I sat back in my chair at Caribou this morning looking over a dark roast and a french toast muffin (a MUST try, by the way), thinking about the next post for The Brand Chef blog. I’ve written extensively about branding, personal branding and social media marketing. Heck, I’ve even thrown in a Get-Going Groove of the day compilation and put up a page dedicated to it (great traffic there, thank you!)… But I wanted to get away from the regular routine.

So, today I decided to expound on the social media world’s fascination with BACON.

Yep, Bacon! It’s the American blogger’s food-porn aphrodisiac. If it came between naked pictures of Kaley Cuoco (Penny on “Big Bang Theory”) and bacon, I truly worry that the bacon would get more views. Maybe Kaley’s photos would have a lower bounce rate, but that’s a whole different blog (and innuendo)…

Anyway! I honestly can’t go a single day without seeing a tweet or a post or a photo (notice the bacon bra?) of something to do with bacon. It’s everywhere!

So, why bacon? Why? WHY!?!

1. Bacon Emotes True Passion - Starting out with the obvious, bacon is… FREAKIN’ bacon!

You can whisper “I have bacon” in a crowded room and it’s pretty certain that you get a glorious, harmonizing response of “yummmmmmm…” similar to those Tibetan Deep Throat Chants.  (video)

that aside, the draw to bacon is so powerful, some retailers and hotels have been branded JUST by the bacon they serve!  I’ve read of entire restaurant menus dedicated to bacon, but to have an endorsement like this,

“if Bacon had a God he would live at The Roger Smith Hotel!” – Chris Brogan

makes an impact for bacon’s case that knocks you off your feet.

2. Bacon Has Spanning Relevance - While I really don’t need to go into the origins of bacon, I would assume that it took some grunting relative of ours about 10 seconds to figure out the salting and curing of the fatty back parts of pigs turned a generally disgusting part of the animal into one of the most succulent slices of meat human kind would ever stumble upon. It can be fried, diced, baked, grilled and even made into ice cream. So how can bacon NOT be relevant to every social and economical demographic under the sun?

3. Bacon Is Ultimately Unique – It has a taste like no other meat product.  It’s kind of a cross between glazed ham and beef jerky.  The sheer individuality of bacon makes it the most utilitarian meat source on the planet. And just try to search for “Bacon Recipes.” You’ll be reading (and drooling) for days…

4. And Bacon Is Soooo Engaging – How can one food, one simple, solitary slice of meat become the biggest meme of the 21st century?  How can bacon, a fat, salty slice of cholesterol become more consistently popular than Justin Bieber or Britney Spears put together?

Let’s just put it this way, have you ever been unhappy eating bacon?

UH OH…  look what I just did…

Can you hear it?  Sizzling like fat on a 400˚ griddle…  my branding brain did it again.

Even when it comes to writing a silly post about the popularity of bacon, I pull in the TRUE Branding formula.  It’s inevitable. When it comes to branding, like bacon, there has to be truth, relevance, uniqueness and engagement.

I haven’t asked pork producers but this could all be a big conspiracy to sell more pork product, but I’m sure they’re not complaining.

How would YOU like your brand to have the fan base bacon has? Imagine having your brand, your product, your name associated with everything personally rewarding and ultimately sinfully satisfying as bacon.

Try it.

Keep Cooking (until it’s crisp and satisfying.)
Andrew B. Clark
The Brand Chef

And with a hat tip to my blogging buddy @AdMavericks (Josh Fleming) I give you another tribute to BACON!

Search engine optimization (SEO) is a sticky wicket, especially for me – basically a “marketing/branding guy.”  I’m still very green, but I’ve learned quite a bit from the HUGE brains of local developers (and friends), as well as those I follow through blogs and other sites.

One of the things that always confused me about achieving a good web ranking (see WebsiteGrader.com) is the number of inbound links you have to your Web site or blog.  One of the items that they score for “marketing effectiveness” are the inbound links to your Web site. I realized the importance of this after checking my own site’s ranking (right now it’s 96.9/100 with 205 inbound links). Inbound links are a big part of Google’s criteria for ranking your site.

How do you get inbound links? According to Website Grader (and most of the HUGE brains), there are a lot of different ways.  For a great overview of the levels of inbound linking available, Website Grader has a post on “Graduating from Inbound Marketing High school.”

One of the easiest ways to create inbound links is to…  do it yourself.  How? Here are five simple steps to start increasing your web site’s effectiveness:

1. Find other thought leaders in your preferred field (marketing, branding, cooking, whatever…).  This is easy to do if you search your preferred topic through Google Blogs or social media bookmarking tools like StumbleUpon.
2. Review and evaluate, looking for high-ranking, relevant blogs and Web sites.  Many sites will be basic aggregation of content.  Be very perspicacious and find the blogs/sites that provide the most optimal content and ranking to follow.
3. Bookmark and/or subscribe to the RSS feeds for these blogs.
4. Track and act upon blog posts that you can add value to by posting a comment. Make sure your comment is succinct and intelligent, using key words and phrases pertaining to your field of expertise.
   
5. DO NOT SPAM! Most (aware) blog administrators will blacklist you if you start posting comments irrelevant to their blog or have an ungodly amount of links within your comment. If you’re transparent and add value with your comments, and don’t overtly push links to your site; the click-through rate will start jumping.

And there you have it.  You have an inbound link to your site! Rinse and repeat… Simple.

Here’s a bonus.

That blog comment will also be indexed when Google crawls that Web site. So, when someone searches on your name, your Web site, or blog, they will see your comment as part of their Google return.  Brilliant!

Leaving comments on other blogs is a daily ritual for me.  At first it was simply to be social (it IS social media, you know), but as I discovered it’s value as a SEO/marketing strategy, I made sure to comment on other blogs, adding value (and backlinks) as often as possible.

I learn the most from other blogs and friends throughout the “interweb.” As I continue to post, comment, track and act, my foundation as a marketing and branding thought leader is building. It takes time, but trust me, being social pays off.

Food for thought…

Keep Cooking (strategic reciprocal value)!
Andrew B. Clark
The Brand Chef

Welcome to 2009! Man, it’s been a pretty wild ride.

Think of it… a short skip back, just five years, shows us that America can completely bungle a Presidential election and live (so far) to tell the tale. Counting errors blamed on both computers and humans made us realize that we can’t solely depend on one or the other any longer.

And if you remember, just nine years ago (this week), we were all wiping the sweat from our collective brow, having survived Y2K! My computer didn’t crash, did yours? (heck, I used a Macintosh… still do… did that really matter?)

If you think back just a little further – only 12 years – you may remember, Europe decided (all together no less) to pool their economic tender into the Euro. Contrary to naysayers, I don’t remember their exchange system crashing to a cataclysmic halt… heck I don’t recall even one report of change being counted back incorrectly.

Fascinating. I call it “Progress in spite of technology.”

So, why the somewhat tweaked glance back in time? Perspective. From what I can see, and whether we want it to or not, technology will continue to integrate itself deeper into our daily lives. And for marketing and communications, Web sites, blogs, e-mail marketing, micro blogging are all here to stay. So the time for being “technophobic” or a skeptic is over. Honestly, if you haven’t embraced implementation of technology in your communications (personally AND professionally), you’re already WAY behind the curve… but there’s hope.

So for 2009, what can we do to “tech-up” our marketing, our communications — our brands?

Here are some simple, yet TRUE steps – A Baker’s Dozen:

1. 1. Weave A Technology Culture – Use it to facilitate personal interaction, not replace it.
2. 2. Get social – Work within the culture, not against it, to facilitate technology adoption.
3. 3. Keep your message consistent – across all channels/platforms (from traditional print to new media).
4. 4. Maintain transparency – Technology accentuates the negative and brand ownership needs to be positive!
5. 5. Use technology strategically – get information to the right people at the right time.
6. 6. Start small – build on incremental successes. Turn the flame up too high and you’ll get burnt.
7. 7. Always Learn – Plan on and budget for extensive support and training for new technologies.
8. 8. Rethink Your Collateral Flow – Keep print materials available—just use them strategically.
9. 9. One Channel Is NEVER Enough – Use overlapping channels to communicate to a broader audience and “spread the love.”
10. 10. There Are No Stupid Questions – Ask for feedback and act based on it.
11. 11. Measure Twice, Cut Once – Obtain metrics where you can and make strategic decisions.
12. 12. Find Your “Special Purpose” – Don’t use technology only for technology’s sake—make sure it has a communication purpose.
13. 13. Always Chalk BEFORE You Misque – Test your message before you send it—and check everything, to the smallest detail (from spelling to links!)

In short – Embrace the future or it will come up an kick you in the shorts! History (even the shortest sampling of it) has proven that fact…

“I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.” Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943

The Brand Chef would like to wish you all a Happy New Year!

Until Next Time…

Keep Cooking!
Andrew B. Clark
– The Brand Chef

This weekend, The Brand Chef traded in the ‘ol toque blanche for something closer to a mortarboard. I just returned form a weekend seminar hosted by The Agency Management Roundtable on the workings and strategic approach to building an interactive agency. As promised, (via Twitter) I wanted to give everyone a sweeping update of how it went.

Considering I was somewhat disconnected (my hotel didn’t have working wireless), I found the seminars to be greatly reassuring and informative all at once. There were things that we discussed that, thankfully, are already being done. And then there were things that opened my eyes to huge potential for agencies and for our clients.

Here is a quick list of 10 Takeaways from the weekend (as outlined in the seminar overview):

1. Become an avid user of interactive: Generally a given, but if you use interactive to further educate yourself and stay up-to-date on emerging technologies and social tools; you’ll be even more prepared to strategize those ideas into profits for you and your clients.

2. Realize that online initiatives DO build brands: With interactive and social media growth, as marketers, we have less and less control of our (and our clients’) brands from day-to-day. Identify ways that your agency can become “Brand Stewards” for your clients.

3. Create a dedicated Interactive department – no matter how limited: Whether that’s simply assigning one person to become “Interactive Strategist,” you need to commit the staff and the time. Evaluate, promote, hire – however you approach it, make sure that person is right for the job.

4. Take the first step – test an interactive marketing plan on a past/current client: Once you have the resources to back up the plan, present it with confidence.

5. Pick from the “low hanging fruit” a project that sets the ball in motion: Create a “limited” interactive plan for a client to fit within a campaign you’re already executing. Build experience and confidence with baby steps.

6. Rethink your Public Relations department: PR professionals have a huge opportunity to utilize the social media landscape. Use blogs, etc. to spread the story.

7. Rethink your Media department: Traditional media (T.V., Radio, Print) can (and should) be augmented with online advertising. And don’t fall into the “banner ad” rut. Innovate your solutions with sponsorships, contextual advertising, etc.

8. Stop pricing what you don’t know: Create a process for interactive. Don’t just package “a Website” and sell it to anyone. There’s a LOT of money being left on the table if you don’t plan, work through a system and strategically build from the ground up. psssst… Brand your process…

9. Set up a standard for measuring your interactive initiatives: Basically, you need to prove what you’re providing garners results. That measurement can be as basic as Google Analytics or something more complex. But don’t just measure clicks or impressions… make a call-to-action that’s trackable… then report and change to improve.

10. If budget is a concern, partner-up: So you may not be able to build the perfect Interactive department today? The answer can be as simple as partnering with the right person(s). Be litigious, be wise, be the advocate for your clients’ brands. And watch them grow.

Basically, what I learned from this weekend was interactive media is a force. If, as an agency / company / individual, you don’t embrace what change is happening, you’re going to be left behind.

“If you don’t like changes, you’re going to like irrelevance even less.”
General Eric Shinseki, Chief of Staff, U.S. Army

Let’s move this conversation forward. Are you ready to embrace interactive? Or have you just been sticking your toe into the water (or worse – head in the sand)? Has your agency / company taken interactive to the next level (whatever that level may be)? Because, after all, isn’t conversation interactive?

Thanks to SiteWire for the information and their fantastic presentation.

Keep Cooking!
Andrew B. Clark
The Brand Chef

It’s always been a terrifying time for me. Semester end – report card time. Although I was an “Above average” student, I knew I was a consummate under-achiever. As soon as my parents would get the report card I knew the questions would start…

I usually blamed my friends… sorry.

Well, now as an adult (technically), and somewhat accountable for my actions, I’ve been almost obsessed with tracking my work and grading progress and improvement. Whether it’s in client satisfaction or web ranking, I always want to know “how I’m doing” versus my last project (or my competition).

John Jantsch, over at Duct Tape Marketing has found a great way to grade your search engine ranking, and the SEO of all of your websites – AND your competitors!

Although this grading isn’t anything new, the reporting that you get back is clear and concise. I personally would like to tank John for pointing it out and making my job a little easier…

Please, take a look at his post, follow the link to see how your site(s) stack up…

Do you make the grade?

Then come back and let us know how you did. And how will you make changes to better your site?

In the meantime, Keep Cooking!
Andrew