From Impressions to Expressions: Why Coke is a SoMe Superstar

Can't make it to see Brands Undercover, my ERE presentation in San Diego on March 28? Then I guess you'll miss hearing about how Coca-Cola is the #1 brand in the world.

And, in honor of my favorite award show day,  I am also going to bestow Coke with Brandemix's very own SoMe Superstar award.


Here's why:
  

1. In addition to tracking consumer impressions, they are increasingly tracking Consumer Expressions. Defined by Joe Tripodi, Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing and Commercial Officer of the Coca-Cola Company, it means "any level of engagement with our brand content by a consumer or constituent. It could be a comment, a 'like,' uploading a photo or video or passing content onto their networks." While consumer impressions have long been the metric of choice for measuring SoMe ROI, they are passive, unlike consumer expressions which track active involvement with a brand.

2. They  have a webpage with their Online Social Media Principles which include The Five Core Values of the Company in the Online Social Media Community: Transparency, Protection, Respect, Responsibility and Utilization.  

3. Their Super Bowl 2012 ad was so successful at driving traffic that it actually crashed their Facebook server.

4. They have embraced the communication strategy of keeping  "Liquid and Linked," defined as curating work that is so emotionally compelling, authentic and culturally relevant that it can flow through any medium.

It must be working. Coke estimates that of the 146 million views of content related to Coca-Cola on YouTube, only 26 million views were of content that they themselves created. Nice to have 120 million brand ambassadors on your team! Which brings us to:

5. They have relinquished control. When Coke's Facebook Page was targeted by an activist group whose members posted negative messages, it was the Facebook fans who rallied and responded with messages of support for the company.

As Coke gets ready to celebrate their 125 anniversary, they are a shining example of getting old both gracefully and greatly.

Congratulations to Coke on being Brandemix's SoMe Superstar! Might we humbly offer one bit of advice? It might be time to freshen up your careers site to keep it as great as your brand. We know someone who can help.

Clients: Are They Allies or Adversaries?

Want to go deeper into the client-agency relationship?  Take a few tips from Brandemix's own Kathryn Wandling, Director of Client Services. Here’s what she's gleaned after a decade of successful experience "in the trenches".

Secrets of Great Client Service
I’ve found every client to be very understanding and appreciative of the load we take off their backs. Though we may sometimes disagree, my clients and I share the same goal: To produce great work that solves business objectives. 

My philosophy boils down to these points:

Build Brand Equity at Every Touchpoint
While the client is the keeper of the brand, they may not always be keen on the best way to promote it. My job is to keep the brand top-of-mind.

Know the Client’s Business
This is critical when making marketing recommendations. Only through truly walking in their shoes, can I research and present best practice, and act as an advisor and consultant. I do my best to make sure I understand their industry, along with their industry-speak as quickly as possible. We carefully review everything that I think they should do, but I also listen to what they want to do and attempt to understand all the factors that led to their decisions. It is through this collaboration, that consensus emerges.

Teach Clients the Agency Business
Any learning that I can impart to my clients makes them look good and makes my job easier. While it's not important to know what a vector file is, or the difference between an .ai and .psd, it's important to understand our process and strategy, and how their goals have impacted the creative decisions we've made.

Learn the Rules
Every channel of communication has their own rules, and it's my business to know them. If we're building a new website, important items should never be more than three clicks away. If I'm executing a social media campaign, I need to discuss metrics for success -- whether it's likes, retweets, mentions, hires or sales. Our goal is always measurable success.

Hold their Hand and Watch their Back
My client's feel like I have one client, and it's them. I attempt to be the “level head” when dealing with the creative people on my side, and the crazy pressure from the CEO on their side. I can be a therapist, a policeman, a bean-counter, a devil or saint, depending on what's called for in each unique situation. It's not always an easy job,  but I always have my client's back. That's why they come back.

Got a question? My virtual door is always open.

Happy 2012!

Why Moleskine is a Social Media Superstar

As many of you know from my presentations and webinars, I’m always looking for brands that are using social media in innovative ways. I honor these organizations with the name “SoMe Superstars.” PepsiCo, with its brilliant social recruitment marketing, was the most recent winner.

Today I’d like to recognize another company that’s interacting with consumers in exciting new ways: Moleskine, the Italy-based maker of fine notebooks and journals. Rather than seeing its products as simply blank books, the company brands itself as embodying creativity, bringing tools to artists, writers, and travelers. To further this branding, Moleskine has created a number of social media channels that celebrate painting, drawing, writing, poetry, and scrapbooking, and encourages users to post their work. The result is a remarkably loyal fan base that consistently uploads and shares new content. In fact, BrandChannel recently declared that “If any brand name seems to be loved by all who come in contact with it, it is Moleskine.”

                                          

Here are the three superstar strategies that Moleskine uses to engage with its audience in a branded way:

* Moleskine has profiles on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr, and Tumblr, each with active communities and lots of user-generated content, from artwork to fiction to videos.

* For “old-fashioned” content, the company runs a blog, Moleskinerie, that integrates many of its social efforts while also providing unique content.

* Moleskine has just launched a mobile app that allows users to write or draw on their iPhone or iPad as they would in an actual notebook.

As the New York Times recently reported, Moleskine’s social efforts are immensely successful. 91,000 people are fans of the company’s Facebook page, while 12,000 people follow the company on Twitter. On both Facebook and Flickr, Moleksine encourages its fans to post their sketches, paintings, and collages, creating a community of user-generated content and supportive feedback.

Moleskine’s YouTube channel has 3,800 subscribers and more than 235 videos, both from fans and the company itself. The videos range from actual footage of artists drawing in the books to short films that celebrate the company’s creative spirit. The company also posts videos of its traveling art exhibitions and its workshops, which allow fans to meet and collaborate, making the Moleskine customer base feel even more like a community.

                                       

Most companies have a blog, but the Moleskine blog stands out by serving as a companion to its Facebook and Twitter accounts, rather than simply duplicating them. “Tweet” and “Like” buttons atop each post make it easy to share the content on users’ social networks. Moleskine also made the bold decision to stay distinct from the company’s website, giving the brand a platform to focus solely on its community. The blog includes a link to a very cool beta application, myMoleskine, which allows users to upload their own written or visual content, or images from a gallery, and create a virtual notebook, complete with turnable pages.

Even while it embraces its product’s low-tech charm, Moleskine is moving into the modern era with a clever new mobile app. Users choose a Moleskine notebook paper style, create a new “thought,” and then type or draw, using different colors and sizes. These “thoughts” can be geo-tagged, catalogued in different categories, and shared with others through social networks or email.

Art by Jinho Jung

In speaking to the New York Times, Moleskine America president Marco Beghin said “We let our fans speak for themselves. We wanted to create a relay of stories to become the ambassadors, interpreting the message.” Moleskine knows that its customers are creative and gives them an outlet for them to express themselves.

What can you learn from Moleskine? First, find the positive and compelling aspects of your brand, company, or product. Then learn who your market is and how they relate to those aspects. Finally, find ways of connecting with that market that utilize your strengths and are on-brand.

For fostering creativity in creative ways, I’ve dipped my quill and inscribed Moleskine in the honored list of genuine SoMe Superstars!

TALENT MANGEMENT PROFESSIONALS FALL BEHIND IN SOCIAL MEDIA USE

 
A new nationwide Social Media study reveals surprising news: Talent Management professionals have been slow to take advantage of social media in their personal lives, which may indicate a reluctance to use the same channels for business. The survey, sponsored by BRANDEMiX, was conducted last month by the New Talent Management Network, a global network of more than 2500 talent management professionals founded by consultant, author, and speaker Marc Effron.

Not surprisingly, only LinkedIn stood out among the four major social media channels. Almost half of respondents stated that they posted on the professional network “at least a few times per month,” and 39% read information posted by others “more than a few times a week.”

However, when asked if LinkedIn influenced respondents purchasing decisions, only 25% said “yes.”

More than half of respondents stated that they used Twitter either “less than once a month” or “never.” Only 8% of respondents stated that they used Twitter “to keep current on talent management trends and developments.”

Similarly, while a third of respondents read other people’s Facebook pages “more than a few times a week,” 43% posted content on their own pages “less than once a week.” Another 13% “never” posted on their own pages.

As for YouTube, though 85% of respondents reporting watching others’ videos at least once a month, that same percentage also claimed that they “never” posted their own video content on the world’s second-largest search engine.

Compared to general human resources professionals, whose use of social media to engage job applicants has been steadily increasing, talent management professionals have yet to embrace these new channels. Even those in talent management who use social media are less influenced by its content and rely on it less for information than other populations in human resources. A copy of the complete survey can be downloaded here.

Social Media Starts to Sizzle

I just wanted to express a few quick thoughts before the holiday weekend.

It’s an exciting time at BRANDEMiX. We have new projects, new clients, new staff, and a new, larger office space that’s designed for collaboration.

Things are changing in the social media world as well. Foursquare's recent partnership with American Express shows that mobile marketing has a big future. Google+ hopes to compete with Facebook at the same time that Skype, now owned by Microsoft, is integrating more closely with the social network giant. Amidst all this, MySpace’s sale to Specific Media at a $545 million loss closes a major chapter in the history of the internet.

Many of you will be enjoying the holiday weekend but still updating your Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn profiles, still checking in on Fourquare and  uploading videos to YouTube. But is it for work or pleasure? Are the borders between the two coming down?

That’s something I’ll explore in the coming weeks, along with more spotlights on Social Media Superstars. I’ll also introduce you to my own superstar, the Director of Digital Branding at BRANDEMiX.

Until then, have a happy Independence Day.

Happy Birthday, BRANDEMiX

Good Morning Readers.

Today, on the sixth anniversary of BRANDEMiX and the BRANDEblog, it seems like a good opportunity to look back on what I’ve accomplished and share with you all that I’m thankful for.

2005 was a very different world, and not just because everyone’s mortgage was secure and Barack Obama was still the junior senator from Illinois.

The internet in April of that year would hardly be recognizable to us now. Facebook existed, but it was available only to students at Harvard, Yale, Stanford, and Columbia. YouTube’s first video had just been uploaded. It would be another year before Twitter, another two years before the iPhone, and another four years before Foursquare. This rather empty social media landscape was ruled by MySpace, which was only a few months from its $580 million sale to News Corp.

Into this environment came BRANDEMiX and the BRANDEblog, and I was seen (not all that favorably) as an agent for communications change. My crime? Advocating the use of blogs!

Thankfully we've moved on (and by the way moved physically 3 times)!

I’ve been amazed to watch the scope of BRANDEMiX services expand from recruitment marketing, website development, and of course, employer branding to managing complex consumer branding projects, advertising, digital marketing and social media campaigns for wonderful clients in all industries and locations.

I’ve also had the privilege of speaking and presenting all over the world, bringing my workshops on the Four Essential Social Media Profiles and my “One Brand” philosophy to conferences and organizations of all kinds. Six years ago, we were all “SoMe Starters,” but now I get to consult and help create “SoMe Superstars.” Nothing makes me happier than watching someone who didn’t know a hashtag from a hash brown look at me and say, “I get it now.”

From internal communications projects like onboarding, benefits and wellness, and employee rewards, to public efforts like consumer branding and marketing, We have assisted companies with both their employer brand and their consumer brand, bridging the gap from marketing to HR.

And I’m supported in my endeavors by the finest designers, writers, service professionals and marketers, not just in New York City but perhaps the entire country. So big thanks to Jason, John, Katie, Anita and Stacey for leading the teams that bring the magic to the mix.

And thanks to you A-man for reminding us of the celebratory day. And shout-out to all the FOB's (Jayne, you were the first Friend of BRANDEMiX) for believing.

Looking back at the past six years, I consider myself a success…until I realize that I started my company at the same time that Mark Zuckerberg founded Facebook.

Maybe I haven’t quite arrived at his level yet, but I’m sure enjoying the journey. Thanks for coming along for the ride.

Building Your Coporate Social Brand on LInkedin

If you were buried in snow earlier this week you may have missed the big news about Linkedin going public. Already valued at $2.51 billion, the IPO is only looking to raise another $175 million. Actually, this could easily be accomplished if every registered global user (90 million) donated just $2. And it gets cheaper by the minute. Linkedin reports that it gains a new member every second.

Its great news for those companies looking to build brands on the cheap. In November, Linkedin rolled out a suite of new services designed to help companies showcase their products, client and job opportunities and easily enhance their social brand.

Adam Kleinberg, co-founder and CEO at Traction shares the following primer on Mashable! Those of you still too busy shoveling and salting for the DIY methods, feel free to call BRANDEMiX for some support.

The Basics

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The basic features have not changed since previous iterations of LinkedIn Companies. (In fact, if I have one criticism of the new version it’s the utter lack of integration between the new features and old. The new ones all live under one tab.) You can upload a logo, add a paragraph describing your business, list contacts and attach their profiles. There’s a decent chance someone at your company has already done this. Other legacy features include the ability to post job listings.

LinkedIn also automatically displays the profiles of employees and new hires. This can be a great tool for business development pros because they can quickly discover the people with the “right” job titles at companies they are targeting.

Unfortunately, LinkedIn does this by keyword association, so there is a significant degree of inaccuracy in the profiles listed. Of the forty-four “employees” listed for my agency, at least ten are from other companies with similar names. Allowing administrative control over this would be nice.

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Products & Services

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The biggest new feature of LinkedIn Companies is the addition of the Products & Services tab. Your company can list each of its products or services, upload a 100 x 80 pixel icon and description of each, and create a bullet list of attributes. Pretty standard, right?

This is where we begin to have fun and start to build a really powerful marketing tool. The first thing you’ll notice when you visit a souped-up page is the “carousel.” Through a simple admin tool, you can upload three whopping 640 x 220 banners (JPEG, GIF or PNG, no Flash) that rotate on the page and link to specific URLs that you designate. Obviously, these can be landing pages set up to generate leads. You can also go with a softer sell — my agency put up ads driving toward case studies in our website portfolio.

The impact of these is substantial and the fact that LinkedIn allows you to create links that take users away from their website (and advertising revenue) is to be applauded.

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YouTube Videos

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You can now also embed a YouTube video on the Overview page and each of the individual Products & Services pages you create. When done well, video is a powerful tool to convey your message to customers. This is a huge opportunity to engage people in a contextually relevant manner. You can use a different video on every page and embedding them is as simple as copying and pasting a URL from YouTube.

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Recommendations

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Probably the most important new feature is the ability to solicit recommendations from your customers for each of your products or services. This works just like the Recommendations feature does on an individual LinkedIn profile. You’ll want to take the time to edit the default message when asking for an endorsement.

This will soon become a vital reference checkpoint that people use before doing business with your company. According to Forrester Research (in Groundswell), 83% of us say we are at least somewhat influenced by word-of-mouth. While the highly edited “Success Stories” on your website may comprehensively cover the breadth of benefits and messages you want to convey, their impact is no match for a three sentence endorsement attached to the personal profile of an enthusiastic customer.

LinkedIn has elected to give you administrative approval over which testimonials go on your profile. Users are savvy and will recognize this, so don’t think Recommendations can replace actually having good products and services. Google is only a click away.

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Audiences

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This is where LinkedIn Companies gets powerful. LinkedIn allows you to completely customize how you present your products and services to distinct audience segments.

If your ears just perked up, you may work for a company with a diverse customer base or product offering. Or maybe you’re a marketer who knows that creating content that is relevant to your target is essential for provoking engagement, inciting response and maximizing ROI.

Either way, you’re probably realizing that this is not something you’re going to do in one afternoon. You’re going to want to be strategic in your approach and thoughtful about the content you create.

Taking advantage of Audiences may take strategic planning, but it won’t take technical acumen. LinkedIn lets you easily “Create an audience segment,” select its attributes (job title, seniority, company size, industry, location, etc.) with a few clicks and then edit a clone of your base company profile.

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Offers and Campaigns

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Each product or service (for each audience segment) also has a placeholder for a unique offer associated with it. For example, you can easily create an offer for a free white paper or a free coupon for your tasty and delicious consumer packaged good.

Once you’ve got your products and services all set up, you can create targeted Campaigns to drive traffic to your profile. LinkedIn has a self-service tool with simple filtering options to find the right audience. Self-service is a good thing because it means you don’t have to be a big company with a big budget to start generating traffic, leads and revenue.

The system works a lot like Google AdWords. You can create multiple versions of your campaign — up to fifteen of them — to see what works best. You can set a daily budget and a maximum bid for either clicks or CPMs (cost per thousand views). And you can set campaigns to run indefinitely or until a specific date.

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Analytics

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Lastly, it wouldn’t be digital if you couldn’t measure it. LinkedIn has some nice charts that allow you to view your performance in terms of page views, visitors, clicks on various types of content visits by industry and followers.

What I really like is that LinkedIn compares your performance in each of these categories with similar companies, so you have a contextually relevant benchmark. I don’t like that I can’t export any of these charts to Excel or embed them in a dashboard. But hey, a guy can dream, right?

Overall, I think LinkedIn Companies could become as important to brands as websites or Facebook Pages. It’s worth taking the time to do them well to harness the power these new features can provide.

Planning Your Talent Acquisition Strategy. Are Pigs the New Cats?

With a growing abundance of vendors and options to choose from, mapping an appropriate talent acquisition strategy can be tricky. But BRANDEblog readers are in luck.

Trendwatching.com was kind enough to provide some tips for trend-tracking this month and some of the tidbits have great applications for HR as well.
1. Don't apply all trends to all people.
"One massive mistake both trend watchers and brands make all the time, is to assume or pretend that a certain consumer trend will affect or be embraced by all consumers. " Replace the word "consumers" with "job seekers" and you'll get the hidden message. Can we all stop tweeting yet?

2. Be (very) curious.
"while we're all set in our own ways, and we have our strict beliefs about what is right and what is wrong, closely observing instead of judging the world around you is tantamount to success." Launch research, do surveys, have focus groups. Knowledge is power and if you don't believe in "post & pray" methodology, find out what's working in your market, in your industry and around your world.

3. "Let others do some of the work for you in 2011"
"YOU DO NOT HAVE TIME TO DO ALL OF THE ABOVE YOURSELF. .. let professionals do part of the work for you, even if it's just to help you hit the ground running. We couldn't agree more. As long as there exists great partners to help you plan strategies, facilitate research and implement campaigns, you should take advantage of their talents on your behalf.

So what about the pigs?
A last bit of advice- If you can't tell difference between fads and trends, we know a purr-fect partner.

The Future of DIY Recruitment Advertising?

I admire the marketing savvy guys at Stevenson college for posting this DIY recruitment ad to You Tube. In less than 2 minutes, they were able to convey a bit of culture along with the candidate's 5 must-have's a experience-wise, and one value proposition- the opportunity to have a bit of fun on the job with seemingly nice folks.

Quite a nice departure from the typical 12+ bullets of boring requirements that appear in most job postings. Best of all, I found it as a mention in one of my LinkedIn groups, which means it's enjoying some modest viral success.

Having spent the past few days putting together a national recruitment strategy for a large national client, the simplicity of this strategy cheered me up. The ever-growing list of media, technology and social recruitment marketing options has fragmented our audiences and diluted our messages.

In our efforts to promote dialogue and engagement, content has left the building.

When newspapers charged almost $1 per character of text, we chose our words carefully. Although Twitter has brought the same consciousness to the digital world, the number of tweets is still endless. The more we receive, the less special it feels.

That's why, in building my branded media campaign, my goal is disruption. In the old days, it was the white space that stood out in a paper crowded with tiny text. Today, I'll call it white noise- a simple signal across multiple frequencies - a return to basics that's so true, it's arresting.

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Employee Retention in a Digital World

Employees join companies and leave managers. But how they leave is up to them. Conversations that were once shared with friends are now shared with friends, friends of friends and the world. And people, especially Gen Xers, discuss bad experiences almost 4x as much as good ones.

Here are 3 things you should be doing to make sure that your Employer Brand is thriving in a digital world:

1. Bi-directional communications: Make sure that you are creating listening opportunities from the bottom up. Provide safe ways for employees to discuss manager and co-worker issues.

2. Exit interviews: To ensure complete and accurate information, they should be conducted by a third party company, not someone on your staff.

3. Training: Add social media guidelines to your ethics and compliance training. Are employees blogging about the workplace or "friending" their vendors? Create policies and consequences.

4. Manage your digital reputation: Glass Door, Jobvent, Vault-- the tools are there. Make the time to use them, or get some help from the outside.

Going Trendy on The Web

Today’s trends continue to strut their virtual stuff on the web. Keeping up with the social, mobile, and design trends that are taking the world by storm could actually reel in more potential clients and better employees than you’d think. If you’re thinking of redesigning, here are some things to keep in mind:

1. DESIGN TO YOUR DEMO: For the younger demographic (ages 18-30), minimalism is in; for the "older" ones (ages 30+) simple eases the hassle of finding exactly what they’re looking for without having to be redirected to different places.

2. HI, MY NAME IS: If simple is too simple for your company, there is an alternative; make it personal! First impressions are the most important so why not make one as soon as surfers see your site? Now, this doesn’t mean you need a full page biography about you or your company. Separate microsites that speak to a demographic, geographic or psychographic is a great way to engage your audience.

3. ROY G. BIV: Color is very important to a website. According to Pamil-Visions.net, color can really influence an audience. “Brands should choose their corporate color carefully. (To read the whole article click here!)

4. APPLY YOURSELF: Almost all cell phones today have the option of buying and downloading apps. Creating your own app is a great way to keep your company “hip to the jive”. If you design it, they will download. (If you need help, click here!)

Don’t be scared to get out there and get trendy. It's easier than you think.

EMPLOYER VALUE PROPOSITIONS: Is it time for employers to switch from demands to offerings?

According to today’s Wall Street Journal, some firms are still struggling to hire despite high unemployment. While many of these firms seek hourly employees, and compete against extended unemployment benefits, others are looking for needles in haystacks. The more skilled the applicant, the more the business has to offer to them.

Looking to save some money? This is where the employer value propositions come in handy. In order for your business to attract (and keep) the best potential employees, here are some free things to keep in mind as you seek to influence behavior:

1. Quality of Leadership: The better your leadership in operating your company, the more attractive your business becomes because it’s successful. The more attractive your business is, the higher number of applications you will receive. The higher the number of applicants, the greater a chance of finding the perfect person for your company. Strong leadership is not only extremely beneficial to your company’s success, but it is also a big deciding factor for your future employees.

2. Reputation: With a good reputation comes the willingness for employees to work more for less. People want stability within their jobs and if you and your company can ensure security for potential candidates, your inbox will be flooded with talented people who will be fighting to work for you.

3. J.O.B: Just Offer the Best; the workspace is very important to an employee. If your employees aren’t comfortable with their environment, they’re less eager to do their job with the same quality and effort as if they were somewhere more pleasant.

4. Benefits and Rewards: Here is where you have to think like the employee and ask what about this company makes this the job right for me?” Whether its in the job description, brochure, or in the interview itself, if these questions should be answered without them having to ask; promote yourself!

What most employers don't realize is that a poorly promoted Employment Value Proposition (EVP) costs them a significant amount of money each year, either through overpaying employees, costs of recruiting or not filling open positions.

Let BRANDEMiX help put your EVP to work for you.

Non Profit Branding- Whether You Are the Tail, The Dog or The Big Apple

NOTE: This month's focus is on
Branding Q and A. All Q's welcome- Jody

QUESTION:

I work for a division of a large, national non-profit organization. Do I need my own Employer Branding materials for recruitment marketing purposes, or should I just use the same materials as our national organization?

ANSWER:

While there's no one answer to your question, here are 4 considerations that can help you decide on your best course of action.

1. Organizational Alignment- How integrated is your chapter with the national organization and other member chapters from a talent management point-of-view? Are benefits, policies and services centralized? Do lateral opportunities and career mobility paths exist? Consider your answer and go to step 2.
   
2. Brand Reputation and Tools- Let’s take a tip from Occam and presume the simplest path is the best. Consider whether or not there is a downside to piggybacking on the national brand. If you answered “yes” to question 1, and your national parent already has strong, positive brand awareness and great recruitment marketing materials, then alignment is advised. If there no alignment and there are some skeletons hiding in the closet (a story of embezzlement, bamboozlement or other) then cut the cord and go semi-solo.
   
3. Unique Differentiators- Your answer may not be A or B, but rather A & B. In creating the employer brand architecture, you may find that there are some common elements to your culture and unique drivers as well. In that case, go for a brand-blend and highlight the positives of the co-brand and the unique benefits inherent only within your chapter.
   
4. Competition for Talent: Are you competing for talent with your parent organization? If so, suit up and separate. You’re already competing for talent with other companies and non-profits in your area code, and I presume that compensation will not be the tipping point in candidate’s favorable decision to join you. Now what? Go back to number 2 and build your brand on your unique differentiators. The word differentiator is key.
   

Consider this ad campaign created by BRANDEMiX for Legal Aid Society of New York. In it, the city, not the organization, is the star. Talented professionals will always have choices of where to devote their time and/or money, but there is only one New York City. And giving back to a city that gives so much, and has been through so much, is powerful and pleasure-ful incentive that no other chapter could duplicate.

Are You Too Booked for a Social Life?

Based on the growing number of invitations I receive to veet-ups (webinars), meet-ups, workshops and conferences, I know that social media marketing has captured everyone's attention in a big way. We have truly embraced the concept of creating dialogues with our fans, and relationship building with our key interest groups.

I say above that "we have embraced" but it really isn't "us", is it?

Have you "down-sourced" the project to the summer intern you hired? Have you "out-sourced" it to your agency partner?

Search a job aggregator and you will find a handful of Social Media Marketing Directors, Strategists and Managers but more frequently, interns.

It is not surprising that we are unwilling to commit dollars to the ownership of communications that we can't measure the value of, but at the same time, the stewardship must be held by someone with vested interest in success of the program.

Your agency/PR partner can help you with the learning curve and messaging but actions need to happen within the company, not outside of it. The voice needs to be framed authenticity, and a person we can engage with. That person needs to be a permanent member of your team.

Your intern may be gone in September but your Digital Brand is forever.

Join the conversation and the Linked In group Your Digital Brand.

Are you Strong Enough for HR Branding?

You’ve tackled all the tough challenges and branded every communications initiative both inside and out: Employer branding, branded intranets, training portals, microsites, social network marketing, branded internal and benefit communications- you even have a smart-phone friendly career site.

And now, this summer, just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water (ocean, pool, lake or other), I propose the super-branding challenger round –

HR Branding: The brand that is You and Your Department.

Here’s why it requires expert strokes—

• You will be swimming in strong currents- serving the needs of 2 masters, as employer and employee advocate.
• Due diligence in brand crafting means creating dialogues- you will need to be open to honest feedback from executives, employees, line managers and other fish, both big and small.
• Sustaining an authentic HR brand for the long haul might require making significant operational changes that pull you outside the safe waters
• Synchronization- make no mistake- this is a total team effort

If you’re still up for it, dive in.

Creating an Internal HR Brand

The Rules

1. Lay the Groundwork

• Define objectives, communications channels and audience needs

2. Ask (or have us ask) The Questions

• Who is HR?
• What Should Employees “Feel” when they “See” HR?
• What Should Candidates “Feel” when they “See” HR?
• How Can HR Best Support Their Goals?

3. Point to an End Goal

• A brand is a promise- what’s yours? Whether you create an HR mission, vision or charter, you must embody that promise to each person within your organization

4. Engage Employees

• The more they become a part of the process, the greater their commitment to your efforts

The Prize

Review step 1- what were you looking to accomplish?

Perhaps you want to create a unifying purpose to your HR team at large- have them thinking felling and acting as a brand. Or maybe instill a greater understanding within employees and executives of the important work you do.

Through the application of the same methodology employed by marketing professionals, your Human Resources Department will become the Brand of Choice for talented employees and potential employees looking to become a big fish within your organization

VIDEO STRATEGY! WHAT'S YOURS?

Last year, when I attended the Convergence Conference roundtable panel on "Video as a Catalyst for Conversation”, the moderator promised that “just like everyone now has a blog strategy, soon you’ll need a video strategy.” The audience shuddered, a clear sign that they had not yet adapted a blog strategy.

But the numbers do speak for themselves.

According to a recent comScore Video Metrix service, 178 million U.S. Internet users watched 30 billion online videos during the month of April -- that's 3 times the amount viewed in 2008.

But another statistic from Flowtown told me that 77% of small and medium sized businesses have not embraced video as a form of marketing.

Here’s why they should. The chart below, from the Wall Street Journal shows that after viewing a video ad on the Internet, 55% of 501 adults took action.

The hard part now is how to use this knowledge to your advantage. It’s a simple answer: call someone in to help. Aren’t you already doing too much at work. Who has time to think about your video strategy?

A media consultant (I know a great one) can help you

* Define your audience
* Plan your distribution using appropriate internal or external partners
* Add some control to the scary proposition of unleashing this on the world.


No one has all the answers, but emerging as an early embracer (it is too late for that) will help your brand for a very small investment of dollars.

And besides, doesn’t everyone want to be a SuperStar?

On The Beach and Out of Home

If you were anywhere near New York last weekend you know how beautiful the Memorial Day weather was. Lying on the beach reminded me of this great blog of Summer '08, and thought I'd dig it out, dust it off and share it for the new readers of BRANDEblog.

If you were enjoying this beautiful beach weekend with me, you may have seen the cloud formation in the sky that spelled GEICO.COM and gone "OOH". OOH is an acronym for Out of Home- the classification of advertising so called because, unlike print or tv, it reaches the consumers when they are out of their homes.
According to the NY Times last Friday, Madison Avenue is having an out-of-home experience. "The ardor to reach consumers outside the home — and outside the realm of traditional media like television — continues to grow among marketers. They hope to fight back against technologies like digital video recorders, which make it easier to avoid conventional advertisements like commercials.

The category once referred to only billboards, posters and signs but now includes expansion into places like airports, offices, malls, schools and health clubs. Industry forecasters are predicting a growth rate of more than 12% a year for the next 5 years.

I've been following the trend carefully, since I am frequently called upon to develop advertising strategies beyond print and online. But even I was pleased and surprised at how the category has expanded and the opportunities to build a tactical buzz across specific geography have never been so creative, inexpensive and hopefully effective.

Considering opening a gym? How about chair advertising such as this for VIP Gyms?Regular BRANDEBlog readers are already familiar with advertising in and outside of malls, movie theatres, barber shops or on coffee cups. But here's just a partial list of OOH media that BRANDEMiX can now include as part of an integrated advertising campaign to increase brand awareness and make some noise.

ATM machines • Driver's Ed cars • Spotlight Ads • Gas Pump Toppers • Taxis • Valet Parking Lots • Sand sculpture • Street Decals ... and for the brave.. Wrapped Port-A-Potties.

If you want to know more, call us.

Oh and speaking of noise, those sky-typing GEICO planes created an out-of-home experience that was 8 miles long.

Your Recruiters Could be Killing Your Brand.

A close friend of mine landed the job of her dreams last week. Competition was fierce, the testing process was exacting and the interviewing process connected her with very impressive representatives of the firm.

Yet when the offer package came, there was a significant typo, which could have translated into several thousand dollars of unintentional income to my friend.

Of course my friend pointed out the error, and new docs were drawn up but something sad happened in the interim. (What do you do when the cover letter has a typo?) A bit of tarnish on the brass ring.

There are many phases in the recruiting process including

Advertising
Sourcing
Pre-Screening
Interviewing
Preparing for the New Hire
Offers and Regrets

How your recruiters (internal or external) handle each part shapes impressions, positive or negative of your brand.

If your brand is about Delivering the Wow (Zappos), then I want to be just as wowed with the recruiting process as I am when my shoes arrive. (I was.)

Your brand beats through everyone. If your internal team needs a primer or reminder, call BRANDEMiX to schedule me for your next internal meeting.
Crown included.

Your Digital Employer Brand

Reputation Management in a Digital World

According to a study conducted by Microsoft earlier this year, 70% of surveyed HR professionals in U.S. (41% in the UK) have rejected a candidate based on online reputation information. Don’t be surprised, but your candidates are doing the same thing.

In recent years, in most industries (healthcare and IT notwithstanding), the rise in unemployment created a temporary truce in the war for talent, as layoffs abounded and many non-business-critical positions were put on hold. That is slowly changing now, as corporate payrolls are increasing and jobs are being added.

That’s why it might be a perfect time check out your company’s digital employer brand. Pressed on time? Don’t worry. Technology coupled with sophisticated search engines has made it easier than ever.

Just type “working for [company]” into your fav browser and see what comes up. Chances are, you’ll see something from Jobvent at the top of the list. Further down, you may find surprising insights from Glass Door, Yahoo Answers or Vault.

Want to play more? Try putting in the name of your toughest competitor and see what you find out. Put together a play book for recruiters on how to sell against all your competition. Use the intel to re-sell employees on why they belong with you.

If want to delve deeper, LinkedIn can be a huge help. Do a search by your company name. Not only can you find current employees you’re connected too, but they’ll also show you past employees, new hires, and the most popular profiles. If you’re looking for brand ambassadors, there they are.

On the competitive side, call a past employee of your competitor. Find out why they left and what they think of your company as an employer.

Dick Tracy would be in heaven.

You can also opt to go with a no-work-involved investigation- sign up for Google Alerts, Trackr or Social Mention. Then the information comes right to your Inbox. (Or call BRANDEMiX- this is routine for us- it's part of the research we amass to create authentic employer value propositions.)

Online reputation management is becoming big business, as companies look to track what’s being said and measure the success of their social media marketing strategies.

In a simpler time, employee conversations ended at the water cooler, but today they’re flowing around the world. HR and recruiters need to be part of the dialogue.

Keep the conversation going at Your Digital Brand