Not Just Another Post About Social Media Overload, but Instead About Our Ability to Actually Comprehend

With all the chatter on the Twitter Machine (230 million tweets are sent each day), the constant barrage of Facebook updates (30 billion pieces of content shared monthly), seemingly unstoppable Foursquare check-ins (2 million every 24 hours), eMail SPAM messages (estimated at 262 billion a day), the explosion of blogs (171 million to date) and their respective posts (900,000 articles published daily), are we losing our ability as a society and as brand managers to listen and comprehend? Possibly.

What’s More Important — Hearing or Listening?

A friend Gregg Voss of the BrandEmpire Blog, poses the following question: ‘What’s More Important – Hearing or Listening? He cites the example of a Twitter colleague who recently tweeted a message to a vendor reminding them to “be nice to customers like him because they can hold the key to other opportunities.” The post clearly implied that something had previously gone awry between the two parties. The vendor’s response Tweet contained a “thank-you for the compliment.” The vendor obviously wasn’t listening.

The Definitions of “Hear” and “Listen”

Dictionary.com defines the word “Hear” as:

• to receive information by the ear or otherwise

And defines the word “Listen” as:

• to pay attention

With all of the ways we and the brands we represent can now interact with customers, are we losing our ability to listen, understand and respond appropriately, as in the example above?

Our Ten Commandments for Effective Client Service

Recently we published a post outlining our agency’s “Ten Commandments For Effective Client Service.” Among our ‘Commandments’ are practices we consider essential to fostering and maintaining successful business relationships. However, the concept of “Listening to Clients” was edited out of the list as we thought we’d covered it in other areas. But Gregg’s post illustrated why it was a mistake to leave it out. And it may actually be the most important of all our ‘Commandments.’

Bad Customer Service is Bad Brand Management

Customer service is sorely lacking in brands across the board. Currently, I’m trying to have a dishwasher fixed, for the 4th time. It was purchased at a big box store. A 2nd big box store provided an extended service agreement. And I’ve found the process and customer service offered by this 2nd retailer unacceptable. Now, I’m waiting impatiently for the agreement to expire so I can replace the appliance and be done with them. My frustration with this brand stems from a breakdown in their ability to provide effective customer service, as evidenced by their inability to actually “listen” to issues raised and subsequently resolve them.

Brand Focus Should be on Listening and Comprehension

With a myriad of ways that brands interact with customers via social media, it’s crucial they make the extra effort to actually listen. Listening takes more time and energy than hearing. Because we’re becoming used to hearing in 10 second soundbites and communicating via 140-character mini-messages, the effort required to listen to what is being said in the social world is more important than ever.

Every brand must ensure they’re listening and understanding what they’re hearing from their customers in order to act appropriately on that knowledge.

In a world where Tweets, Updates, Shares, Check-Ins and Stumblings rule, we can’t permit the art of comprehension to slip away from us. Among the endless daily chatter and information overload, it’s up to us as professional brand managers to make sure our efforts are focused in the right direction.

Is Creativity Counterintuitive to the Business Community?

On a basic instinctual level, our whole purpose for life as human beings is to survive and thrive. What that means has been different throughout time. In the modern world, survival is living happily; enjoying the company of friends and family; finding a job–any job these days–hopefully one that challenges us professionally without causing too much stress; and being able to put enough food on the table to feed our kids. So, if our instinct is to survive and hopefully thrive, then it’s completely counterintuitive to human behavior to voluntarily jump off a cliff.

The pursuit of truly creative ideas is just like hurdling oneself over the edge of a cliff and free falling. And, it’s as counterintuitive to self-preservation, professionally speaking, as is BASE Jumping from a 10,000 foot mountain peak.

Creativity Is Not for the Weak-Willed

Not for the squeamish, the task of developing innovative and inspired marketing concepts can be considered dangerous. It instills downright terror in the hearts of many a brand manager or marketing pro. Some don’t even attempt it, preferring to maintain the status quo. Others would rather someone else first take the risk; choosing later to read about competitor successes in industry pubs like AdAge, HOW or Communication Arts.

Like BASE Jumping, the pursuit of creative innovation can be dangerous, costly, and challenging, but also entertaining, exhilarating and supremely rewarding when properly executed.

1. It’s Inherently Risky

It’s common, among the unadventurous, to avoid taking their lives into their own hands and leaping from a mountaintop. Developing innovative creative can be a risky undertaking, especially for less-enterprising marketers. Pushing the envelope on creativity crosses the line of comfort for many. Doing so entails potentially risking your professional career, often giving even the most seasoned brand manager night sweats. When considering stepping off the creative ledge, it’s important to have a professional creative team that understands your business and is invested in your brand. To develop truly innovative ideas, it’s crucial to have partners who have the ability to lead you safely through the process and appropriately deliver on your brand promise.

2. It Can Be an Expensive Undertaking

BASE jumping is by no means cheap. Those awesome looking wingsuits that make you look like Rocky the Flying Squirrel can set you back several thousand dollars alone. Then there’s parachutes. Head gear. Travel costs and more. Developing inspired creative, executing graphic design, building web apps, and securing media placements has the potential of busting your budget.

Creative development is considered a luxury for many businesses, primarily the smaller ones. Others question the inherent value of forking over money to pay for it. But in order for a brand to remain relevant in a world where we’re bombarded by innovative creative, it’s more necessity than luxury. You must invest the appropriate amount of dollars and time into developing creative for your brand. Otherwise your message is likely to be drowned out by the media cacophony.

Budgeting for creative development is frequently low on the priority list for small businesses. It’s just the opposite for the big brands. If nothing else, that should tell you if you seek to control the message, you first need to be heard.

3. It’s a Challenge Getting There

You don’t just wake up, get out of bed and leap from El Capitan. Unless you spent the prior night on the face of a rock wall, which is another challenge altogether. And you don’t get outstanding creative “Click, Bang, Zoom.” The process takes time. There’s planning. Collection of consumer insight. Strategy sessions. Creative brainstorms. Establishment of goals. Definition of measurement criteria. And more. The creative process is like preparing for a long climb up a shear rock wall. It requires planning. You need the right tools. You need to plan a careful and thoughtful path. Work your way to the jump point. Psych yourself up. And then run toward the precipice and let fly. It’s the “fly” part of the process that everyone is most excited about, but it can’t be rushed.

4. Don’t Chicken out at Last Minute

Even the most experienced BASE Jumpers still experience a twinge of fear, no matter how fleeting, just before letting go. It’s normal to question whether actually jumping into the chasm facing them is a good idea after all. Once you’re there, the prospect of decidedly sprinting toward the edge and off, beyond the comfort zone is something most creative teams struggle with. The secret is not to question a decision already made. Remember, your gut once told you this path was a great idea. And, you’ve done your due diligence in planning. But now, your gut is telling you the opposite. That ain’t your gut talking. That’s fear. Don’t listen, or it’ll take you back to the comfort of your cushy sofa of mediocrity.

5. The Final Results are Exhilarating

Then there’s the payoff. The rush of free fall. The satisfaction of landing on both feet with your head held high. Your goals are realized. Customers are storming your website. The telephone rings off the hook with qualified leads. Your products are flying off the shelves. You get that nod from your boss. Or even better, your competitors. You took the risk, and your efforts paid off. Truly relevant, innovative creative generates measurable results. And, a job well done is truly an exhilarating experience.

Giving Credit for Inspiring This Post

Giving credit where it’s due, inspiration for this post came from Camp 4 Collective and Jimmy Chin whose innovative talents have resulted in this amazing video shot in Yosemite National Park while on assignment for National Geographic. And also to our friend Thomas Marzano for originally sharing the video link with us on Twitter. You can follow Thomas yourself @ThomasMarzano.

Where the Heck Does This Social Media Thing Fit In?

Social media activities should be viewed as tactics that enhance a brand’s overall marketing efforts, not as a new tool replacing traditional methods of promotion. While social media has forever changed the landscape of marketing, beware the thousands of self-proclaimed social media experts, gurus, and authorities offering up opinion on using social media as a substitute for traditional marketing tools.

Has Social Media Replaced Advertising?

The short answer is no. Shouting advertisements at your customer base on social media platforms just doesn’t work. No one in the Twitterverse or on Facebook wants to be bombarded by direct advertising messages couched in 140 character tweets or wall-clogging updates.

For most businesses large or small, advertising continues to be the primary method to effectively generate awareness for your brand. This is not going to change. Social media hasn’t, nor will it, replace traditional advertising, whether your “tradition” is print or digital.

However It Has Made It Better

To be fair, social media platforms have fundamentally changed the way that brands advertise. Social media has made advertising more effective by providing better audience targeting, increasing overall advertising impressions and ad effectiveness. Social media platforms integrate analytics and measurement tools that help marketers adjust campaigns based on the message that works best. As a tactic, social media will not replace advertising, so next year’s budgets should still include marketing dollars for traditional advertising as well as social. Where the ad dollars are spent — outdoor, print, digital, etc. – will depend more on the nature of your business, not on your social media activities.

Social Media Has Forever Changed Public Relations

Back when Edward Bernays started the Public Relations industry, industry professionals carefully crafted and controlled messages in an effort to influence consumer perception, generally via unpaid methods like media placements. PR spinmakers of the past could maintain a stranglehold grip on a message, but in the social media enabled world PR is a new beast altogether.

PR firms have had to refine their efforts, accepting that brand messages are no longer controlled by agents of the brand, but rather are heavily influenced by consumers using platforms like Yelp!, Google Places, and Facebook. As a result, social media tactics are crucial to the tool of public relations. In order to control the message, PR mavens and social community managers must build relationships with a brand’s consumer base where that base congregates on the web, in order to have an impact on how a brand is perceived.

Social Media is Great for Sales Incentives

After Public Relations, offering sales incentives is likely the next best fit for your social media activities. There are social media venues where sales promotions are effective, including both Facebook and Foursquare. Facebook is rife with examples of B2C brand marketing that develops and nurtures a brand-loyal following open to receiving special promos. Coupon sharing and product deals remain some of the most prolific Facebook updates, and have proven success to quickly and efficiently grow a qualified consumer fanbase.

The Power of Social Proofing and Foursquare

And since everyone wants to be the mayor of something or other on Foursquare, the platform offers a unique way to connect with your customers. Relying heavily on the concept of Social Proofing, Foursquare works on a very basic premise — that people are more inclined to support one product or business over another when that product or business is supported by the masses.

By using geolocation tools, Foursquare allows users to scan nearby businesses, viewing exactly how many others (both friends and strangers) have “checked-in” to each business, thus psychologically influencing their choice to patronize one business over another based on sheer numbers of supporters — social proofing. When faced with the option, wouldn’t you choose the full restaurant over the empty one next door? We are creatures of habit, easily influenced by the habits of others. And, Foursquare brilliantly makes use of this phenomenon.

The Bad Marriage of Social Media and Personal Selling

Social media platforms have not historically been good venues for direct or personal selling. However, social media tactics are quite effective when developing general brand awareness, extending customer service activities and overall networking; ideally leading to direct sales. Of course, depending on your business, some social media platforms are more effective than others for such activities. B2C businesses will likely find a better fit with Facebook and Twitter over LinkedIn. Whereas LinkedIn is the #1 tool for B2B networking activities.

Whatever the platform, your activities should focus on developing community. To decide which is best for your particular business, you should probably find an integrated agency that understands that social media activities are tactics, and not tools, that can help you connect with your audience wherever they may be on the web.

Social Media is a Tactic, Not a Tool

We view social media activities as extremely effective tactics that must be part of your arsenal in order for your marketing efforts to be successful. This view won’t make us popular with social media-only agencies, but we strongly believe that social media tactics should be utilized to connect with your audience and reinforce your brand’s promotional elements across your marketing mix. Social media is not meant as a replacement for other activities, but rather a necessary and valuable enhancement to those activities.

After the Social Media Honeymoon

As we move beyond the honeymoon phase with social media, agencies and professional marketers who rely solely on social media as a tool will either cease to exist or will find it necessary to adjust their focus. If you’re working with a strictly social media agency, you’ll likely be looking for a new agency next year.

Small Biz Marketing Learning Curve Still Too High

As an agency hired to provide professional marketing counsel to our clients, we work with businesses large and small. As expected, the big guys have a much better handle on the concepts of brand management and marketing. But the learning curve for small businesses still seems to be a bit high.

It doesn’t take long to figure out that many small business owners don’t understand the basics of marketing in today’s digital age. Here’s our all-time top 3 things that most small business owners fail to understand when building their brand.

1. Thinking That a Logo is a Brand

Creating a professional looking logo is probably one of the first steps that small business owners undertake when developing their brand. And then they stop.

While it’s true your logo will be your unique visual identifier, developing your brand properly goes way beyond an icon and typography. To develop your brand the right way you must identify your unique offering, create a brand story around your offering, deliver on your promise to your customers and always practice what your brand message preaches. And you need to do this consistently, over and over and over.

If all your brand development effort includes is installing a nice logo above your door and printing the same on business cards and sales brochures, you need to take a longer look at the story your business tells — which is the essence of your brand.

2. Developing a Static Website

Static websites, sometimes called Brochureware, were common in the days of Internet 1.0 when businesses everywhere re-purposed existing printed sales materials, reconfigured them in some digital format, placed them online and voilà a website was born. This type of website no longer makes the cut.

Every website developed today for any business large or small needs to be a content-rich publishing hub that serves as the central point from which to push your marketing initiatives from and direct all inbound activities to. Without a modern, social media enabled, search engine optimized website that’s updated frequently your business will not be found through organic search. Proper site management and SEO activities are long-term, ongoing activities whose value cannot be overstated. The best way to develop a content rich business hub is to include a blog on your site, encourage social media sharing of your content and stimulate open, uncensored feedback.

If you want to drive your customers to your competition, then by all means rely on the old stand-by and build a static website.

3. Ignoring Social Media

Considered the least expensive method of marketing, social media sharing on sites like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn are essential for any brand large or small operating in the modern digital age.

If your business isn’t actively using social media, you’re going to miss the boat on the best method to communicate your brand messages to your audiences. But don’t be fooled into thinking that social media activities are going to be easy. This type of marketing takes lots of time and effort.

The primary barriers for small business owners breaking into social media are 1.) lack of understanding and 2.) lack of available internal resources. The web is awash with information about social media. Search Google for information about Inbound Marketing. Create a LinkedIn account and join any one of a number of social media networking groups. There are plenty of resources at your fingertips to learn what you need to know to succeed. If you don’t have the resources to handle the level of work social media requires, partner with an external vendor that understands your business and gets your brand. Such a group will be able to get your up and running and help with ongoing community management.

If you want to make sure you’re business is a failure, ignore social media.

What is a Brand?

Branding can be an intangible concept. It’s not something you can hold in your hand. It’s much more than a sign. Or a collection of fancy fonts arranged into a newly-coined phrase. And while, when done well, it’s worth a thousand words, Branding consists of way more than some interesting photography.

Many Small and Medium Businesses (SMBs) still don’t have a good handle on what exactly their Brand is or should be. That shouldn’t be much of a surprise; after all, there are still members of my family who don’t get what I do. Holiday dinners sure are interesting. No matter how many conversations are had about the concept of Branding, I’m still met with my fair share of confused looks and vacant stares, resulting in the general consensus that I must do “something” in “Advertising.” Advertising is much easier to wrap one’s heads around.

Despite the holiday confusion, here’s the first in a series of articles attempting to explain — in the most basic terms — what Branding is and what it is not.

1. Your Logo Alone is Not Your Brand

Many SMBs think their logo is their brand. Perhaps this misconception is a holdover from the Wild West when it was common for cowboys to burn the name of their ranch into the hides of their livestock.

This practice of identifying cattle is a good place to start, since our modern understanding of “Brand” and “Branding” comes specifically from these acts of cruelty. And, as holiday dinners have shown, explaining Branding can be a cruel affair itself. Back in the day, livestock ranchers in need of a way to distinguish their product from their competitor’s, decided to brand their cattle with a unique identifier. Today we call this unique identifier a logo or, more appropriately, a Brand Identity. And while your Brand Identity visually identifies your business, it alone is not your company’s Brand.

Generally, a Brand Identity consists of a combination of elements including a font for your company name and possibly a snazzy graphical element. A logo is designed to be easily recognized and to succinctly state what it is your company offers. An effective Brand Identity should only be created after careful consideration of your overall Brand position, as the ID should reflect all aspects of what your Brand truly represents.

But don’t stop there. Just because you now have a Brand Identity, your Branding work is far from over.

2. Your Tagline Alone in Not Your Brand

A Tagline is, generally, a catchy phrase that’s used in conjunction with your Brand Identity to communicate in greater detail what your business does. It’s yet another of the many elements that make up your Brand. And like your logo, a Tagline alone will not hold up as your company’s overarching Brand.

Creating a Tagline that works for your business is simply the next of several steps in the Branding process. As with everything, some Taglines accomplish this better than others. For instance, what does “Denny’s. A good place to sit and eat.” or “Bacardi Spice. Distilled in Hell.” say to you? Perhaps Denny’s has comfortable booths? Or Bacardi Spice is too dangerous to touch? However poorly they’ve been done, these taglines are attempting to give us a sense of personality for each company, and why you might choose them over a competitor. And there’s another bad favorite of ours from Jimmy Dean Sausages: “Eat Jimmy Dean.” We’ll just agree to leave that one alone.

Even the savviest marketers can get it wrong. But at least we’re going to understand the ultimate goal, even when we miss the mark. So while your Tagline isn’t the epitome of your Brand, it will help define your business.

3. Your Color Palette Alone is Not Your Brand

In 1939, the Wizard of Oz hit theater screens everywhere. The movie utilized color in an all-new way; at least for the time. The action changes from plain old black-and-white Kansas to a Technicolor dream when Dorothy lands in an alternate universe. This was the first ever use of full color in movies. And ever since then, we’ve been color-obsessed.

Every Brand is faced with how it’s going to differentiate itself from its competitors. And one of the most effective ways to accomplish this is through the use of color. However, color palette alone is also not a Brand. Visually, a color palette is chosen specifically to complement and support your overall Brand positioning in the marketplace. And it’s also often the single element that ensures consistency throughout all your marketing and communications efforts.

But don’t fool yourself into thinking it’s easy. There’s a lot a strategy behind choosing colors for a Brand. Many of which are based on your market segment, principles of psychology, cultural influences, and the science of color theory. Different colors affect us differently; and colors have different meaning depending on culture, psychology or as a result of generational influence. When selecting colors, your Brand will benefit from the advice of a professional who understands the process.

And, there’s still much more work to come.

Now What?

In an attempt to save money, it’s common for SMB owners to take on Branding efforts themselves. This can be a bad idea. Decisions regarding Brand Identity design, color palette and copywriting can often be affected by personal preference and emotion, rather than critical business thinking. A fully-developed Brand for your business should take into account who you are as a company, but also who your customers are and why they choose you over your competitors. Creating a Brand is not like selecting paint for your walls. Just because you love fushsia doesn’t mean it’s a good choice for the your new men’s clothing line.

When developing your Brand, hire marketing and graphic design professionals who fully understand branding and can lead you through the process. Just because your nephew did a good job on the signs for last year’s prom, doesn’t mean he’s going to be able to build your Brand for you.