One final thought on personal branding is to know what you can execute and what you cannot.  The best advice is useless if you cannot execute it.  For example, how familiar are you with the following personal branding must-do list?  Get your domain.  Register yourself on Facebook.  Register yourself on LinkedIn.  Build a blog.  And the list goes on and on.

The idea behind a list like this is you want to be found.  Employers nowadays will search online for information about a prospective job candidate.  So, the idea is that you should be everywhere, so they can find information about you.  What this idea fail to communicate is that it is better not be found than to be found in a poor light. 

If you’re not committed to updating your LinkedIn profile and building your LinkedIn network, you may be better off not be on LinkedIn at all.  It’s frustrating to find someone who’s on LinkedIn, but clearly hasn’t updated the profile ever since they signed up.  The tell tale signs are lack of a network and a job listing that’s virtually blank.  This shows a lack of effort.  If you’re not found at all and there is no visual evidence against you, people may actually give you the benefit of the doubt. 

Same goes for Facebook.  I have discussed previously the fault of small businesses falling in love with Facebook, put the URL everywhere, only to have visitors go to a Facebook page that has had no activities for months.  Same goes for blogs.  Same goes for domains.  It’s far better to not to launch into these tactics at all, than to start and then shows visibly “I know I should do this, but I haven’t bothered with finishing it.”  That’s the wrong message to send. 

Starting is a good.  Finishing is significantly better.

Photo credit: Kate

As I think about what’s important in personal branding this week, I can’t help but resort to my classic branding lessons.

The most important part about a brand is a brand name.  To this end, you may have heard different tactics such as owning your domain name.  However, I find that sometimes even more obvious choices have not been made:  Email.

No, I’m not going into the idea of picking a professional email address.  Of course you’re not going to pick sirsexalot@gmail.com as your email address unless you’re in the sex industry.  This is something your college advisor has already warned you about.  However, as we mature, we actually run into another email problem that few ever discusses.

I hate getting emails from “John and Jane Smith”.

Now, I don’t mind this so much if I have a personal relationship with both John and Jane Smith.  However, in a recent communication, Jane reached out to me inquiring about a job opportunity via LinkedIn.  (Great use of LinkedIn.)  However, in subsequent communications, I started getting emails from “John and Jane Smith”.  At first, I thought it was junk mail, because I didn’t know this couple.  Then, I realized that it was Jane, sending an email from a joint email account.

In my opinion, unless you’re in business together and truly have a need to communicate as a single entity, get separate email addresses.  Communicate as your own person and develop your own brand identity.  While joint email addresses may be okay for personal use, any professional use should come from a single person. Email addresses are free these days.  There is no reason not to secure a professional email address.

Photo credit: Keith Ramsey

Drawing on my previous experience with non-profit marketing, I found that the single most useful piece of marketing communication is a business card.  However, I also see so many business cards done wrong.  Why?  Because they model it off of a corporate business cards, and that doesn’t really do justice to what business cards can do. 

Why do corporations use business cards?  Corporations don’t use business cards to market themselves.  (Granted, everything does reinforce a brand.  So, a natural company better have business cards printed on recycled paper.)  At the core, corporations use business cards as a simple communication tool.  They contain only the vital information.  Rarely do you see more than name and contact information.  Sometimes, you may even see a corporate motto, but that’s pretty much the end of it.

However, for non-profits, you don’t have the luxury to use a business card so simply.  You have to make every piece work doubly hard for you.  I would recommend the following layout:

Front:  Basic logo, name, and contact information.  This is the typical business card, including information like website addresses for your organization.

Back:  Give one piece of trivia that would really get people excited, and the next time they could get involved.  This gives them the reminder to follow up when they get home.  Following up on the Complete Streets example gave earlier this week, one could easily put a trivia “Did you know” on the back.  In addition, perhaps they meet on a monthly basis every Thursday.  Use this business card as an invite.  Or, if you print business cards locally in a simple printer (on-demand printing vs. printing by the thousands), I would suggest putting upcoming events.  Use the business cards as an invitation to the events.  You’d always have business cards with you, and this may be your most powerful marketing tool for your non-profit.

This worked well for me in the past.  What do you think?  Would it work for you?

Photo credit: Jim Larson

While some of the challenges he highlighted are systematic, others have simple solutions.  The private sector has one thing over the public sector:  $$$$$ at their disposal.  So, the private sector can buy creative talents, buy space, buy media even.  However, there is one thing the public sector has in abundance:  Passion.

Here are a few simple thoughts:

Ad:  Think like a big advertiser.  Know what message you want to deliver.  Create your marketing materials accordingly.  Note message is singular, not plural.  In an ad, you have limited time to get their attention.  So, hit them with the most intrigue message, and let them seek you out to find the rest.  (Yes, include a website or some way for them to follow up with you.)

Space:  Pound the pavement.  Create an awesome flyer and distribute in the neighborhood.  Get what space you can.

Media:  Do you know how often news articles are simply reprint of carefully crafted press releases?  You can do the same.  You can write press releases, keep in mind what are the important messages.  Send it to your local newspaper and there is a chance you would get printed.  Local newspaper is struggling to find a voice in this age where people read their news online.  Localization is what’s going to save newspapers.   With that in mind, don’t forget digital media.  Digital media give everyone access to a national audience.  You own website can host a variety of information.  Just make sure the information is organized so it’s easily found.  Yes, this is the website that should go on the ad / flyer.

That’s what the pros call integrated marketing campaign.  You may not have $$.  But you have talents from volunteers that can yield results far better than money can buy.

• Posts 80 characters or less in length have 27% higher engagement rates
• Engagement rates are 3 times higher for posts that used a full-length URL
• Brands that post outside of business hours had 20% higher engagement rates
• While industry plays a role, overall, engagement rates on Thursday and Friday are 18% higher than other days of the week
• Posts that end with a  question have a 15% higher engagement rate

This report reinforced some of the data we looked at from Dan Zarrella earlier this week.  Post when your audience have time to engage will likely increase the success of your post.

Another interesting data from this report was around what to post to increase engagement.  Questions are always good conversation starters.  However, many brands also leverage Facebook to promote their offers.  In these cases, this report suggests that soft sell is the way to go.  Words like “event” and “winner” are well received by fans.  On the other hand, words like “coupon”, “exclusive”, even “free” are not the best words to use on Facebook.

Social media marketing and Facebook marketing remains to be a world of growth and opportunities.  As more marketers are becoming active in this space, we will sure gain more insights into how to best leverage these new tools.

Despite that, not everyone has the same level of experience in social media marketing.  Of those surveyed, half had less than 1 year of experience.  Keeping that in mind, the data not only shows the state of the industry, but it also shows where the opportunities lie.

Social media is still in its infancy in being part of the marketing mix.  Currently, social media is largely leveraged to gain general exposure and increase new users.  The opportunity here is that social media has the potential to be an on-going engagement with existing users.  As we all know, it’s far cheaper to keep a consumer than to try to gain a new one.  So, social media still has a lot of room to grow.

Facebook by far is the most popular social media tool right now.  It’s also interesting to note that there is a difference between B2B and B2C marketing.  LinkedIn is far more popular with the B2B marketers.  This makes sense because every marketing tactic is about targeting.  LinkedIn is a forum where business professionals are already at, thus making it a perfect forum for B2B marketers.

Of all the different tactics, YouTube / Video was the top area of focus, with 77% surveyed indicated that they intend to increase their efforts.  This likely highlights the growth in adjacent technologies, namely smartphones.

This was followed by Facebook, blogs, and Twitter, not so surprisingly.  Nevertheless, traditional digital marketing remains to be an important tool.  SEO and email marketing are both areas marketers intend to continue to increase focus on.  This is natural if you think about it because people are searching online for information and it takes email addresses to sign up for social media tools!

However, traditional paper marketing is likely to continue to fall out of favor with marketers.  Direct mail and print ads both are areas where over 10% of those surveyed intend to lower their investment…

The first one is by Dan Zarrella, Social Media Scientist at HubSpot, on the Science of Timing.  Here are a few key takeaways that Dan wants everyone to know from his research:

On Twitter and Facebook:

• Late in the day and week is the most retweetable
• Tweet more
• Don’t crowd your content
• Weekends are best for Facebook sharing

On Email Marketing:

• Experiment with emailing on weekends
• Send email very early in the morning
• Send more email
• Your newest subscribers are your best

On Blogging:

• Know your audience
• Blog on weekends for comments
• Blog early in the morning for links
• Blog more frequently

With all the takeaways above, there is an underlying theme: Tailor to your audience.

1. Send content to them at a time that they are available to absorb content (which is generally around early morning, lunch, or late evening, as in not during peak work hours).
2. Don’t worry that you are over-marketing to them.  If what you’re sending them is relevant, they wouldn’t mind getting a lot of it.

Wrapping up on the series on what we have learned thus far from the Japanese, honoring their thought leadership in the world of marketing, branding, and business.  With hope, prayers, and donations, Japan will be back of her feet soon, and her people go back to a routine life of simply marketing, branding, and business.

A series on what Japan had contributed to marketing has to include Quick Response.  Quick Response is better known by its short-form:  QR code.  It’s a barcode that can be read by readers, such as camera phones.  General embedded in these codes are links to the web for more information.  It was originally created by a Toyota subsidiary in 1994, and nowadays found everywhere in Japan.  You can find these codes on tissue packs, flyers, chopstick wrappers, practically everywhere.

Japanese consume technology at a much faster rate than Westerners.  QR code adoption is still low in the US.  However, we are seeing more of them.  We are beginning to see them on packaging, in-store signage, print ads, and even TV commercials.  However, if the popularity of QR code in Japan is any indication of future adoption of this technology here in the West, the potential appears to be limitless!

To help the Japanese people who’s still struggling with the aftermath of the earthquake, consider making a donating from the following links. Thank you.
【Amazon.com】【Google Checkout】【American Red Cross】【International Medical Corps】【AmeriCares】 【Paypal】 【causes.com】

Photo Credit:  Divergence

Related articles

• What does the future hold for QR (Quick Response) codes? (marcommics.wordpress.com)
• Using QR codes (elkrapidslive.wordpress.com)
• QR codes make your shopping experience interactive at Home Depot (jennstrathman.com)

This new practice is likely going to affect some communities more than others.  As, Men’s Health magazine dove into a study on which cities in America are most socially connected.  The top ranked city was not Palo Alto, center of silicon valley, as the magazine editors / researchers had initially thought.  The top billing for the most socially connected city went to Washington, DC.

If you really think about this, it makes perfect sense!  Washington is all about networking.  If networking in person is important, that logic certainly applies to the digital world as well.  So, with Lent, perhaps politicians need to go back to good-old-fashion hand shaking and baby kissing for the time being.  Virtual connections may not thrive during these forty days.

Well, couldn’t the same be said for marketers?

As marketers increasingly turn to social media as the primary means to reach their target audience, what would Lent mean for all these digital campaigns?  What good is a Facebook “Like” if they are not checking Facebook right now?

Email subscribers: Link to news video

Related articles

• Pastor: Don’t Give Up Social Media For Lent (npr.org)
• Did You Give Up Social Media for Lent? (blogher.com)
• Some Christians Give Up Facebook For Lent (allfacebook.com)

So, a few decades ago, marketers came up with the idea of psychographic.  We want to target based on how they think and behave.  However, traditional media still had a hard time bringing this idea into fruition.  We can buy print ad on tech magazines, but really only the REALLY tech-savvy guys would have a subscription to tech magazines.  That seems somewhat limited, and doesn’t help to grow the market…

In comes social media and the digital revolution.  On digital and social space, it’s far easier to track what conversations you’re having.  It’s easier to track what websites you’re going to.  It’s easier to track what are you “liking” on Facebook.  It’s a whole new world of targeting.  As social media advertising is in its infancy, so is the concept of applying psychographic onto the social media space.  But the potential is here.  So, it’d be exciting to see how we can realize the potential.

This post is inspired by this TEDWomen presentation by Johanna Blakley, the Deputy Director of the Norman Lear Center (a media-focused think tank at the University of Southern California): 

Link to presentation on TED.com