Guest post by Susan Daniels

When most people think of blogging, they don’t conjure up images of brand blogging. However, even Coca-cola has a blog to further empower its brand. Brand blogging helps your business out in two ways: it gives your customers a sense of community and it allows you to gain greater online visibility.

But starting a brand blog doesn’t simply mean writing an article every couple of days or so. To make your brand’s blog successful you need to incorporate the following into your every day posting:

Media

A brand’s blog should never be text only. Images and videos including the brand should be integrated throughout the blog to make it more appealing to readers, and you don’t need to hire a creative agency to create these for you. You can easily take and create them yourself; however, if you aren’t competent with your video editing, hiring a professional may be beneficial. Including images and videos also give you a greater chance of a post going viral which can greatly increase your PageRank – and thus, your overall online visibility.

Relevancy

One of the most important aspects of blogging is content relevancy. If a soda product is your brand, then you don’t want to be writing about dog food. Instead you want to be writing about anything and everything that pertains to your brand – the people behind the brand, different flavors being released, projects you may be involved in, and any other interesting tidbits.

Hype

When you have a blog that is focusing on a certain brand, you want to make sure that you are able to create hype through your posts. If you are improving a brand or making changes to products and services, you want to give your brand loyalists little insights into doing so. Not only will this get them excited and coming back for more, but this will also keep them from panicking when an updated product or service is released that may be slightly different from the old ones.

Creating an image of a company is hard, and trying to get as high as you can in the search engines is no easy feat. However, blogging can greatly help you attain new customers, engage the old, and manage your online reputation – all of which are needed if you wish to remain successful.

About the author
Susan Daniels is a freelancer writer that specializes in business and technology.

Photo by Adam Crowe

Guest post by Jade Evans

It’s all about the brand. When you buy the premium product, the sleek design – say of the King of branding – Apple, you’re buying the projection of the brand and all the marketing that goes along with it. It’s like when you buy Nike shoes or those designer jeans – built into the price is their perception of you after you have ownership of that new, shiny, designer whatever.

What do you associate with Target? Most could come up with an answer on a dime. Who do you think of when you think of Patagonia? Pepsi?

These associations – I can tell you – they are not the byproduct of the environment of the company, or at least not solely. Companies work hard and put millions, hundreds of millions of dollars into creating that emotional and subtle immediate response when customers think of a brand. Emotional buying means impulse purchases. (Which is something that any heartbroken girl can tell you when all of those new shoes arrive at their door).

To use an example that has already been mentioned, Apple, in the late 1980′s, when things were just kicking off, pushed their marketing budget from $15 million to $100 million – in part (if not mostly) to establish that brand recognition, association and loyalty. That trend continues to this day, and permeates everything that Apple touches.

When you buy soda – do you buy Coke, or do you buy Pepsi? What do you think of someone who buys Coke if you’re a Pepsi drinker? Those kind of visceral, Yankees vs. Red Sox brand recognition and territoriality is what every company strives for, that kind of rabid loyalty of their base of customers. At that point, it isn’t about the products. It’s the fact that your brand made them that matters.

People get tied up in brands and the actions of brands, they are no longer a corporate entity but a friend. For example, when it was revealed that Nike was making their products in sweatshops, there was an uproar. Of course, part of that was because of larger human rights issues, but a great deal of it was also because of the strength of the brand identity and the fact that people came to trust that brand, and identify with it – they felt betrayed. (Much like the ways we see businesses abusing social media – clients get annoyed and feel personally betrayed when companies try to pull the wool over their eyes)

So remember – the next time you buy that designer watch, or slip that new iPhone into your purse – you’re (intentionally or not) going to be joining the echelons of the followers of that brand and will be, one way or another, affected by the mindset that comes along with it.

About the author
Jade Evans is a writer who is fascinated by how companies spend money – from Apple to a Wilton NY bank, from Target, credit union Albany NY, and Patagonia to your local bodega. Talk to her about finances all day and she’ll be fascinated.

A few days ago, I was walking with my mom on the streets of my home town, Ploiesti. Out of nowhere, it poped in front of my eyes: QUICK! The name of a very particular shop that used to make all my money disappear since I was in 8th grade. They soled notebooks, pens, pencils, anything someone with a passion for writing would definitely be into. They retailed foreign brands that I was addicted to: Schneider, Parker, Staedtler, Rotring with their very suscessful Tikky pencils. I used to save everything I got from my parents and grandparents, along with the money I got from school for being such a good student, and spend it all to enlarge my pen, pencil, marker and notebook collection.

When I rediscovered it, I couldn’t help smiling and being extremely happy it was still in the market. They had changed locations a few times and I thought they had closed down years before. I did not love Quick just beacause of what they sold. I loved the shop’s smell, how the items were displayed, the fact that most of the staff was nice and probably the fact that I had to work hard for every little treasure I got from there. 

I haven’t been so happy at seeing a brand I know in a long time. I had a similar smile when I saw a Booking.com office in Amsterdam, but it wasn’t quite the same joy. I outgrew Quick, but I still remember it fondly, and the next time I need a pen or pencil or notebook in Ploiesti, I will buy it from there, just to show my appreciation.

It then hit me that that’s how we should define brand success. Our clients or customers should smile with pleasure when they see our logo. They should want to drop by, just to say hello, and remember the fun times they had. Or at least they should feel satisfaction when thinking of the products or services they bought from us.

It might be a lot to ask to yield genuine happiness when they see or hear of our brand, but a goal set to only triggering positive feelings in no way means aiming to high!

What do you hope your customers think when  they suddenly see your logo?

Guest post by Carol Wilson

One of the most important aspects of your company is its image in the public eye. Branding has become an integral part of marketing and public relations. Today, companies create brands through their social media and internet presence. Developing a brand that is both memorable and unique could become the key to your success as a small business or company. Any successful brand has a notable image associated with it. This image must be clear and simple, but also engaging and remarkable. Building a brand and image is a difficult process to master, particularly in a society completely driven by branding. Oftentimes, a brand will outgrow its image. In this case, an unsuccessful, misleading, or outdated brand image with bog down a company’s marketing strategy. While branding is all about consistency, the time may come that you’ll need to reinvent your brand image. Follow these three tips to creating a new and exciting image for your company or product that is fitting, current, and potentially profitable. Your image is your greatest asset. Use it right.

Evaluate Your Audience

This is one of the most basic and most difficult steps involved in creating a brand for your company. Your brand should speak directly to the audience you seek. If you do not know exactly who your audience or customer base is, there is no way that you can create a brand, image, product, or service that they will be interested in. Being able to read your customer base is one of the most valuable skills to master. Explore your various clients or customers to get a feel for who they are and what interests them. Once you have identified your customers and various stakeholders decide what kind of image would appeal to them. Use questionnaires and interviews to have your audience evaluate your image. You can then design or edit your image to better fit your audiences’ interests.

Find Your Strengths and Weaknesses

Sit down and carefully evaluate your brand image. What does the image say to you? How does the image make you feel? What kind of an impression does the image evoke about your company? It is impossible to remedy something if you don’t have a clear understanding of what is wrong with it. Even if your audience or customer base is communicating to you that your image is bad, if you do not believe them there is little hope. Sprucing up a tired image does not mean that you have to completely scrap everything you have. Find the aspects of your image that work and the aspects of it that do not. Because so much of branding relies on the publics’ ability to recognize your image, it is wise to keep as much of your original image as possible. Remove and redesign the parts of your image that do not work and keep everything else that you can. Sometimes even the slightest changes can make a huge improvement.

Get Professional Help

Thankfully, there are several professionals who specialize in designing brand images. Seeking help from one of these professionals may be one of the best investments your business makes. Let this expert help you create an image that communicates the exact things you would like about your company and services. These experts can determine which aspects of your image are successful and can remedy the aspects that are not. After your image is redesigned to your liking, follow up on it. How are sales doing? Are you attracting more customers? Are the customers you are attracting ones that are in your customer base?

About the author
This is a guest post from Carol Wilson who writes for business insurance. She contributes articles about a variety of marketing, business, stock market, small business topics. She can be contacted at: wilson.carol24@gmail.com.

Photo credit: carolsg on Fotolia.com

Guest post by Mihaela Lica Butler

With the June ICANN announcement that the gTLDs spectrum  will be enriched with .brands, it became obvious that the Internet, as we know it, will soon change, and the war for relevant online real estate is afoot.  Verisign predicted 1,500+ New gTLD applications for the first window , between 12 January 2012 – 12 April 2012; but ICANN will only select 500 of them all – who will be the lucky few?

Considering the  it costs $185,000 to apply for a new gTLD extension and an additional $25,000 per year to keep it active, it’s easy to assume that the lucky few will also be the powerful few, namely, those companies that understand the branding value of such domain extensions, and in the end, the PR value. PR because a branded domain is a more reliable source for the customer, and also because brand value is a part of an integrated PR strategy, after all.

Many believe that ICANN’s near $200,000 price is too high, but the long term picture seems more than rewarding. A branded domain is a stronger domain, possibly ranking higher in search, particularly in Google – as the search engine giant is already giving priority placement to relevant brands. For instance, Hilton already ranks at the top for their own brand, and for Hilton hotel deals. But there are also other travel sites selling Hilton hotel deals – and for the traveler who wants to book a room with Hilton, the latest may not be as reliable. Only the original Hilton site offers the “trust” factor, but sometimes, finding these deals on the site is not the easiest thing to do. If Hilton would structure its offerings to something highly relevant, the users, and the company, can only benefit. A .brand gTLD could be used for this purpose, and the new URL could be www.deals.hilton.

The branding benefit is here obvious: no one else, but Hilton, the trademark owner, can register this gTLD – so the brand is safe from cybersquatting, brand jacking and so on.

On another side, the .brand gTLDs open possibilities for those who want to deal with online real estate. Imagine someone buying .travel gTLD. They could be selling any domain with this extension. From france.travel, to luxury.travel and so on. There’s SEO strength in these domains, given their highly targeted keywords, and with the right content, these sites may soon supersede more established, older domains.

Then, considering the costs of registering and keeping active these domains, as well as the scrutiny involved in accepting applications by ICANN, there will be no bogus companies running them. But then, smaller businesses, that cannot afford the prices, will face hard-to beat competitors, and they’ll have to resort to other tools to keep up – namely more online PR campaigns to drive traffic to traditional domains.

In some countries, there are solutions for businesses to recoup their initial $185,000 investment. For instance, in the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, businesses can benefit of 80% tax exemption derived from income generate by these domains, according to VAYTON Brand Capital. Here, IP friendly legislation provides the same tax advantage for other IP assets such as trademarks, patents, registered designs as well as copyright on software. But only companies registered in Luxembourg, companies that register their IP in Luxembourg, or companies whose IP assets are in use by a Luxembourg-based business can harvest the benefits.

For ICANN, the new gTLDs are more than PR: they mean business. Serious business, with significant revenue. The plan is to release 500 new gTLDs next year, then follow them with batches of 400. Assuming that they release 900 new gTLDs in 2012, they make $189 million revenue. Which begs the question: did they really do it out of care for brands and consumers, or was this a strategy to generate a quick buck… in this case a quick 189 million bucks.

And if this is the case, why do they cheapen on PR? For a PR campaign meant to promote the new gTLDs initiative, the ICANN will only fork over $750,000 – at least this is disclosed in a Request for Proposals  issued by ICANN to provide advertising and promotion services for the launch of new generic top-level domains (new gTLDs) on July 5th 2011:

The objective of this RFP is to retain an advertising agency to develop, implement and measure the success of a global advertising and awareness campaign for ICANN to introduce new gTLDs. ICANN has a limited advertising budget of $750,000.

With or without an advertising/PR agency to manage the campaign, there’s been enough ink to raise awareness about the new gTLDs already. But the high costs of registering such gTLDs are still not justified for many business owners.

About the author
Mihaela Lica Butler is an experienced PR professional, senior partner and founder of Pamil Visions PR. She writes about the latest in the PR field at Everything PR and is a widely cited authority on search engine optimization and public relations issues (BBC News, Force for Good, Reuters, Al Jazeera and others). She also occasionally writes for SitePoint, Search Engine Journal, and other online publications. To stay in touch with her latest work, follow her on Twitter.

While browsing PR stories today, I ran across 10Yetis’ choice of Good PR from Friday. They gave a big kudos to a Desigual store in London for a PR stunt that involved (partial) nudity, as all successful PR stunts do, the post added. They got me thinking of nudity how and why it works and what it sells.

Some might say nudity, implying sex, sells only that – sex and nudity. But in the case of Desigual, it actually sells the brand. The stunt was orchestrated as follows: Desigual asked shoppers to come wearing only their underwear to the store, promising free clothes to the first 100. Quite a large number of Desigual fans showed up in the rainy weather, dressed as they were prompted and waiting in line in front of the store. 

If Desigual would have chosen to parade some models in their underwear on the streets of London, giving passers by fliers with a discount announcement, it might have brought them some coverage, get tons of criticism for exploiting and over-stressing the importance physical beauty from some, and overall get far less buzz and brand awareness out of their stunt.

In this particular case, the partial nudity had a clear goal – showing to what extent fans would go to get free Desigual clothing. It reads passionate fans of the store and its clothing, people that trust who they are, what they look like and what they want enough to push the limits a little for a free lunch.

Being a fan of Desigual clothing myself, I know the clothes are worth being a little daring and pushing the limits to get some more of their stuff added to your wardrobe. But if I didn’t I would still be at least curious to check out a store whose buyers would only wear their underwear to a big sale!

If you look at event photos, you’d rather say it’s quirky, fun and sexy somehow. Your first thought is not in-your-face sexuality, urging you to let some harsh criticism out.

Sex and nudity for the sake of sex and nudity would never get these results. But hints, passion, novelty, these are far better allies in a PR and marketing strategy. Don’t you agree?

Photo courtesy of Daily Mail

A five-part series on online branding for businesses by Ryan Chaffin

1. What’s in a Name? Everything
2. SEO: Marketing in the New Millennium
3. PPC as a Model of Smart Advertising
4. Social Media: Highly Accessible Advertising
5. Freshening Up: Maintaining Your Brand Image

As a business owner you have developed a unique branding image, cultivated that icon through SEO services or maybe a successful PPC campaign, and you have seen your client base increase significantly. The hard work is over, right? Unfortunately, your work has just begun. Maintaining your brand image is just as important, if not even more crucial, as developing it in the first place.

Remember when you were worried about differentiating your stress relief services from the rest of the businesses in your area? Remember the pressure that surrounded the search for a unique way to sell this stress relief service to the public? This was probably a hectic, stressful time for you as a business owner. But if you remember the stress, you must also remember the triumph of mounting a successful branding image and seeing the increased customer flow. The same thing must happen for you to maintain your positive branding image. You must decide how to keep your image fresh in the midst of changing technology and new businesses. What differentiated you from everyone before may be common now, forcing you to adapt and change as needed.

What you need to do as a business owner is to stop thinking about the branding of your company in a finite, linear way. Rather, think of the branding of your company as a series of progressive steps that can lead you closer to the actualized product or services in your mind. Perfection is never truly realized, but that doesn’t mean you can’t strive for it.

Refreshing your image is a process that will be purely dictated by your business and the services you offer. There is no guarantee besides this: to not consistently refresh your image will lead to certain death. There are so many young entrepreneurs unafraid to try new and fresh approaches to the service industry that if you don’t adapt you will surely get left behind. Maintaining your image may be a simple matter of updating your slogan or logo. It could also, on the other hand, be as drastic as completely revamping how you go about selling your product. Only you can truly determine what is best for your company.

Congratulations! You have successfully launched a campaign that has worked for your specific needs. Maintaining your company image is the next step in the evolution of your business. Simply put, this is the only way that you can stay relevant in the marketplace. But if you can weather the storm of trends and fads, emerging victorious through consistently high quality offerings, you will be in prime position to accept the crown of dominance in your professional field.

About the author

Ryan Chaffin is currently a college student majoring in Business Marketing. He loves anything technology, internet, and social media related along with sports and health & wellness. Ryan currently specializes in search engine optimization (SEO), blogging, and social media and believes in achieving your fullest potential on and off the web. You can also find Ryan on Twitter (@ryanchaffin).

How often do you come across people hired to promote a company or their products? I’m referring to those spreading coupons, those showcasing products at stands placed in malls, at those looking nice and interesting at trade events and promoting contests for visitors. How many times were they either too pushy or completely unable to help you?

The person you pay to spread out flyers of all kinds, to present your products or just look hot near a car you’re launching, is a company representative in the eyes of your customer. Customers generally don’t care it’s a temporary gig for them, that you had no time to train them or that maybe they’re just having a bad day. Potential buyers either want answers fast or not to be bothered by pushy people.

First of all, when you choose people to represent you, make sure they fit the profile of your potential customers. Don’t send a funky 16-year-old that knows nothing of business notebooks to present a high tech product that addresses, you guessed it, business customers. I for one need to know details like how much time I have to work when on battery, processor details, the graphic card and technology behind the screen and how much the product costs when I need to buy it. I also need contact details form a sales person. If the kid is fun but clueless and presenting a Lenovo notebook, I’ll just walk away with valuable time wasted.

On the other hand, if you’re targeting teenagers and young people that love having fun and smiling a lot, send out a fun person that likes chatting with them, giving them a bunch of cool details and has a genuine smile. Don’t send out an older company rep that has forgotten how it’s like to engage kids and is too technical for them.

After selecting who to use, make sure you train them, even if it’s for 15 minutes. Tell them not to be pushy, tell them to smile and try not to look like fate is punishing them in every second of their lives, tell them a bit about your company and the product or service they’re advertising. It would also be great to supervise them and make sure you are there to help when they are faced with a situation they were not told about and to give them on-the-fly advice about how to approach customers.

If you tend to forget it, write this on a piece of paper and post it somewhere visible – the people you employ represent your company in the eyes of your target audience. Customers identify them with your brand, your products, services and company value. If they disappoint, potential buyers won’t be disappointed by a random individual, they will be disappointed by your company!

A five-part series on online branding for businesses by Ryan Chaffin

1. What’s in a Name? Everything
2. SEO: Marketing in the New Millennium
3. PPC as a Model of Smart Advertising
4. Social Media: Highly Accessible Advertising
5. Freshening Up: Maintaining Your Brand Image

Social media is taking over. Blatant and bold as that statement may sound, it is the truth. You can either hop on the bandwagon or stay behind and figure out how you are going to catch up once the dust settles. Don’t believe me? Simply type the word “blog” into any search engine and tell me how many hits pop up. Facebook currently has over 400 million (!) active users. Twitter, a relatively new player in the social media field, has over 75 million users. Simply looking at those numbers and denying the prevalence of social media is willful ignorance.

You, on the other hand, recognize the significance of social media, and understand how they can benefit your company. A snappy logo or updated blog can help your business like no other form of advertising can. Think about it: if you are searching for information about Boston restaurants and you come across a blog written by a chef in Boston who adds entries regularly, discussing the newest foodie trends in the city, chances are you will search out your restaurant and give them your hard-earned cash in exchange for food that you trust (based on what you read on their blog) will be good. As a business owner what could be simpler or more satisfying? You get to talk about your passion and advertise your services at the same time! As a customer, you get in-depth knowledge of a product or service before you try it out for yourself. If there ever was a textbook example of a win-win situation this is surely it.

Social media is also an advantageous route to take because one properly placed video, slogan, or commercial can spread like wildfire, turning into a much talked about meme overnight. If you can plant the seeds of your services or products on a social media website and then let the users of the website spread that idea then you have effectively marketed your product while at the same time saving yourself thousands of dollars in advertising money. This is every advertiser’s dream: a self-replicating ad campaign that is spread mainly through the mouth of the customer.

Advertising your business using social media is a no-brainer. Once you have learned about the techniques and seen the results you will become a believer because there really is nothing like sitting back and watching your idea spread throughout the Internet on a wave of positive inertia.

About the author

Ryan Chaffin is currently a college student majoring in Business Marketing. He loves anything technology, internet, and social media related along with sports and health & wellness. Ryan currently specializes in search engine optimization (SEO), blogging, and social media and believes in achieving your fullest potential on and off the web. You can also find Ryan on Twitter (@ryanchaffin).

Does any of you know the Rotring Tikky mechanical pencils? They are awesome! The best in the world if you asked me! And you would have a terribly hard time changing my mind! I fell in love with them back in secondary school. We first started seeing them when our teachers used them. Then some of the kids saw them in the specialized writing utensils stores and wanted to try them. They came back the next day to school, telling us how great they were, how much they loved them.

Soon after that, we all wanted a Rotring Tikky! It was a must to all of us and no other pencil could compare to it. We got them and when we lost or broke them (it took a lot of effort to break them, but kids manage to succeed in such dire conditions ), we wanted a new Tikky, not another one. The greatest part of my story is not the hype around our discovering Tikky, it’s the fact that our preference lasted through high-school and college. Even now, when I bought a new pencil, years after my last Tikky, I still went for the same brand.

Why such devotion when it comes to a simple pen? Simply because, other than the word of mouth recommendation that helped us decide what to buy, the product itself never disappointed. It was cool, it was amazing and everybody wanted one, although it was two or three times more expensive than the other pencils in the stores, but it also worked perfectly. It was enough to also convince our parents that it’s better to pay extra for the quality than buy us other 5 or more pencils for the same amount of time.

These days, Rotring Tikky looks a lot like the original pencil I fell in love with back in secondary school. The design and materials have been updated a bit to make it look slicker, more modern. But the original product is easily recognizable, otherwise brand enthusiasts would be unable to spot it in the see of pens and pencils usually sold together…