What do YOU do on a Snow Day in central Iowa? Well, if you’re at all involved in social media, you get online and jump into the conversation (ANY conversation). There’s always a chat, a dialogue, a debate or simply silly talk going on within Twitter.

As an experiment, I decided to create a screencast of the conversations that took place with and around me (@TheBrandChef) this morning.

Featured in this little conversation are friends and associates (and some people I’ve NEVER met, but I consider friends anyway):

• @JoshFleming (Josh Fleming)
• @abrudtkuhl (Andy Brudtkuhl)
• @ketelsen (Katie Ketelsen)
• @JuliaThompson (Julia Thompson)
• @JustBrady (Justin Brady)
• @theChesterfield (Strategic America)
• @Kworalsoa (Simeone S. Spagnoli)

Enjoy!

Music credit goes out to Ben Folds for including these audio loops on the last CD I bought!

Keep Cooking (creative things to do when the world seems to shut down…)
Andrew B. Clark
The Brand Chef

Yes, I said it. As “The Brand Chef,” that’s something I never thought would come out of my mouth.  But in a recent meeting with a friend, I closed my laptop, pushed my chair back and looked him straight in the eye and said these exact words:

“Your marketing can’t fix crazy…” (and this was in reference to HIS company!)

Now, this could either be a lesson on how to shoot yourself in the foot during a casual meeting with a friend; or it could turn into a logical discussion on branding versus marketing.  This discussion could cover how, because branding is at the core of a company’s culture, business and communications model, your brand isn’t something that you can just decide to give a “face lift.” Marketing, on the other hand – what many people think of when branding comes up in a conversation – can be changed to suit an ever-evolving brand…

Here’s the difference: Marketing is the strategic communication effort that results from a TRUE core brand promise, targeted to a specific audience, with the goal of enticing engagement with that brand.

So, to say it again, just for affect:

“Your marketing can’t fix crazy….”

You see companies, almost on a daily basis, “rebranding” themselves.  But deep-down, without a TRUE brand strategy, the marketing that results is guaranteed to reflect what is going on inside the company – for better or worse…

Based on the conversation that ensued after my “shocking” statement, my friend and I came up with five simple takeaways.

Marketing can’t fix…

1. … a company that has changed its “brand strategy” 5 times in the last 5 years. This happens when deeper brand issues stall out the progress marketing should be making.  Instead of stopping and performing a TRUE brand evaluation, the CEO or CMO simply jump the track to find a different way.  Different doesn’t fix what’s broken.
   
2. … a company’s inability to make brand-based decisions. Unfortunately a company with this problem usually slows or destroys its marketing efforts simply by not being able to take action.
3. … a broken marketing communication system by only using “internal staffers.” Few “Internal Marketing Departments” have enough perspective to do all of the brand evaluation and execution without outside counsel. Trust me, I’ve seen many companies try and many have failed.
4. … a company with a lousy product or service (even at a discount). In this economy, when people are looking for value, quality still is at the core of our decision-making process.  If your product or service is at the bottom of the quality scale in that category, you’d better re-think more than your brand.
5. … a program with an insufficient budget. The phrase “money talks and B.S. walks,” for this point, is painfully applicable.  Plan all you want.  Scheme big dreams and map out creative strategies until your face turns fuchsia.  None of it will succeed unless you have the resources to support it.  How many campaigns have gotten out of the starting blocks in a blur, only to fall to its knees a quarter way through the race because it’s out of funding?

TRUE Branding (Truthful/Transparent, Relevant, Unique and Engaging) is the core to building a successful marketing communications program.  With strategic marketing you can analyze a company’s TRUE Brand position, develop a successful plan and implement a program to raise awareness and engage your market. But remember, branding takes time and sometimes painful effort. It shouldn’t be viewed as a quick fix, or a “face-lift.”

With that, I’d like to send a big “Thank you” out to my friend for letting me vent to (at) him.  Although the coffee was good, I appreciate the conversations that make me think and evaluate how I can better help clients and their brands.

Next time, the coffee is on me.

Keep Cooking!
Andrew B. Clark
The Brand Chef

What is your brand doing to maintain relevance to its audience?  If your / your company’s brand is dependent on continued exposure in a specific market, what are the steps you’re taking to maintain that contact and staying “top-of-mind?”

Back in “the day” it was a combination of marketing, advertising, public relations and good ol’ fortitude and gumption.  But today, that model has been twisted a bit.

The average consumer doesn’t have a lot of faith in “traditional” advertising (check out this Nielsen study).  Even online advertising has fallen to the wayside as far as credibility or trust is concerned.  And social media has pulled attention from traditional outlets with a force that was completely underestimated just two years ago.  Today, it’s more about connections, referrals, networking (online and off-line), and building credibility and trust through your brand relationships.

So, how do you maintain the “top-of-mind” awareness that your brand so desperately needs to survive?

Here are seven simple steps to staying socially top-of-mind:

1. Always Learn – Explore the latest trends and study the practitioners within your market.  Use that information to stay mentally sharp and abreast of how changes in your industry will be affecting you / your company and your customers.

2. Educate & Share – Pass what you’ve learned on to those that need it.  Whether it’s a small tip on social media techniques (re-tweet and comment often), or an article on market trends that would be relevant to a client; if you become a resource for knowledge, you’ll position yourself/company as a trusted leader in the marketplace.  And eventually they will come to you for more.

3. Engage – This is where the first two points come in handy.  The marketing world has turned into a giant conversation.  If you’re busy telling and not talking, you’ll quickly be shut out of the discussion.  “Engaging” is one of the four base criteria for TRUE Branding, and in this social media marketing world, Engagement is more necessary that ever.

4. Set Goals – This sounds like an obvious point, but I’ve seen too may stand at the edge of the chasm yelling and yelling just to hear the whisper of their own echo floating back at them.  Set a goal, a target with specific results in mind.  You can’t just set out telling your story unless you have a plot line to follow and a great ending for the audience to anticipate.

5. Build Measurable Tactics – Every goal you have will require tactics to execute.  To know the success or failure of those tactics, you need a mechanism for measuring.  Whether that’s web site traffic, office calls, client leads, or bodies through the showroom door; make sure you measure.

6. Compare, Refine  & Redo – With measurable results, you’ll better be able to find flaws in trend predictions.  You’ll have the ability to compare the results of one campaign to another.  If you’ve built success with one tactic, take that approach and modify it’s properties to suit another less-successful one and try it again.  When you’re reaching the right people and building a conversation with truly measured intentions, you’ll discover amazing results.

7. Keep Pushing – While trends are showing that social media and other tools are becoming bigger influences on many markets over traditional marketing channels (advertising, radio, print, TV, etc.); make sure that your market is truly being affected by the change.  If you pull your efforts from proven channels, your market could lose contact with your brand message. Then how top-of-mind would you be?

There are many, many more, but if you keep in mind these basic tips, you’ll be well on your way to maintaining great brand awareness.

Please…  Tell us what YOU do to to maintain top-of-mind awareness for your brand.  Is it community networking, cause marketing, something else?  We’d LOVE to hear from you.

Keep Cooking!
Andrew B. Clark
The Brand Chef

I ran by an article this morning on Law.com (no idea how I got there). In it, I was intrigued by the dichotomy that law students or law grads have struggled with forever – Law can be a VERY profitable career, BUT it’s frowned upon to aggressively market your services.

Doctors market themselves with very little push back. Accountants and credit counselors market themselves (especially these days). So why, if lawyers market themselves, do they come off as ambulance chasers or some kind of smarmy worms in Brooks Brothers’ suits?

Shai Littlejohn, from The National Law Journal outlines a simple solution,

“…Although you may be able to do anything with a law degree, a law degree and solid experience alone will not do it for you. For those young attorneys who dream of becoming top lawyers, the key is to be three parts lawyer and one part marketing agent.”

She continues with,

“Through expertise, involvement and shared values, top lawyers continuously cultivate reputable self-brands. It’s the essence of those brands that separates top attorneys from colleagues destined for repeated lateral moves or career stagnation.“

Using personal branding (for recent grads) and professional branding (for established careers and firms) to build a “reputation” that becomes marketable for growth — what a novel idea…

Throughout the article, while including networking, charitable involvement, and family activities, Littlejohn continues to support branding in the legal profession to benefit and advance careers and service to clients.

It makes perfect sense. In these times of exploding growth in social media networking, aggressive advertising and promotion by virtually every industry on the planet; lawyers need the same skills to build a brand that will be beneficial to their careers as well as benefit the service they can provide to their clients – without the concern for guilt or stigma of impropriety.

Hmmm. Sounds like a recipe for success to me.

Let’s cook up some conversation… I’d love to get your input. Do you know a lawyer that utilizes personal or professional branding to enhance their exposure and growth? Do you think lawyers that aggressively market their brand come off smarmy or cheap?

Keep Cooking!
Andrew B. Clark
– The Brand Chef

Fact: Newspapers can’t survive unless they change the paradigm in which they practice. Customers, including yours truly, are jumping ship for digital media content that is more up-to-date, accessible and relevant. Long lost are the days when newspapers produced engaging content and – in turn – sold ad space to generate revenue to support what (once) was a tremendous source of public information.

Why?

Newsgathering has shifted from being a passive act—tell me a story—to a proactive one—answer my question.

According to journalism.org,

“…Pew Research Center survey. The figures for almost every traditional media platform are now at historic lows. For instance, the number of Americans who said they read a newspaper “yesterday” has fallen by 40% since the 1990s—to 34%. The number of people who watched the nightly network newscasts yesterday has fallen even further—by half—to 29%. Radio news is at 35%. Regular readership of weekly news magazines is down to 12%.”

So, what does that mean for us? Where is that 40% going to get their news?

Blogs, baby. Blogs! Not to mention podcasts, vlogs and heavy-handed translations of traditional media to online, user-driven sites, and micro-sites.

With that, yesterday, I ran across this story: On January 27th, Joshua Karp (follow on Twitter: @theprintedblog) will be launching a twice-daily free print newspaper in Chicago, San Francisco and later in New York City. The content he will be publishing will be solely from BLOGS!

“So what,” you say, “Nothing novel there?” Hold on. Joshua has a little twist for you.

His intent is to aggregate local content from blogs and print them in tabloid form in time for the morning and evening commutes… The advertising – focused to reach targeted, local audiences – supports the newspaper (of course). It will also include classifieds (of course).

From Joshua’s venture, The Printed Blog web site:

“The selection of content in The Printed Blog is based solely on the votes of readers and their geographic location. In such a way, The Printed Blog revolts against the top-down, ‘one size fits all’ model of newsprint, as we know it. Instead of one paper serving hundreds of thousands of people, as is often the case, The Printed Blog publishes hundreds or even thousands of highly-localized editions based on what a community declares is important to them. The papers are distributed to neighborhood pickup points in A.M. and P.M. editions, and will incorporate rapid turnaround reader comments.

… As our society moves towards individualized information, The Printed Blog has the courage to respect our readers. We recognize the value of what individuals have to say, we publish the information they create, and provide them with the information they demand.”

News = information relevant to the people. When traditional news sources become irrelevant, or self-serving, people go to their community for relevance.

I’m interested in Joshua’s new venture. The online community will drive content. Readership will be driven by the local community. Advertising will benefit from a more targeted audience. Hmmmm…Where can this go wrong? Market? Content? Commuters? Advertisers? Classifieds?

Can you combine the past with the present? Why not just keep it all online? Why take it to press?

What do you think? Take a look at his formula and give me your thoughts.

Until Next time…

Keep Cooking!
Andrew B. Clark
- The Brand Chef