Facebook Page Marketing

Facebook Pages are similar to user profiles, but instead they offer a way businesses to showcase their brands, services and products, plus give people an opportunity to connect with them. As an author, having a Facebook Page for your book is a wonderful way to let your readers share feedback, provide praise and engage with you as a writer. Just like it’s important for your book to stand out from others within your genre, knowing how to make your FB Page a cut above the rest is important too. 
(more…)

Branding With Your URL

Good branding should be a top to bottom effort. From designing a website to planning your unique selling proposition, branding encompasses an entire strategy beyond just a pretty logo. An often overlooked component of branding is deciding what your site’s or blog’s URL address should be. This is a branding are that shouldn’t be taken lightly and we’ll explain why below.

Create a URL name that reflects what your business does or if you’re creating a blog, who the person is behind the blog. For instance, if you have a business that provides shoes for older women then you’d want to create a URL that reflect this, like shoesforseniorwomen.com. Same thing goes for developing a blog URL. The person behind the blog should use their name as the URL address, like LeiliMcKinley.com.

There are two schools of thought on URL branding. The first believes that you should use your company name in the URL since there are some folks who will search by the business name. This makes sense for larger, more established brands like Nike, Starbucks or McDonalds. It wouldn’t make sense for them to create a URL that says sportshoes,com, coffeestores.com or cheeseburgerandfries.com.

For smaller brands, which applies to most everyone else, the second approach to crafting a URL would be to write one that shows of what your business does through keywords. Using the larger brand examples from above, sportshoes.com would be an excellent way to appeal to large groups of people who are searching specifically for that item. Make sense?

Now that you have a basic understanding of what a branded URL is here are some other things to consider:

Hyphenated names. The pro is that search engine easily identify each keyword and will normally return better search results for people seeking what you offer. The con is that hyphenated URLs are easy to forget when people are sharing or recommending them.

Articles and plurals. If you’ve decided on a specific branded URL like childrensauthor.com, but discover it’s taken, you could add ‘the’ to the URL (thechildrensauthor.com). Downside is that unless people aware of the addition, you’ll lose traffic to your competitor. This is the same thing for plural URLs like, cat.com versus cats.com.

Choose carefully and spend some time planning. Try searching for something on the web and look at how the URLs have been set-up.

Twitter for Branding: follow the leaders

If you’re thumbs are getting sore from tweeting and searching for good tweeters, give ‘em a break. There are more than 75 million Twitter users according to data published by RJMetrics in January 2010. If you’re trying to find tweeters in a particular niche it can be a tad overwhelming. So we’ve sifted through the millions to uncover the best branding tweeters and thought we’d share them with you.

The tweeters below represent a small portion of branding focused Twitter users available, but what sets this group apart is their influence, ranking and follower base. Make sure to add them to follow them for excellent 140 character snippits to help you build your brand.

@pramitjnathan

Pramit J. Nathan has summarized himself as a marketing consultant, author and speaker that specializes in branding and perception management. With an astonishing 123,836 followers (growing daily), he’s the leader of the branding pack on Twitter.

Following Pramit will connect you to great strategies, suggestions and tips that are brand and marketing related. Definitely one of few tweeters with a ‘pure’ tweet stream, meaning you won’t find random pontification on abstract subjects (i.e. what type of coffee he likes to drink each a.m. or what he purchased for his brother’s birthday last year).

@thebrandbuilder

Olivier Blanchard is author of the Brand Builder Blog and a Frenchman with a penchant for cooking and good food. Not only does Olivier tweet about relevant branding topics, but his blog and website have an amazing arsenal of well-organized links to other helpful business strategists and influential branders.

Absolutely a resource worth following, plus his blog posts and tweets are highly original and entertaining. Don’t know too many people that can connect social media and Bette Davis together for a good read.

@danschawbel

If you’re not following Dan Schawbel, well, you’re just plain missing out. He’s the bestselling author of Me 2.0 and publisher of Personal Branding Magazine. Dan is a personal branding guru and if you’re seeking advice on how to start, where to start and what to do with branding, this is the go-to-guy.

@simonmainwaring

A native Australian, Simon Mainwaring has a fresh and creative approach to branding, which makes him an excellent follow and a fun one too. He specializes in brand triage, or a blend of creative and strategic solutions across traditional, digital and social media. Join the masses and follow to learn how Simon can help maximize your brand.

@landor_dot_com

True, this last tweeter appears to be a bit random and doesn’t have tens of thousands of followers like the others, but it is currently ranked as the number one most influential branding tweeter by a Twitter search directory. Landor Associates is one of those hidden gems in the branding mine. A continual stream of branding’s impact and branding tips can be found. All are encouraged to follow.

Personal Branding and Corporate Leadership: can they co-exist?

Company leaders often have strong personalities. They may even have an established personal brand. But how does their personal brand effect the strategies of the company, and the management style to implement them? Is there a conflict? Can a CEO take a company down with ineffective personal brand management?

If the foundation of brand functionality resides in consistent, effective, and convincing communication about the goals, intentions, and objectives of the company, then a leader whose brand value is at odds with these foundational elements will certainly negatively impact any company, large or small. To create a sense of cohesion between both personal and corporate brand, the leader must understand the “soul” of the company and their own “spirit of leadership.” Buy in will only occur if these two are in alignment.

Take the case of Anne Mulcahey.

What would you do if the company you work for were 18 billion dollars in debt facing imminent bankruptcy with debtors dragging you to court and your boss quits?

Well you might choose to run from the obvious train-wreck. But, Anne Mulcahey is different. Anne chose to step up. She became CEO of Xerox and faced doubters, debtors and critics head on. In a few years she cut the debt in half, raised revenue, and inspired her company’s employees, customers and vendors.

How?

In the words of Bill George, Harvard Business School Professor, she is an authentic leader. She leads from her own “true north”. She understands the purpose of her leadership. She is also conscious of the “true north” of the company, it’s soul, so to speak. She understands the entelechy of the company. She knows where the two intersect and where she can add value.

Authentic leaders lead with very consistent values, from the heart as well as the head. They exemplify courage, compassion and empathy. They focus on building long-term relationships. Her brand is consistently reinforced through those relationships, pushing messages of co-operation and cohesion. She adds value to the company brand.

Authentic leaders know they must empower those around them. Their job is to inspire. They KNOW that the personal brand value they add must be in alignment with the corporate brand of the company. CEO’s and the leaders of companies today must make an effort to “consciously brand” their company. Because adding value is more than just adding ideas, personality, and motivation, it’s about creating something people can believe in, something with a “soul.”