At Brandsplat, we’re all for anybody becoming the next online multi-media maven. The great thing about today’s landscape of digital media is that anyone can launch his or her own blogs and newsfeeds. With the right amount of promotion and gumption, these little blogs can become widely read and forwarded brand names in online media. So it struck us as odd when Glenn Beck, he of the ridiculously high rated Fox show and of the recent rally in Washington D.C., announced with his usual red-faced fanfare that he was launching a website a la The Huffington Post to serve as “news and opinion” (and by opinion he means his opinion) called The Blaze.

Beck, agree with him or not, is trying to establish himself as a brand name in conservative journalism — and he has the flock of sheep to prove that he’s capable of doing so. Our issue here is not with his politics but with the utterly whack name of his new website. To prove how uninspired a name The Blaze actually is, we’ve collected a few other, longer-established websites and media outlets from the Interweb that were called The Blaze first.

The Blaze, as it turns out, is a super popular moniker for radio stations. Country, alternative, hip-hop and classic rock stations all seem to favor the name. Poor Beck’s fans might be in for a surprise if they accidentally visit the wrong Blaze and wind up listening to the latest hit by T- Pain. From Tyler, Texas, to Chico, Calif., we dug up at least four radio stations dubbed “The Blaze.” Strange that Beck’s marketing folks didn’t catch this, especially seeing as he was discovered on morning radio. The biggest chuckle in the bunch definitely comes from down under, where The Blaze is a popular gay and lesbian news website. Visitors to this Blaze are greeted with a distinctly un-Red State view of a man’s behind in black underwear. And it doesn’t end there. We found a head shop, a strip club, a barbershop quartet newsletter (?) and we fondly remember it as the name of the school newspaper on the original 90210 run by that pesky Andrea Zuckerman.

We’re certainly not in the business of politics here at Brandsplat, but the lesson from The Blaze is a good one everyone, regardless of his or her field. Choosing our website and brand names is an important move that needs to be mulled over with careful consideration. Beck omitting his own name in the title somewhere in the website is a big mistake. Beck is a brand name already and leaving it out of the equation is a definite fumble. It is important to have consistent branding and thoughtful company names, especially in the era of mass Google confusion.

Now you tell us: What website names fail to hit the right marks? Blaze up our comments section below!

It is a fun little note for the history books that Facebook eclipsed Google as the most used site on the Internet.  For years, Google has pretty much gone unchallenged. Google is still the advertising god as they have a multitude of avenues to deliver adverts to the people. From Google Buzz and Gmail to Google Reader and more…

An interesting survey shows the top online brands and reveals what made them so. The three attributes the top 10 brands online share are:

• Trustworthiness
• Helpfulness
• Relevance

From Google and Sony to Amazon and Apple, the top brands online are brands that have reputations as companies who are trustworthy, helpful, and relevant. Does that describe you?

It’s clear that online branding has become one of the most important aspects of business in the 21st century. Google has a lot to do with that. Being the top resource for many consumers searching for information about brands online, Google has done a stellar job of positioning its own brand. Naturally, we trust Google as a resource for developing our own.

Amazon has become synonymous in recent years with e-commerce. There is no other e-commerce company that is as trusted as Amazon. Ebay may be a close second, but it still trails even though it did make the top 10 list. It isn’t far behind.

The leading social network, of course, is Facebook, followed by MySpace.

If you’re building your brand online then there is something to learn from this list. And it isn’t that you should be a search engine, a social network, an e-commerce or auction site, or a computer technology company. Rather, the lesson to learn is that no matter what niche you are in, it is important to build trust, be helpful, and establish yourself as relevant to consumers within your niche. If you can’t achieve at least one of those three attributes then you likely won’t be a brand that consumers will come to rely on.

Eyeballs are drawn to video like bees to honey. Not only that, interesting video content can generate a healthy amount of link juice and serve as a portal to your website. Let’s say you have a great video that you’re proud of, but you’re not sure how to optimize your opus to maximize exposure. Well, just like any content on the Internet, you’ll have to make it findable for the SERPs. But where to start? Check out this recent post on iMediaConnection for 10 SEO tips for YouTube. Good advice if you are going the YouTube route. But is YouTube the best way to publish? Third party sites like YouTube can get you the exposure you may want, but this angle may not be right for everyone. It really comes down to what the strategy for your video is. Step one is to figure out what you want the end result of your video to be. Are you driving traffic to your site? Or are you creating an online reputation for yourself?

Some things to consider when optimizing your video content:

1. Have a keyword strategy and tag your video with meta data,
2. Transcribe your video in text format so it can be seen by meta crawlers
3. Understand the effect of your hosting options (on your site vs. sites like YouTube)
4. Craft a catchy title to lure in viewers
5. Time your videos for short attention spans
6. Allow users to share and spread your video by offering the option to embed and rate your video
7. Brand your video with a logo watermark

To get a better understanding of publishing options and Tips for Optimizing Online Video Content, click on the video below that comes to us via SEOmozBlog’s Whitebroard Friday. Enjoy.

I’ve seen a lot of shuffling of the decks at agencies over the last decade as many of them have attempted to transform the way they do business in the age of social media, search engine marketing, viral videos and all the rest that the digital age has bestowed upon us. If you’re a traditional ad agency, you either “get it” or you slowly fade into the background. One agency that proves time and time again that it “gets it” is Goodby, Silverstein & Partners. Named Interactive Agency of the Year at the One Show in 2009, GSP has gotten quite a bit of attention both online and off with their latest opus. I came across the story in a post titled,  “Goodby Implores Ad executives to Embrace Change“. The post describes how  co-founder Jeff Goodby used the painting of his house as a platform to illustrate how his agency approaches communication in the age of Facebook, YouTube and Twitter.

I once had the good  fortune of being invited up to the shop in San Francisco just after graduating from a Art Center College of Design in Pasadena. What inspired me on that visit years ago was how the two founders, Jeff Goodby and Rich Silverstein, approached the day-to-day operations of the agency;  both were extremely passionate about the craft and creativity involved in their business and both approached advertising as if it were the greatest form of art in the world.  I remember having a half-hour conversation with Mr. Silverstein on the virtues of well-crafted typography in the hallway as he was passing by!

I digress. So it was no surprise to me when I came across the link in the above mentioned story for PoemHouse.org which demonstrated how Jeff Goodby used huge letters in exquisite type on the side of a Victorian house to get his message across.  When you visit the site you are welcomed with the following message,

“Could a house be a book? Would words be different if they were five feet high and printed on an emotional symbol of domesticity?

Is this idea a violation? And if so, is it a violation of the house or the words?

The home on Oak Avenue in St. Helena, California, is one of the most charming late Victorian houses in the Napa Valley. Built by a German family in 1892, it was at its birth a tribute to the optimism and elegance of what might be the most fertile time in English and American literary history – the era of Tennyson, Woolf, Eliot, Stevenson, London, and Bierce (the last three lived for a while in the Napa).

Here, in the summer of 2009, Oakland visual and media artist Jeff Goodby has covered the Oak Avenue house with a series of enigmatic words, set in a typeface designed in the 1760s by John Baskerville. The effect is a combination of Harry Potter and Andy Warhol and has challenged the meaning of home and book alike.’

The site was developed only after Mr. Goodby posted photos of his house idea on Facebook where it created a considerable amount of buzz.  Then all hell broke loose. Word spread like wildfire across the digital landscape. Word spread across the real world landscape too, and eventually got people off their butts and into the sunlight to rubberneck the house for themselves. Talk about driving traffic!  It’s a fine lesson on harnessing the power of the Interwebs with a simple, beautifully-crafted message. They make it look easy.

Don’t expect people to come knocking down your door just because you have a website. The bottom line is you must have products and/or services people are interested in first and foremost. No duh, right? Let’s say you know there is a demand for what you’re offering and you are ready to attract traffic to your site. This is where Brandcasting comes in. Think of Brandcasting like casting a bag of seeds across a vast field (the Internet). Each seed that is cast will need to be nourished and watered in order to grow tall enough to have a presence. But once a presence is established, you will see many iterations of your brand sprouting up for any passerby to come across. The longer you nourish the seedling, the higher and more prominent it grows.

There are lots of ways to deploy intelligent brand marketing online. We’re just scratching the surface here. I haven’t even touched on press releases, banner ad campaigns, viral videos, ppc campaigns, newsletters, affiliate programs, email marketing and a whole slew of other tools a business or an individual can apply for effective Brandcasting.

The metaphor of scattering seeds and then nourishing them is an apt one. For example, lets say one such seed is intended to grow a branded blog for your company. Having the best blog or writing the best entries doesn’t mean diddlysquat unless someone is interested enough in what you’re offering. So it is really important that you nourish your blog with quality content and engaging information and “water” your blog daily, that is, add content to it daily.  Having a good mix of seeds is helpful too. Having a multi-level marketing strategy that employs the best combination of “seeds” may be the best way attract different niche audiences. So one set of seeds may be intended to grow the company blog variety, another seed is intended to create a presence via article marketing, another seed may be intended to give your brand a video presence, and so on. Ultimately, you want the right mix of seeds to catch the attention of the right mix of customers.

Whether you do it yourself, or hire a company like Brandsplat to deploy an intelligent online branding campaign, you have to choose a strategy and remember to manage your strategy as certain milestones are met. Brandcasting can boost your company’s visibility and over time can give your brand a lasting footprint on the Internet. Just remember that it takes time to build your presence online and don’t get frustrated if you don’t see results right away. Cast those seeds, water and feed them and watch them grow your brand into one that has a healthy presence on the web. Happy farming.

When social networking first came on the scene with sites like Myspace, many people viewed it as technology meant for younger, tech savvy users who want to have a common digital space where they can chat, exchange music, share information and do just like teens do in Europe in their local town squares. This was an ideal solution for towns across America that didn’t have a town square; a digital piazza was the perfect solution. As time went on, it was clear that something more powerful was forming on the horizon. Sites like Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin have soon become “virtual piazzas” for much broader ranges of users that include adults, professionals and now, businesses. As I have written about in a previous micro blogging post, businesses now have the power to broadcast deals and offers to loyal customers via micro-blogging. Think of how Kmart used “blue light specials” in their stores to create a loyal following of shoppers. Now businesses can do the same without the corny spinning blue light and they can reach far beyond the confines of their brick and mortar store space. But don’t think that just because you are tweeting deals to your audience that the dollars will start rolling in. You have to have a strategy. To get started, Twitter does a nice job of explaining how the power of micro blogging can help businesses of all sizes. For the novice, I have written a post detailing how to get started with Twitter here. The subject of using social networking is a huge one, so we will just scratch the surface by offering up a few tips for the novice micro blogger.

Micro Blogging Tips

1. Keep ‘em coming back for more. Offering incentives and special deals on an ongoing basis will keep your audience engaged and willing to follow your micro blog. Also, give-aways and promotions work well in growing your audience and keeping your loyalists happy.

2.  Manage your online reputation. Because micro blogging is a social medium, anyone can have a voice. That means that you may receive negative feedback from your customers in a public format. Always address negative comments and if you can, look for ways to turn those negative comments around in your favor by offering a solution or a “make-good” for that customer. While many will agree that there is no such thing as bad PR, there is such a thing as a bad brand reputation and anything you can do to snub negativity can help in the long run and may even turn a sour situation into a sweet marketing win.

3. Bond with your fans. Social media allows you to have back and forth conversations with your most loyal customers in a public format. Always invite your fans to have a platform and create a healthy exchange with your brand. Who knows, you may discover your version of Subway Jared, Subway’s spokesperson who was one of its most loyal fans.

Again, we are just scratching the surface here. Micro blogging can be time consuming yet rewarding if you do it right. It’s up to you to do research for the best micro blogging techniques that fits your marketing strategy for your business. For a better handle on micro blogging, I recommend looking to other businesses that are similar to yours, how-to books and online resources like Twitter. Be sure to check back for tomorrow’s post, the final part of a seven part series. As they say in the local piazza, ciao.

Why spend your precious time hacking away at the keyboard writing blog entries or white knuckling it through original articles when you can video yourself delivering your brand with the flick of a video-enabled smart phone. In the nonstop world of online offerings, video is proving to be the desired choice for attention deficit disorder type consumers. Video is often times effortless for the viewer and entertaining to boot. If you don’t believe me, just check out YouTube the next time you’re trying to figure out how to fold a t-shirt in 2 seconds , or how to piss off a telemarketer . How-to videos are swelling online and may be the reason why Google had the smarts to gobble up the video site YouTube in the first place. In many ways, video content really is in its infancy but is gaining momentum every day. For example, YouTube just recently announced some very powerful analytics tools that are geared to help video gurus get a handle on who’s watching their videos, where they live and how long they watch. Video is a great way to distribute content and can help you discover who is interested in what you have to say and may lead you to uncover hidden target markets that you may have never thought of. Link your videos to YouTube or eHow and have access to millions of eyeballs for literally pennies. Of course the cost depends on how much you spend on producing your videos. But sometimes all you need is a camera and your talking head. Even Matt Cutts, Google’s Search Quality Guru , includes video blog entries along with his written content. Are you shy in front of the camera? That’s no excuse.  Go to eHow for public speaking tips now and you’re on your way.

O.K., that’s it for this week. I’ll be back on Monday with part 6 and finish up on Tuesday with part 7, the final entry on Brandcasting. Have a great weekend and see you next week.

When you market yourself as an expert in any field, chances are that people will want to buy from you. An excellent way to do this is to write articles and about your industry then distribute them both online and in print publications. Both Ezines and print publications are hungry for fresh content, so submitting a good article to them is a win-win situation; they get fresh content and you get exposure. Keep in mind that it’s very important that your content is engaging and informative so that readers will seek your articles out and publishers (ezines and print publications) will come back to you again and again for that golden content. Article marketing can really establish a lasting footprint online for your brand because useful information tends to have a longer shelf life. Articles should be in-depth and informative and rely less on opinion and more on facts. Here are some simple guidelines to help you get your articles the attention you seek.

• How-to’s are great subject matter when creating an article. A succinct list that explains how something is done in a step-by-step manner can be an enticing read. For example, say someone bought a low-quality “widget” from a competitor and you write an article on how to make a high quality “widget” in a step-by-step format. First, the reader will feel empowered with the knowledge of what makes a great widget and may use that knowledge to question the competitor. Secondly, you become the quality “widget” master in that person’s mind and the next time they’re in the market to buy a quality widget, they just may think of buying from you.

• Make good use of the resource or bio section under the articles you write. The submission box appears after your article and is where you can promote your brand as well as offer contact information for the author of the article. You should include a short bio and a link back to your main site and blog. If your content is good enough, you can be sure people will click on your links thus increasing your website and blog visibility.

• Use keywords in your articles that are similar to the ones you’re using on your main site. Remember that SEO expert you hired when you built your website? You can use that same keyword strategy with your articles too. This will help your search engine rankings when your articles are linked back to your main site. Good thing you hired that SEO expert, right?

• Publish your articles to submission sites and have them distribute your content. Submission sites collect articles and also allow for you to add a bio-section at the end of your articles that can link back to your brand site or your blog. A few of the more popular ones are ezinearticles ,   goarticles , thephantomwriters and buzzle.  To find the best fit for you, do a search for online article marketing distribution and you’ll find lots of options to choose from.

Want to read more on article marketing, visit my article on the subject by visiting this link

One of the most effective ways to spread content about your brand on the Internet is to write a blog.  Blogging can be a great way to distribute information and good content about your industry. Often times a blog is a good way to set a tone for a brand and allows readers to interact with a real human being within the company. Blogging is a good format to write relevant blog entries that are timely and/or time sensitive. You can easily set up a blog for free. Sites like WordPress, TypePad, Blogger, LiveJournal are among the most popular services that can help you get started. There are others to choose from, so do your own research to find one that’s best for you.

Think of your blog like a daily newspaper. Daily newspapers rely on breaking news and rich/relevant content to attract a growing audience. This is the same strategy you should keep in mind when writing a blog. The idea here is to attract readers who want to check in on a daily basis because your blog is relevant to them, their industry or their likes and dislikes. This can be a time consuming, yet rewarding proposition. If you don’t have the time to write daily entries, you may want to hire a writer who is knowledgeable in your field and employ them to write blog entries that are on topic for you. Or, you may want to consider having a stable of writers, much like a newspaper, who can come at a certain subject from various angles. Successful blogs like the Huffington Post employ this kind of strategy and are able to offer rich content by multiple sources and differing points of view.

The next thing you want to keep in mind is that your loyal readers may want to have an interactive experience with your blog. Think of the Op Ed section of a newspaper. Newspapers will often print opinions of readers in order to give them a voice, and also to get feedback from their readership. You can do this by allowing your readers to comment on your blog entries and to post these comments on your blog. Sometimes readers may post irrelevant comments to your blog. In this case you may choose not to publish comments or simply delete them. The beauty of a blog is that you have total control of the content.

Once you have gotten your feet wet, you may want to consider commenting on other blogs that relate to the subject matter on your blog. This may help you build strong relationships with other experts in your field and will also help build a community of bloggers and readers who are passionate about your industry. It’s often a good idea to offer up intelligent comments to other blogs and hope that they reciprocate on your blog. Linking back to other bloggers and having them link back to you can also help your ranking as search engines will deem your content relevant, thus ranking you higher on search lists.