by Miriam Hara | Apr 26, 2012 | Branding, Business Success
It use to be that Brand referred to product, but in today’s world, the use of brand has taken on new applications. I see a lot of reference to Personal branding and Inward branding. In fact I just recently read an interesting article on Forbes.com about Donald Trump, and the concept of the human brand. Have these terms been renamed to speak to the times and establish a sexier term for initiatives that were always around but never deemed as important as Product branding?
This post concentrates on Personal Brand. I will expand on Inward Branding in a separate post.
Whatever industry you play in… or work in, Personal Brand and Branding are increasingly important for you to achieve business success…but what does Personal Brand really mean anyway?
Personal: it’s you. It’s your personality. To bring up The Donald again, he IS his brand. In the world of social media and constant communication, it is increasingly important to brand yourself. You don’t have to be a public speaker, or a blogger, looking for a job or a celebrity, and still you need to brand yourself. Branding yourself personally provides you with a point of differentiation from others in the business arena.. so when you will need it, you can draw upon it. You need to build awareness of you. In short, you are the product. It’s your game face!
I believe marketers not only always knew this but they knew how to work their own style to create a personal brand. However business and sales managers and executive, although very business focused may not have been so personal brand savvy.
In today’s communication era the need to have a defined personal brand is no longer a nice to have… but a need to have. In order to stand apart, to get ahead, it is no longer okay to just have a name with a good solid handshake! Just like a product Brand….you have to have a persona, a way to make sure that you do not blend into the background.
Are you among those that are mystified by this new brand adjective? As I browse the my LinkedIn network, I find a lot of discussions about “personal brand”… What is it? How to own it? How to achieve it? It’s really not that hard, (says the marketer!). Think of yourself as a brand… Lululemon, Nike, Channel or whatever Brand gets you excited. Now take that excitement and turn it onto yourself. Ask these following questions: What makes me different (what talents do I have?) What do I want others to remember about me? How do I make myself stand apart?
Here’s a 3-step approach to creating your, yes, very own, personal brand:
1. It’s all about the first impression…. at first.
The informality of business has allowed for a multitude of possibilities to set you apart. Maybe it’s a certain style of clothing, or like me, wearing a distinct colour. Yes, I wear purple every time I see a client. Initially I started doing that to assist in branding my firm. I accomplished that but it has also become synonymous with me! Be careful not to go too overboard. Always be cognizant of whom you are meeting, what their style is like and what the “acceptable tone” of the company is. Standing apart doesn’t mean making a spectacle of yourself, it means you have to be assertive in your statement, without overpowering your statement with props and fanfare.
2. Leave something behind…with that first impression…
Top the incredible first impression with a business card to leave behind. This business card has your coordinates and a positioning statement that succinctly states what you can deliver on… on what sets you apart in the business arena. This is probably going to be a lot harder than deciding what clothes you have to wear! It’s difficult to describe yourself, your abilities and what you do in one sentence. Start by asking what makes you different from others? What experience can you state (professional and personal) that provides you with an edge? Reach out to your colleagues and business associates and ask what they see as your biggest strength.
3. As with product brands… you have to deliver the goods….
Each one of us has bought into a brand promise, whether it’s a service or a product, and have been disappointed. You know what I mean? The brand just didn’t live up to to its sizzle (brand promise). So be sure that doesn’t happen to you. In other words, you could look great, exude all the energy that sets you apart from others and make that first impression count. Top that fabulous first impression with an equally fabulous designed business card with that concise positioning statement and you have it made…. Or almost. You have to live up to your promise and to your uniqueness. You have to deliver on the sizzle and maintain the reputation that your Personal Brand is based on. And that’s the most important step in developing and establishing a Personal Brand and ensuring your business success.
Keep posted on the second part of this series about Inward Branding. I invite you to join in the conversation! If you got here via a link from a friend, or LinkedIn, I invite you to join the conversation on marketing, branding and design… sign up on 3H hoopla! here.
by Madi Secareanu | Apr 24, 2012 | Branding, Business Success, Interactive, Social Media
Just in time for spring, something new is in the air and it’s time for you and your business to BranchOut!
When my colleague Sal mentioned that he had been invited to join BranchOut, I wasn’t familiar with what it was. Was it a Facebook app? Was it a new network? No… it’s actually a free application that allows you to create a professional profile on Facebook! But, that’s not all it is… it offers Facebook users much more than that. Now that I was aware of it, I started seeing it everywhere. The Internet was buzzing with headlines about BranchOut being LinkedIn’s biggest competition. But back to our initial question, what exactly is it? Is is a LinkedIn me too?
With BranchOut, users can use their Facebook friend networks to find jobs, recruit employees, and strengthen relationships with professional contacts. BranchOut is quite simple. Users can find connections through their extended friend network. When users search for a company on BranchOut, they get a list of friends and friends-of-friends who work at that specific company and they can request to connect with them.
It differs from LinkedIn quite a bit, but there are some similarities as well.
The similarity to LinkedIn: Although it offers a networking opportunity, BranchOut seems to push the user’s ability to access jobs and recruit talent more than anything – building on the idea that landing a job depends on who you know.
The difference with LinkedIn: LinkedIn also has the job-recruiting element and also allows users to have and make an online professional network but it differs by encouraging users to participate in online networking through interest groups and company pages. This is also where brands and companies tend to have the most presence and the most success on LinkedIn.
What does BranchOut offer and what doesn’t it offer?
BranchOut, for now, does not seem to offer the ability to create interest groups or company groups. So, aside from recruiting, how can brands and marketers benefit from BranchOut?
For one, it’s worth having a presence on BranchOut. With over 400 million professional profiles, presence marketing on BranchOut is key. If you are an individual and you represent your brand, it’s worth expanding your reach…it’s another place to promote your brand and yourself while connecting with potential new clients or like-minded professionals. 3H is on BranchOut, you can connect with my colleague, and 3H CCO, Miriam Hara here.
Like all social media, I’m sure BranchOut will grow and evolve. The seeds have been planted but we’ll have to stay-turned and see how it evolves to meet our brand and marketing needs. What features do you think BranchOut should add in order for it to grow to benefit brands and marketers alike?
Join the conversation! Leave your comments below and subscribe to 3H hoopla! here!
by Madi Secareanu | Apr 16, 2012 | Advertising, Branding, Business Success, Creative, Interactive, Social Media
There’s no doubt that social media has changed the marketing landscape significantly within the last few years. There’s always something new; a new social networking site this year, a new app tomorrow, a new feature next week, a new enhancement next month…social media is constantly in flux. I think what makes it so successful is not only it’s ability to re-invent itself, but it’s ability to re-invent itself while keeping its core proposition intact – social media, for brands, for marketers, for individuals, helps tell a story.
What is social media storytelling?
The concept of brand storytelling is not a new one; it’s just also been re-invented to social media storytelling. Brands aim to take their consumers on an emotional journey by connecting with them, to create a demand by appealing to a consumer’s wants, needs and desires. That is the essence of social media storytelling. This connection is very important and partly the reason why social media has emerged as the ideal tool to tell the brand story and connect, more personally and more emotionally, with existing and potential customers.
Take a look at the new Facebook Timeline for example; it’s essentially a storyline. A storyline driven by the brand and enhanced by its followers. It’s about generating and amplifying stories, and because of this, timeline helps brands become better storytellers. How does it do this? Well getting people(followers) involved for one, they can help bring their own unique perspective to your brand, and helping facilitate that emotional bond between brand and consumer. But its layout is really what sets its ability to tell a story apart. Timeline speaks to a story about a brand’s history and its present but it’s designed with the future in mind. The bigger emphasis on visuals makes more impact – images often make better stories and the Millstones feature helps highlight important dates and facts that are essential to the brand’s (hi)story.
Pinterest, for example, is based on visuals. It tells a brand story through images, and how far can a brand go if the only images they feature are product images? With Pinterest, brands must show the bigger picture (pun intended). What inspires the brand? What type of lifestyle does the brand fit into? Pinterest is about going beyond the product and about creating a more complete story around a brand, visually.
Let’s not forget Twitter. It’s immediacy has been the reason brands have had such success with it – it helps brands tell quick and interesting stories while connecting with followers on a more personal level. I, for one, love when I tweet about a brand and they immediately acknowledge it by commenting or retweeting – I feel like they care about my story and how it fits into theirs.
Every brand has a story, and social media is here to help tell it in a more engaging way. How do you help contribute to the brand story through social media storytelling?
by Madi Secareanu | Apr 9, 2012 | Advertising, Branding, Business Success, Creative, Interactive, Social Media
On or around March 30th, you may have noticed that Facebook has automatically changed your brand page to Timeline. While some were resistant to the change, let’s remember that if we don’t move forward, we get left behind and for brands on Facebook, hopping on board and getting to know the new Timeline is imperative. The nature of the Facebook brand page has changed so here are some of the pros and cons of the new Timeline for brands: Pros
- Visuals Traditionally social media has focused on words, but as we’ve seen with Pinterest, visuals are starting to have a more significant impact. With Timeline, brands now have more visual space to work with. There is now a large cover photo, a profile photo and larger photo stories. Brands can also pin images to the top of the Timeline. Apps are also now visually represented under your cover photo. This is very valuable for consumer engagement and creating a dynamic page.
- Highlighting and Pinning A great opportunity for brands to showcase important content and engage followers. By pinning a story or an image, it automatically gets priority on your page, remaining at the top of the timeline for up to 5 days. It lets important posts “cut through the clutter” and drives attention to what’s new or what’s important to your brand’s followers.
- About The “About Us” section has been given a facelift. Right below your cover and profile photos you now have a small “About” space where you can write an engaging description about your brand. The “About” link found right below this description takes you to a page where you can share more comprehensive information about your brand.
Cons
- No more default landing tab Currently working on several Facebook campaigns, I’ve realized that the loss of the default landing tab has really changed the way brands can drive people to their Facebook pages and promotions. Facebook has taken away the privilege of putting promotions, welcome pages, or other customized apps as default landing pages. Brands have to get creative – and use the available features to support and promote Facebook campaigns on Timeline.
- Cover Photo Restrictions Putting restrictions over the kinds of images that brands can use in their cover photo can be a good thing if they are limiting offensive and inappropriate content. However, Facebook has restricted the option to encourage new followers to “Like” a brand, show promotional and brand information or use a call to action in a cover photo. Considering that the default landing page option has also been removed, a cover photo without these restrictions could have been a useful area for brands to showcase new and exciting promotions or important information.
At 3H, we’ve embraced the new timeline. But what do you think of the new Facebook Timeline for brands: Like? Or Dislike? Does it give brands more or less opportunities to successfully market themselves on Facebook?
by Miriam Hara | Apr 5, 2012 | Advertising, Branding, Business Success, Creative, Social Media
Is the way we are communicating SAFE? Has the less “physical” interaction that we are now all adopting with so much enthusiasm curtailed our ability to develop original thinking and thought provocative inventions and innovations? Has being faceless allowed us to be impolite, rude and COLD?
Humans have never been more “social” then in the present… and yet, recently, on a discussion I posted on Linkedin, I received one statement that left me quite chilled! My discussion point was very succinct: Is the way we communicate digitally impacting negatively on the way we network in business or not? This discussion topic, based on a post to our company blog Hoopla, written by one of my colleagues about the “social in social media.”
With the onslaught of social media, the ability to communicate has never been easier nor more immediate. But does more mean less? Is the quality of the communication and the connection as important or as necessary as it was in the past, a mere 2 or 3 years ago? Has our ability to be considerate been diminished by the fact that we can be impersonal. That we are one step removed from the person trying to connect with us. No longer is a voice or a face to the conversation reminding us that there is a person at the other end of the communication. We have become fonts and letters.
In my original discussion, there was much conversation over how relevant the Connections were and that having replaced the “personal” in the interaction with a computer screen that communication has become faceless. The one comment that I previously referred to was stated by a fellow group member from the Marketing Executives Group, Caron Hughs , and it is the one I really would like your opinion on. This statement is the reason for this post.
“… There are few left who practice manners in acknowledging a phone call, or an email. It is far easier to ignore someone’s plea for help if you are not looking into their eyes. It is far easier to miss a career changing proposal because you are too busy to read an email or return a phone call. We are becoming a very SAFE society in the way we communicate … and there are no manners, or “outside of the box” thinking in our communications. We choose to respond to what is safe and what is familiar … and from that the great new ideas that could be born to life in a collaborative effort are fading away. Even in entertainment … could there be any more remakes from stories of old or copycat competitions born from the original’s success?”
When I read her comment, it made me realize how much of what she said is accurate. You only have to look to fashion, listen to music, look at design and see how re-inventing the old has become the norm. Where is the trend-setting? What is new and novel? Even Lady Gaga… has taken so much of Madonna… in attitude but also in sound and music. Madonna was the first, Micheal Jackson was a first, the Beatles were a first and so were the Rolling Stones. They were and are original. They made the moves. They struck the cords. They established the trends. Okay, so that is music…. what about fashion? Dare I say sunglasses…. big buggy sunglasses, or how about the new Aviator look? And let’s speak to design… Retro is in!!! Yes indeed… everything new… well, isn’t.
So has social media and the ease of communication lessened our ability to think outside the box because we spend so much time staring into a frame….so to speak?
What are your thoughts on this?
