Social media is all the buzz. Marketers are scrambling to harness the power that sites like Twitter and Facebook offer. So if you want to effectively market online, you had better get on the bandwagon. Not so fast, suggests a recent report from ForeSee Results , a leader in online customer satisfaction measurement headquartered in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The report findings are based on data, collected in the spring of 2009, from more than 22,000 respondents who had visited the top 100 online retail sites within the previous two weeks. According to the report, the most effective means by which e-tailers influence purchasing decisions was familiarity with the brand. It makes sense that if you’re shopping online, the first place you will go to buy are the brands you are already familiar with. These findings suggest that branding and brand perception are main triggers that drive traffic and purchasing decisions. That means more traditional forms of advertising and marketing are the primary driver for customer aqcuisition. The next two major factors that drive customer acquisition are tried-and-true online strategies like promotional e-mail and Internet advertising. Sounds boring, but these tactics bring in the customers. But how does that compare with social media? According to the report,

“the most lucrative website traffic is still coming from promotional emails and Internet advertising rather than from the latest trendy social networking sites. It will be important for each individual site to monitor the quality of its own various aquistiion sources in order to get the best return on investment.

This may be because social media marketing strategies are fairly new and is unfamiliar territory for many online buyers. As social media grows, I believe this tactic will gain more traction in the arena of customer acquisition.

To download the ForeSee Results, “Online Customer Aquisition: Quality Trumps Quantity” click here.

The intelligent brand marketers are at it again at T.G.I. Fridays . Today they announcing “America’s Largest Halloween Party”.  What does that mean? It means if you trot on in to one of nearly 600 T.G.I. Fridays on October 29th from 9 p.m. to closing, you can get penny appetizers when you get your drink on at the bar. But that’s not all! If you’re a member of their “rewards program” (Give Me More SStripes ) you can get the same deal valid anytime of the day during the  “America’s Largest Halloween Party” promotion. I get why they are doing the promotion on a Thursday instead of Friday as people will most likely already have plans for going out on Halloween.

But it would have been nice and perhaps a better tie-in if they extended the promotion to Friday too. I mean, come on people! It’s called T.G.I. FRIDAYS, not T.G.I. Thursdays. Very perplexing and somewhat spooky if you ask me. To get the latest updates, you can follow T.G.I. Friday’s news on Facebook, Twitter @TGIFridaysNews, and YouTube.

As digital video is becoming more and more accessible to Joe Interweb, more websites are adding video to their user experience than ever before. Let’s say you are one of the lucky few who have figured out how to produce, edit and convert an eye-catching video to post, but you’re not really sure what is the best way to get it out there. The most common question we get here at Brandsplat is whether to post videos on YouTube or to keep it housed on the company website. The answer often relies on the strategy for having a video, the size of the company, and the budget. If the strategy is to build traffic to the company site, often times we suggest doing a bit of both by having two versions of your video; a longer format for your site and a shorter one for YouTube. Or, we encourage companies to incentivize a visit to the company’s home site in the video itself.

There are definitely pros and cons for posting your company’s video on YouTube. Check out our next blog for more on this.

———-

If you like this post and are interested in getting intelligent brand strategies for your online business, sign up for the The Brandcast Report. You can also follow us on Twitter.

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

Having a branded website is the first step for getting online visibility. Think of your website as the foundation of a house or a base camp. Every element of your Brandcasting campaign will link back to your branded website.  Your website is an extension to your brand, so make sure you build it right the first time.

When building a website, consider having three experts on hand:

1) An SEO expert. While employing an SEO expert can be expensive, it really is the foundation of a good Brandcasting strategy and is worth the cost. But do your homework first. There are some SEO solutions that promise you way more than they can deliver. If you want to know what to avoid when choosing an SEO expert, click here.

2)  A solid programmer who understands SEO and SEM. I can’t tell you how many times clients come to us with websites with broken links, absent meta tags or are built entirely in flash and are literally un-findable by search engines. Clients then proceed to tell us that they hired a professional designer. Some coders are not aware of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) or Search Engine Marketing (SEM). If ever there’s a time to hire the experts, now would be it.

3) A knowledgeable designer who builds sites for a living. Make sure you choose a designer who has a working knowledge of what good design means for both a human and a web crawling bot. For example, you may want to make sure your content is text instead of images to get the best optimization for your site. That happens on the design level and a good User Interface (UI) designer will know that. If you want to go it alone on the designing of your site, solutions like Lynda.com offer how-to videos that can be an affordable, albeit a time consuming option. However, I would not suggest taking on programming or SEO work yourself if you have no background or knowledge of either field.

Here are some things to keep in mind when building your main site.

• Make sure your site is well designed, easy to navigate and is structurally sound. This is where a good coder and designer can pay dividends in the future. Keep in mind that it’s not enough to look good to the human eye. Your website must be sexy to a web crawler too. For example, it’s very important to make sure all your links work. If they don’t, web crawlers may stop at a broken link and may never see all the great content you have past that one link. Not sexy. Another thing you may want to consider doing is to have a site map that lays your entire site out in simple HTML code. Sexy, sexy.

• Update content on your website often. The more often you have new content on your site, the more often bots will crawl it thus increasing your website’s visibility and rankings on search engines. If your content is refreshed daily, web crawling bots will visit your site more often. Placing articles or daily blog posts on your site are some of the most common ways to offer up daily content.

• Have a keyword strategy. Having good keywords can make or break an online branding campaign. Having keywords built right into your URL can mean added optimization. For example, if one of your top keywords is “widgets”, it might not be a bad idea to name your site “widgetsforless.com” or some URL with the keyword worked into it. Again, you can see how having a strategy upfront can have implications for the life of your brand in the long run, so it’s always a good idea to get an SEO expert involved from the get-go.

• Position your brand. Doing a competitive analysis of keywords can help you level the playing field within your industry. Positioning your brand with keywords can mean helping get your site the right kind of traffic. If you are selling widgets, for example, you want to focus keywords around the words that people who are searching to buy widgets are most likely to use. That makes sense, right? A good SEO expert can help you determine what keywords people use when they are looking for your goods and services. Having a list of the right keywords will help you be more findable when searched for. Also, sprinkling your keywords in all forms of content that you release on the Internet will help you rank higher for those keywords and can be a great way to build links back to your main site.

Tomorrow, I’ll talk about different forms of content that can help kick-start your Brandcasting campaign.

In a recent announcement, Youtube is rolling out Youtube Insight a free reporting tool for users, advertisers and content partners who have a valid Youtube account. This interactive solution allows greater insight and information related to individual videos that are uploaded. This is good news for viral marketing and anyone trying to brand their company on Youtube. This analytics tool allows any Youtube account member to view data for any video in a slick interactive timeline and mapping format that’s intuitive and powerful. I like the fact that when you move the slider on the timeline, the information updates simultaneously on the map. Pretty cool. Statistic freaks will love that you can view data for total views, links and audience stats with the click of a button. As the creator or author of a video, you can also opt to hide this information from viewers if, say, you were launching an ad campaign and didn’t want your competition to see the results. But then again, why would you do that? Why not let your competition drool over how many hits you got and how your offline campaign boosted your viewership. Then again, if you aren’t confident that the masses will flock to your video, you may want to switch your vid to privacy mode by unchecking the button for “Make statistics and data for my videos plublicly visible by default” in the sharing and privacy section of your account information. To look under the hood and see all the bells and whistles, just click on “about this video” button under My Account > Videos, Favorites, Playlists > Manage my Videos. Happy brandcasting.