September 1st, 2009
Social media has swung the pendulum back from traditional media’s focus solely on the brand as king. The peasants are fed up with their tyrranical ruler and demand to be heard. These followers and friends are storming the social media castle of web 2.0. They’re not standing for anything less than full court with the King of the land. What the King has to say depends on how long he’ll stay on his throne.
Today’s landscape is a volatile one at best with the economy in an upheaval, jobs in question, and general unsureness all across the land. People want to feel security from somewhere. This is when they look to what they love and trust: your brand.
The unsettled state of the world coupled with the proliferation of real-time social tools have now given the peasants their pitchforks and torches they need to be heard. The unsureness of your customer’s environment plus new technological tools to communicate directly faster equals the perfect storm.
Your customer today doesn’t just want instant access answers, they DEMAND it. With all of the old ways failing them each and every day, they are increasingly latching on to new ways of communicating, thinking and purchasing. You don’t tell them what to do, they tell you.
History is littered with the corpses of Kings who forgot what makes them Kings: their subjects. Without a kingdom you can not be a king. Likewise, without customers you will not have a product or brand to sell – you’ll just go out of business.
This is why your customer is king. That’s ALWAYS been a given. The only thing that’s changed is that now your customer has access to tools through social media to feel empowered to affect the change they’ve always wanted but have felt discouraged to do so.
Keeping this in consideration, I have a panel on Social Customer Relationship Management (sCRM) in the South by Southwest (SXSW) panelpicker that you can vote on. Brian Solis has been kind enough to collaborate with me in crafting this panel & gathering some of the top minds in this area , including himself.
Social CRM: Managing Conversations to Protect/Shape Brands
An in-depth discussion of how social media networks & tools like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and blogs are important to brand customer relationship management. Who should be heading up these efforts, what rules they need to abide by and what companies are getting it right/wrong will be looked into. In the social Web, a brand’s perception reputation is in the hands of the new influencers – those customers, peers, and prospects who leverage social media to voice their views, opinions, and questions. It’s how you discover and engage in these discussions that determine the brand’s resonance.
- What is Social CRM and how is it different than CRM or CRM 2.0?
- Who owns the conversation? Who is responsible for sCRM if Social Media is cluttering the internal marketing landscape (PR, Marketing, Interactive)?
- How is the infrastructure of CRM adapting to incorporate the “now” or real-time web?
- What are the new roles required for sCRM?
- What are the advantages and disadvantages of offshoring vs. nearshoring?
- How does an organization justify the less costly form of inbound-focused customer service to outbound CRM and ORM?
- Is there value in engaging everyone on the social web?
- How can companies change and adapt internally to reduce the negative chatter, thus reducing required responses?
- How should a brand manage a crisis about them in social media?
- How much transparency does a brand need to have in social media in respect to government agency regulations?
Tags: benefit, brand, branding, business, communicating, consumer, consumers, conversation, customer relationship management, Facebook, follower, followers, friends, instant access, interactions, knowledge, life, marketing, networking, pendulum, perfect storm, productivity, proliferation, scrm, selling, social, social media, south by southwest, sxsw, technological tools, twitter, unsettled state, upheaval, Value
Posted in business, featured, social media | No Comments »
August 14th, 2009
Frustrations have arisen as of late- yet again- with some notable bloggers on Twitter with autoDMs. I used to autoDM that I autofollowed them but since Twitter exploded with spammers I had to stop that. In a compromised network it’s not about the tactics they use but who you allow in your personal network.
The private Direct Message (or DM) is an extremely valuable tool for having timely sensitive conversations without exchanging emails. The conversation ecosystem breaks down when you allow anyone at all to connect with you. Allowing someone into your life is a privilege that shouldn’t be given out lightly.
Selective selection
My good friend & guest blogger Anaiis Flox once said to me that she’d rather give the keys to her house to someone than give them her website password. In an online world of ambient intimacy and unabashed public living in social media, your network reflects your value & worth. In other words, you are who you tweet.
There’s an old saying that goes, show me your closest 4 friends and I can tell you all about yourself. Of course I’m paraphrasing but the sentiment is still the same. Your personal brand is comprised of how you look, what you say, how you hold yourself, what you do and who you choose to associate with.
Connecting to everyone
Connecting with anyone online regardless of who they are is the offline equivalent to talking to anyone and everyone that comes into your view. With billions of people in this world (many unsavory) we can’t possibly speak to everyone we encounter everywhere. This is why we set up guidelines to who and in what capacity we’ll engage someone. Online is no different.
Today even spammers, multi-level marketers (MLM) and robots have accounts that have tens of thousands of followers. This is due to autofollowing and pump & dump tactics. You may have quantity but do you have quality? Numbers play a factor in how many people you are able to reach but they are not the only factor nor are they the most important factor to your intrinsic value.
Auto-caring
If you’ve connected with thousands upon thousands of people who all want to broadcast to you then who’s really listening to your message? Casting a wide net will net you some fish but are they the right type of fish or even up to your standards?
In Twitter you have no one to blame but yourself for the autoDM. I admit some spammy people get through every now and then on my account but when they do I immediately unfollow them. I’m not so concerned about autoDMs as I am about mentionspam. While I choose who to allow to private message me I have no control over who mentions my @ name.
Mention Spam
For more prominent higher-profile twitterers this can potentially be a huge problem. The more valuable you are to larger amounts of people that follow you the more likely they are to talk to you. Raise your profile and value enough then you are more likely to attract spammers who openly broadcast to you by attaching your Twitter name to their spammy message. A messy situation indeed.
What can you do to combat the spam?
Be selective about who you connect with. Remember it’s the depth of each relationship that will raise your value much farther than the breadth of your entire network alone.
Be proactive when curating your community. If someone is spamming your public stream then do something about it. Block them, let @spam know & ask your network to do the same.
Your network is only as good as you allow it to be. If someone is going against general accepted standards of the network you’ve curated then let them know. Be a part of the solution not the problem.
Tags: autoDM, autofollow, billions, bloggers, communicating, communication, communications, conversation, core values, Direct Message, DM, ecosystem, follower, followers, following, frustrations, good friend, interactions, intimacy, marketing, mlm, networking, personal brand, personal network, privilege, robots, selling, sensitive conversations, sentiment, social media, spam, twitter, valuable tool, Value, website password
Posted in featured, social media | No Comments »
July 12th, 2009
Twitter has gained widespread recognition from media outlets, celebrities and brands among others. There are certain brands that already have a well-known presence on Twitter like @WholeFoods , @JetBlue , and @Starbucks. Now because of the exposure more brands find value in this “social network” but don’t know how to go about utilizing social media tools.
Some have resorted to buying Twitter followers. Some have enlisted Twitterers to get paid for their tweets with Magpie and Adjix. The latest to throw their hat in this ring is Ted Murphy and IZEA with @Spontwts.
@Spontwts is a program where you can signup to allow advertisers to pitch you offers for you to tweet. I learned about this from a tweet from @tedmurphy which said that a celebrity made $2,500 from a single sponsored tweet.
Danny Brown wrote up an article about this. He’s “neither here nor there on the topic as long as it’s handled properly.” I tend to agree with him. Promoting something is generally neutral. How it’s done is what sets it apart.
People generally are adverse to this because of Magpie. Magpie promoted itself in an invasive manner, Any message that doesn’t take your target audience into account can run afoul of them. No one wants to see a blatantly promotional ad for a service that has nothing to do with your or their interests. That’s where Magpie went wrong. This is where Spontwts can benefit.
People want relevance. As long as the advertisers you choose align with what you already consume and subscribe to there should be no problem. I personally promote Mountain Dew on Twitter (@mtn_dew) whenever it’s naturally possible. That’s the key: NATURALLY possible.
I enjoy Mountain Dew in my life & I share my experiences with the brand on Twitter often. I can guarantee you that some of my followers do NOT share my passion for Mountain Dew, yet they accpt it /enjoy it/ engage with me on it. Why? Because I have PASSION for it. Regardless of what it is, they see that I’m genuine about it and THAT is why it works.
Spontwts is about how you use it. If a user accepts any and all offers from advertisers the service becomes a firehose. ANYTHING is a nuisance when used that way. It’s all about timing, relevancy and precision.
The brands you subscribe to and promote become part of your brand. The more value you provide through sharing & helping the more people are willing to ‘buy’ what you are ‘selling‘. Tip the balance too much one way, you become an annoying shill.
Curating their users, advertisers, and tweet frequency/volume will ultimately make or break their service. Some on Twitter go for quantity, others, quality. Only a select few go for quantity of quality.
A couple of items of note:
- Sponsored Tweets only allows you to choose one category from a select sample: Business/Finance, Entertainment, Family, Food, General, Health, Marketing, Technology, Travel.
- You can further specify what types of offers you want to receive by tagging your profile with up to 10 keywords.
- Notification by e-mail or DM but not both.
- Either you or the advertiser can write the tweet (not sure if you can change their writing after the fact).
- There is a pre-set ‘Charge per tweet’ and ‘Charge per click’ that you can change, yet no formula is given to give you scope to gauge it on.
- A ‘Content rating’ area is also available for you to rate your tweets (Everyone, Mature, Adults-only), although if you’re like me, tweets can be all over the board.
One clarification provided by IZEA:
Sponsored Tweets will not auto inject ads into your stream. Each tweet must be approved by you before it gets released. Our goal is to provide you with quality ads that you are comfortable with.
Some final thoughts:
Sponsored Tweets add #spon onto the end as to distinguish that it’s a sponsored tweet. IZEA is also working out some technical issues like sponsored tweet DMs being truncated, thus cutting off vital information from advertisers.
Overall I believe that Ted Murphy and IZEA is onto something here. When you are allowed to preselect your content for your intended audience the ultimate onus falls on you as the selector. This is what sets apart a quality Twitter account from a spammy one and every shade of grey in between.
As I have used Twitterfeed to inject some of the best content I have preselected from the web, so will I try out Sponsored Tweets to see if the advertisers and quality are up to my followers’ standards. I have faith in the community that I have built to tell me if it works for them or not, and I in turn will process that information and act on it.
Trust is gained over time and destroyed in a moment. Be careful with it. It is best to use a scalpel not a machete when dealing with trust concerns and your brand.
Tags: advertisers, benefit, brand, branding, business, celeb, celebrities, consumer, consumers, core values, danny brown, experiment, feelings, follower, followers, frien, friends, functionality, goals, instances, interactions, invasive manner, jetblue, magpie, marketing, media outlets, media tools, mountain dew, network, networking, presence, relevance, selling, social media, starbucks, target audience, technology, ted murphy, tweet, tweets, twitter, Value
Posted in branding, featured, life, social media | 1 Comment »
July 1st, 2009
© dbking
(Originally posted at Lisa Hickey’s The Hurricane Inside My Brain)
Gain 7 billionity followers! Make 80 trillionity by doing this!
We’re all concerned about being liked and being comfortable with money. These are two common insecurities that people prey on, especially much more so now in social media than ever. Thinking that way is the old wide fish-net push way of marketing. Here’s how Twitter can be maximized so you can get the most out of it, personally AND professionally.
Man in the mirror
Who do you want to surround yourself with in your life? How do you want to be viewed by others? These are questions that should be on your mind constantly, offline AND online.
The noise won’t stop
When you follow people on Twitter that don’t mean anything to your network (i.e. the other people you’ve connected with) what you end up with is a group of tweets that are disconnected. The conversation is almost schizophrenic. No one knows each other. Your stream is rushing past you like class 5 rapids.
Hey now you’re a ROCKSTAR get your game on go play
Maybe you CAN keep up with 80 thousand followers with your magical desktop sorting application, but I doubt it. The way you’re keeping up with them is not really getting to know them. Most likely what you’re doing is scanning for information, retweeting interesting information, replying to some random interesting tweets & monitoring your @ mentions and DMs for people talking to you.
Social media is about community. I dare you to tell me how the above situation represents community. What it feels more like is a old switchboard telephone operator. Maybe this works for you. Congratulations. This doesn’t work for me anymore.
I’m popularrrr
Recently I had conversations with Connie Reece (@ConnieReece) and Lucretia Pruitt (@GeekMommy) about how there is no way any of us can properly keep up with such a huge group of people on Twitter. Connie recently resorted to making her Twitter profile private to slow down the follow/unfollow game that Twitter numbers gamers play. I have taken a slightly different approach.
Instead of just unfollowing people en masse I am unfollowing on a case by case basis according to pre-set guidelines I judge a twitter account to be suitable for connecting with. In laymens terms, if you suck you’re gone. I am also mostly following just those I’ve met offline first through my other social media friends. One RARE exception to that stipulation is if you follow me then engage me actively and I find your stream valuable. This is rare because most people don’t take the time to interact when they first add. This is the ‘hello my name is’ on Twitter.
Put me in coach I’m ready to play
Why am I telling you this? Not to showcase my follow numbers or ratio- because that alone doesn’t matter. Not to boast about unfollowing people because i’m so elite- because THAT is just ridiculous. No, it’s to show you insight into how you can get more out of your network.
Ever since I have started down this path I have seen more and more of my followers chatting with each other. Why? Most likely it could be because I go out to events that many of the same people frequent and we meet new people when they come to town thus growing our comm-unity. See that? Comm-unity, communication unity.
What’s the benefit of this? For one thing you get to see more than just broadcasted information from your friends. You get to see a whole other side of them when they speak to other people you know. This is when their personality truly comes out.
We all live in a yellow submarine
Twitter is for friends not fiends. I don’t want to be sold to, broadcasted at or have random irrelevant noise in my stream. My day and mind are noisy enough. I come online to be bolstered by community and friends when I can’t do so in my offline world. I also come online to further STRENGTHEN my offline relationships, as well as you should.
If you’re at this point, congratulations! Now you can take the next step by further tightening your network by going to your friends‘ twitter pages and see who they are speaking to often that you aren’t following. Notice any repeating names. Follow them and introduce yourself by saying that you noticed they speak with X Y & Z and what you value about them. Talking about your common ground of friends does SO MUCH more for everyone- you, the person AND X Y & Z- than just saying that you’re looking forward to getting to know them. That’s trite and soulless.
I wanna hold your haaaaaaaaaand
Look at that. You’ve come to the end of the story. You can now start buying what your FRIENDS are selling. It’s much more fulfilling being able to help someone out that you care about then a random person you’re connected with. When you invest time and energy into someone you form a relationship. When this happens you create a ‘Trust Fund’ where both you and the other person either add or subtract trust from this mutual fund you have set up. Your Trust Fund grows so much more richer when you do business with those you trust greatly.
One last word, before I go..
Numbers DON’T matter, not because anti-numbers people say so. Numbers don’t matter because if there isn’t value and meaning behind them all they do is give a lovely facade of power that fools any fool. Any wise man knows that it’s the density not the breadth alone that counts. Water of the same volume spread out over a flat surface doesn’t have the same impact as water contained in a compact space. That being said, it’s not just quality, it’s also quantity of quality, so grow your real-ationships exponentially.
Cultivate your connections. Connect to people that mean something to you. Make those people mean much more to you. Introduce them into your circle to tighten relations more. Every person in my created @ChatPack and @MemeGirls groups do important things- or at least we think so. And that’s all that matters- that we do important things separately, connect and make great things together.
Perpetuate this ideal indefinitely. Your 20% will do and be your 80%. Nurture and grow your core group.
These are the people that will carry you to great heights.
Tags: benefit, brand, branding, business, communicating, communication, communications, conversation, core values, feelings, follower, friends, goals, interaction, interactions, knowledge, life, marketing, network, networking, selling, social, social media, twitter
Posted in featured, life, social media | 1 Comment »
June 10th, 2009
I’m all for great branding, as you can see in one of my previous posts, Simple Branding. Branding should look, sound and feel good. It should be cool, catchy and let people know quickly what your brand is all about. But, there is another critical branding component that will make or break your brand. I call it The UN-Brand.
The UN-Brand is what evolves from your brand, rather unintentionally. It’s the culture, personality and tenor of your brand. It’s what people are left with after an encounter with your company, its people and your service. It speaks just as loudly as your masthead or logo, even more so. It can make or break your brand.
How you treat your customers, your brand voice, enthusiasm for your product, services and clients, how your employees and customers are valued, and other intangibles make up your UN-Brand. They are the unwritten, unspoken qualities that exude from your brand. It’s what people are saying about you once you walk away or after you’ve performed a service. It’s more than customer service. The UN-Brand develops from within and comes from the core values that your company and Brand actually embrace and embody. It’s the “how” behind the “what” of your brand. It’s the character of your company and how you get the job done that makes up your UN-Brand.
Your UN-Brand will reveal itself on its own. I’ve witnessed this with my own brand. My area of expertise is Strategic Communications and Relationship Building skills, specifically, Social Media, Business Communications, and Interpersonal Interactions. I teach and train people how to communicate effectively, position and promote their brand, attract customers and get great results. If you look at comments from customers and clients who interact with me, you’ll hear words like: dynamic, inspiring, joyful, open-hearted, motivating, insightful, authentic, transparent, and compelling. Not much to do with the what of my brand but a lot about how I get the job done.
Another great example of UN-Branding in action is the SAS Corporation. SAS is the definitive leader in analysis and business software. They are known worldwide for excellence in analytics. They’re also known for some amazing things that have nothing to do with their brand that clearly set them apart from other companies. SAS is known for how well they treat their employees.
I would argue that it is probably one of the biggest reasons that their products are great and they have such wide success without being a publicly traded company. In an article by 60 Minutes called “Working the Good Life“, you find that the company has only 3% turnover, offers employees a 90% discount to the company owned country club, has in-house social workers to help employees with problems and so much more. They’ve developed a culture of creativity, innovation and results through treating people as if they are a valued, trusted resource.
Some of the intangible qualities that make up the UN-Brand
- Trust
- Transparency
- Authenticity
- Empathy
- Outlook and Attitude
- Creativity
- Culture
- Community Involvement
- Charisma
How to develop a great UN-Brand
Ask yourself the following questions to develop a great presence.
- How do we want to be perceived by customers, suppliers, vendors and employees?
- What are our Core Values?
- How do we want employees and customers to feel as a result of a business relationship or employment with our company?
Allow these three questions to be the platform of developing your mission and vision statements for your company and your brand.
The ends do not justify the means. Attention to how we grow is just as important as the growth. I challenge people to consider how they want to be perceived in the marketplace and think of those intangible qualities that go beyond efficiency and numbers. Allow that desired perception to guide your brand as well. While numbers and results are critically important, none of it matters if you, your company or employees have poor interactions, communication and encounters with clients and customers.
Brands and companies are made up of living, breathing people who are interacting with other people to provide a product or service. How your customers feel about the service along with the service itself keeps them coming back. By attention to the how everything gets done, your desired perception and how you want people to, UN-Brand
Tags: about, authenticity, brand, branding, business, business communications, commenters, communicating, communication, communications, core values, creativity, customer service, desire, encounter, feelings, follower, inspiration, intangibles, interaction, interactions, interpersonal interactions, job, life, masthead, media, media business, motivator, perception, personalities, personality, platforms, productivity, promotions, relationship, social, strategic communications, tenor, transparency, Value, walks, words
Posted in branding, business, featured | 4 Comments »
June 10th, 2009
Recently during NY Internet Week I had the pleasure of having dinner with Brian Solis [@briansolis] (among others) where Nicole Jordan [@nicolejordan] joined us. Nicole began speaking about how she has resorted to calling what she does as ‘integrated communications‘. Brian proceeded to say that that’s just another way of saying ‘public relations’. He should know more than anyone else as he wrote ‘Putting The Public Back In Public Relations.’ The question that came out of our conversation is this: Is it time to stop calling it PR and call it anything else?
Public relations, integrated communications, holistic branding- they all speak about conveying your core values in a message for others. When you ask most people what they think of the word PR many will tell you ’spin’ or press release. As a communications professional you will need to use spin in crisis situations but not all the time. And yes, you will need to send out press releases but these two tactics do not make a public relations professional.
“There is no doubt in my mind that eventually all PR agencies and consultants will follow suit and transform from publicity firms into New Media communications and marketing organizations rich with in house or contracted content producers, digital sociologists, research librarians, community managers, digital architects, connectors, and industry experts/strategists.” ~Brian Solis. It may not be long until all PR professionals are new media agents just as he predicts.
Social media has changed the discipline of communications forever. Instead of corporations talking at you, they’re now attempting to talk with you. Social media is now used professionally by many different corporations successfully- Dell, Whole Foods, Ford, Pepsi, among others. Some have had social media backlash against them (Motrin) while others use social media as a shiny new toy (Skittles). In order for social media tactics to ring true you must weave them in at the base level to reflect your core values.
This is how social media has returned public relations to its roots.
The stigma of the word ‘PR’ may be so great that we may need to stop focusing on what we are called and focus on what we do. What do we stand for? How is that being reflected in what we do? What can we offer others? This is the key.
Gone are the days where you can use a channel of communications to say ‘look at me’. If you can’t use those same channels to say ‘look, it’s me, i’m here for you’ then you’re toast. People get right away when someone isn’t being genuine. We have too much stimulus and not enough time in today’s world. For you to stand out from the crowd you must be true to what you stand for and only want to help those who align with you.
It doesn’t matter what you call it- PR, public relations, integrated communications, holistic branding. What matters is that you make sure your client’s communications are synced across every single platform (design, branding, marketing, advertising, social media, etc).
The hucksters and the spin-doctors have ruined the good name of PR by taking the focus off of the public and putting it on themselves. It’s not about me me me or you you you. It’s about us us us.
Doing business at all costs is no longer viable. Doing business at the best costs is the new modus operandi. Regardless of what you call the discipline the ones who will get ahead will be those who can align their values with their customers. And that’s the truth.
Tags: attempts, benefit, brand, branding, business, communicating, communication, communications, community managers, consumers, content producers, conversation, conversations, core values, crisis situations, design, designers, doubt in my mind, Facebook, follower, industry experts, integrated communications, integrity, interaction, interactions, internet week, marketing, media, motrin, networking, new media communications, nicole jordan, organization, pepsi, platforms, pr agencies, pr professionals, productivity, reflection, research librarians, skittles, social, social media, sociologists, solis, strategists, technology, twitter, Value, whole foods, words
Posted in branding, business, featured, social media | No Comments »
May 29th, 2009
Follow Friday is a plague on Twitter and social media. It’s a Trojan Horse. It’s a seemingly harmless interaction wrapped in niceties. Even giving in to it one bit is fueling the fire even more. You’re a part of the problem if you’re not a part of the solution. Here’s why those who participate in follow friday don’t get social media and never will.
Social media isn’t about sharing at all costs. It’s about sharing at the best cost. It’s about pull NOT push.
Let’s relate follow friday into offline terms. You’re at a party (I know, because social media is one big party) and someone walks in saying that everyone there MUST know Zoe, Duncan, Jack and Jane. Now that’s not exactly social is it? The person literally just disrupted the party to tell everyone who they SHOULD know. It doesn’t matter if you know the disrupter or not. What matters is that the disrupter decided that their opinion was worth more than yours. They didn’t think of you first.
Social media is about pull. Social media is about personalization. Social media is about those two things plus connections. Take out pull and personalization and you just have the old way of doing things- a connection based on me telling you what to do. When you act without thinking of others first you come up with a bunch of unintended consequences.
To those of you who are moving Follow Friday off of Twitter to other areas I have one word of advice to you: don’t. You are the worst type of person, the enabler. SOCIAL MEDIA ISN’T ABOUT YOU. Social media is about everyone else. Start thinking of them first, not yourself. Blanket recommendations are akin to stereotypes- you’re covering a large landscape and inadvertently encompassing those who shouldn’t be involved in the first place.
The only way to break the cycle of me me ME is to think about you you YOU. If you care about the person you are promoting enough then TRULY care about them. Shouting to the world why they’re great is a step in the right direction but it doesn’t go far enough or stay true to social media. Personalize it.
Others and I have resorted to avoiding Twitter altogether on Fridays. The noise is so loud it drowns out the actual useful signal. I schedule blog posts around Friday now. If I’m writing about someone else they tell me to post it any day BUT Friday. This is the law of unintended consequences. It won’t be long until Friday is a day without any substance- the social media equivalent to junk food. It tastes good but you get sick of too much of it.
Remember, this is a party. What’s more meaningful- Having someone you may or may not know well proceed to tell the whole party exactly why Zoe is amazing OR having someone you know well introduce you two to each other because they feel the both of you would be a great fit? See the difference?
Social networking is a whole different ball game. Wait, no it isn’t. If you wouldn’t dream of doing what you do online in an offline setting then don’t do it. If you still think it’s okay to shout how awesome people are at other people (no matter how in-depth you get) then maybe you shouldn’t be in social media. Social media is about them not you. It’s not your time to shine it’s their time to shine. Be useful and thoughtful in all your interactions by micro-personalizing them.
THINK how your actions will affect another person before you do them. When you think of the other person first then it leaves little room for misinterpretation. Don’t be ‘that guy’ at the party and ruin it for everyone. Be the AMAZING party host that introduces two guests to one another. I GUARANTEE people will be talking about YOU before long.
Tags: advice, benefit, brand, communicating, communication, communications, conversation, disrupter, feelings, follower, friends, interaction, interactions, knowledge, landscape, life, media, network, networked, networking, niceties, personalities, personality, plague, promotions, social, social media, step in the right direction, stereotypes, thoughtfulness, trojan horse, twitter, unintended consequences, Value, walks, word of advice, words, zoe duncan jack and jane
Posted in featured, social media | 4 Comments »
May 20th, 2009
I usually don’t reblog anything but sometimes I come across something that is so on point that there’s no need for me to say it any other way. The following about core values is from the United States government National Park Service training website:
The core values of an organization are those values we hold which form the foundation on which we perform work and conduct ourselves. We have an entire universe of values, but some of them are so primary, so important to us that through out the changes in society, government, politics, and technology they are STILL the core values we will abide by.
In an ever-changing world, core values are constant. Core values are not descriptions of the work we do or the strategies we employ to accomplish our mission. The values underlie our work, how interact with each other, and which strategies we employ to fulfill our mission. The core values are the basic elements of how we go about our work. They are the practices we use (or should be using) every day in everything we do.
- Govern personal relationships
- Guide business processes
- Clarify who we are
- Articulate what we stand for
- Help explain why we do business the way we do
- Guide us on how to teach
- Inform us on how to reward
- Guide us in making decisions
- Underpin the whole organization
- Require no external justification
- Essential tenets
- Operating practices
- Business strategies
- Cultural norms
- Competencies
- Changed in response to market/ administration changes
- Used individually
By Way of Comparison
By way of comparison, here are examples of Core Values identified by other organizations.
DISNEY – to make people happy.
- Nurture and promulgate wholesome American values.
- Creativity, Dream, Imagination.
- Preservation and control of the Disney magic.
- Absolute, meticulous attention to detail
MERCK – to preserve and improve human life.
- Corporate social responsibility.
- Unequivocal excellence in all aspects of the company.
- Science-based innovation.
- Honesty and integrity.
- Profit – from work that benefits humanity.
SONY – to experience the joy of advancing and applying technology for the benefit of the public.
- Elevation of Japanese culture and national status.
- Being a pioneer, not following others, doing the impossible.
- Encouraging individual ability and creativitiy.
U.S. ARMY
- Courage – Face fear, danger or adversity.
- Duty – Fulfill your obligations.
- Honor – Live up to all Army values.
- Integrity – Do what’s right, legally and morally.
- Loyalty – Bear true faith and allegiance to the U.S. Constitution, the Army, your unit and other soldiers.
- Respect – Treat people as they should be treated.
- Service – Put the welfare of the nation, the Army, and your subordinates before your own.
Our Core Values are a statement of the framework in which we accomplish our Mission. They express the manner in which, both individually and collectively, we pursue our mission. When we are challenged in fulfilling our mission, our Core Values sustain us and guide us in meeting the challenge. - National Leadership Council, 2001
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May 17th, 2009
We all wear items that highlight our personalities. Some of us follow trends. The ones that do feel like they’re trying too hard. You can spot them from a mile away. If this describes your brand then you have a huge problem on your hands.
Branding is as much about image as it is about communication. The communication of that image is all your customer has to go on.
A flashy gimmick may get my attention right away but what about down the road? An image that’s more polished and pulled together will stay with me much longer than a “look at me” outfit.
Gimmicks for gimmick sake don’t feel authentic. People get that instantaneously. Your image doesn’t need to be one of a corporate shill to feel true. You can also look really relaxed, fun or just down to earth.
Don’t turn someone’s true way of being into your flash-in-the-pan eyeball-catcher. Own it.
Make it yours; don’t take someone else’s.
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The UN-Brand
I’m all for great branding, as you can see in one of my previous posts, Simple Branding. Branding should look, sound and feel good. It should be cool, catchy and let people know quickly what your brand is all about. But, there is another critical branding component that will make or break your brand. I call it The UN-Brand.
The UN-Brand is what evolves from your brand, rather unintentionally. It’s the culture, personality and tenor of your brand. It’s what people are left with after an encounter with your company, its people and your service. It speaks just as loudly as your masthead or logo, even more so. It can make or break your brand.
How you treat your customers, your brand voice, enthusiasm for your product, services and clients, how your employees and customers are valued, and other intangibles make up your UN-Brand. They are the unwritten, unspoken qualities that exude from your brand. It’s what people are saying about you once you walk away or after you’ve performed a service. It’s more than customer service. The UN-Brand develops from within and comes from the core values that your company and Brand actually embrace and embody. It’s the “how” behind the “what” of your brand. It’s the character of your company and how you get the job done that makes up your UN-Brand.
Your UN-Brand will reveal itself on its own. I’ve witnessed this with my own brand. My area of expertise is Strategic Communications and Relationship Building skills, specifically, Social Media, Business Communications, and Interpersonal Interactions. I teach and train people how to communicate effectively, position and promote their brand, attract customers and get great results. If you look at comments from customers and clients who interact with me, you’ll hear words like: dynamic, inspiring, joyful, open-hearted, motivating, insightful, authentic, transparent, and compelling. Not much to do with the what of my brand but a lot about how I get the job done.
Another great example of UN-Branding in action is the SAS Corporation. SAS is the definitive leader in analysis and business software. They are known worldwide for excellence in analytics. They’re also known for some amazing things that have nothing to do with their brand that clearly set them apart from other companies. SAS is known for how well they treat their employees.
I would argue that it is probably one of the biggest reasons that their products are great and they have such wide success without being a publicly traded company. In an article by 60 Minutes called “Working the Good Life“, you find that the company has only 3% turnover, offers employees a 90% discount to the company owned country club, has in-house social workers to help employees with problems and so much more. They’ve developed a culture of creativity, innovation and results through treating people as if they are a valued, trusted resource.
Some of the intangible qualities that make up the UN-Brand
How to develop a great UN-Brand
Ask yourself the following questions to develop a great presence.
Allow these three questions to be the platform of developing your mission and vision statements for your company and your brand.
The ends do not justify the means. Attention to how we grow is just as important as the growth. I challenge people to consider how they want to be perceived in the marketplace and think of those intangible qualities that go beyond efficiency and numbers. Allow that desired perception to guide your brand as well. While numbers and results are critically important, none of it matters if you, your company or employees have poor interactions, communication and encounters with clients and customers.
Brands and companies are made up of living, breathing people who are interacting with other people to provide a product or service. How your customers feel about the service along with the service itself keeps them coming back. By attention to the how everything gets done, your desired perception and how you want people to, UN-Brand
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