us that they don’t see it working and are about to give up.

But wait! Don’t give up yet!

The one thing we see in common with those telling us social media doesn’t work is they haven’t yet built their community.  Community, you ask?  Why do I need a community?

What is the first thing you do when you go to a networking event? And don’t say get a drink…that’s assumed.  If you know someone, you walk up to that person and let them introduce you to the people with whom they’re talking, right?  You find something in common with those people and you engage in conversation. At some point during the conversation, you decide if these people are going to refer business to you (or vice versa), if you’re going to do business together, or if you are going to become friends.

The same philosophy works in social media. You are building your community in order to gain referral sources, prospect for new business, recruit talent, and find like-minded people who help your knowledge base and wisdom grow.

With direct precision you can find your target audiences, your competitors, or industry experts.  Following are some tools to begin to build your community, by finding the right people to follow.

* Twellow is a directory of public Twitter accounts, with hundreds of categories and search features to help you find people who matter to you. Once you register, you can update your profile and categories, add links to your other social media profiles, and create an extended bio. You can also search for people in your city, state, region, industry, or by job title.

* With MrTweet, you can discover people, enhance your existing relationships, and be discovered by other people who are naturally relevant to you.

* If your target audiences are business owners and leaders, then ExecTweets is the tool for you to use. It allows you to search by industry and follow people who are on Twitter that are good targets for you.

* WeFollow allows you to type in different tags that help you find people who are great targets for you. For instance, you can search by company, industry, title, or interest/hobbies.

* If you haven’t already, download a desktop application, such as TweetDeck, PeopleBrowsr, or Hootsuite. As you begin to follow people, you’ll create groups to keep track of them. Your groups may include competitors, industry reporters, employees, your referral network, clients/customers, vendors, and/0r industry organizations.

By using these tools, following 10-30  at a time (then, after they follow you back, follow another 10-30), and beginning to network, you’ll be building your community one day at a time.  Most people say to us, “But no one is paying attention to what I’m saying!” Then we go to their Twitter stream and see that everything they’re posting is all about them and there aren’t any conversations happening.

If you look at this less as a way to get the word out about the great things you’re doing (initially) and more as a way to network and find new relationships in order to meet your business goals, you’ll see the value of social media in a month or less. You’ll be building a community of friends who want to help spread the word about the great things you’re doing.

What have I missed that you would include for those wanting to build their online communities?