Brand Symbols, Part 1

The almighty NES controller!

When they originally released the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) in the United States, it was a smash hit, including my home.  Due to parental controls - in those days, that actually meant "parents" - I could only play it for 30 minutes every weekday.  Weekends were different, of course, and Saturdays were when the controllers got the most sticky from sweat and food residue.

The best of James Bond, in ONE novel!

From an article in The Guardian:


In a shocking turn for the debut novel by Q.R. Markham, Assassin of Secrets, the US publisher is recalling all copies and offering refunds to those who have already purchased the book.  The UK publisher is taking back all copies of the book before it is released there this week.  Why are they doing it?

The answer is simple: plagiarism.

Google+ Gets Verified!

The Internet is a crazy place, and there are all types of even CRAZIER people using it! Verification on Google+ and other social networks for celebrities and other public figures ensures that when I try to follow my favorite movie star, I can. There's nothing worse than following someone, then finding out that it's actually a 17-year-old kid in Korea.

Word-of-mouth traffic, attracting and tracking

The following is an article I read on Lyris, a marketing website

Tracking & Attracting Word-of-Mouth Traffic

Written by Joy Brazelle - Serengeti Communications

Thursday, 16 April 2009

Word-of-mouth traffic can be some of the best, most qualified visitors to your site. But, how do you actually know if you are getting traffic from word of mouth? Pay-per-click and search engine optimization efforts are easy to track with Web analytics because you can segment out traffic based on the specific referrers or entry pages. You have to be a bit more creative to find the word-of-mouth traffic. 1. Check out your direct traffic (AKA no referrer). These visitors either knew your URL and typed it directly into the browser, or they had your Web site bookmarked. As your brand becomes part of more and more conversations, the number of visitors who will know your URL will naturally increase. 2. Check out your branded keyword traffic. This is the same concept as the direct traffic. Only for those visitors who cannot remember your URL, the most likely place they’ll look for you is on one of the top search engines. Word-of-mouth conversations about your brand will result in more traffic from the search engines by visitors searching on terms related to your brand. 3. Check out the blogs. Using free tools such as http://blogsearch.google.com/, you can enter specific dates to see if the number of postings about your brand is increasing month to month. You can set up a Google Alert to periodically receive this information. 4. Check out the blogs + other conversations. As many companies understand just how crucial it is to know what people are saying about their brand, paid tools like Trackur (http://www.trackur.com/) are becoming very popular. You can proactively see the conversations about your brand (and your competition) just by logging in. 5. Ask your customers. This is perhaps the most obvious and the most overlooked way to find out if people are talking about you. Talk to your customers. You may be pleasantly surprised to learn what your customers are actually saying about your brand. Encouraging and rewarding feedback is a great way to grow loyal customers who will be happy to say positive things about your brand to their friends. Once you benchmark the data for your word-of-mouth traffic you can begin to improve on it, and attract even more traffic by word of mouth. 1. Make it easy to spread the word. On every email you send, landing page you create, or any other online marketing campaign add a ‘Send to Friend’ link. Make sure you test the link to make sure that it does not break and it is easy to use. Also make sure that it is obvious that the user was successful. There is nothing worse than ruining someone’s experience with your brand by lack of testing or confusing functionality. 2. Make it worthwhile to spread the word. Reward your loyal customers and visitors. It is likely that a small percent of your customers will become true brand evangelists. These are your BEST and most important customers and you need to keep them happy. It is well worth the effort to go out of your way to make sure that these customers are appreciated and know it. 3. Use contests to grow word-of-mouth traffic and your email database. This is such a simple and great way to increase the volume and quality of word-of-mouth traffic, but it is often ignored. Create an email contest for your opted-in list that explains the contest. In the email, add a form so recipients can forward the email to their friends (e.g. five or ten) by simply entering the email address and first name into the form. It will involve some simple database programming, and some validation that the email addresses received are valid and qualified. But it is a simple way to encourage your loyal customers to spread the word, and grow your email marketing database at the same time. There is a fourth way to encourage word of mouth traffic. Be remarkable. OK - so that is not easy, not by any means. But it is great when companies really go the extra mile to be remarkable. About the Author Joy Brazelle is vice president and director of analytics for Serengeti Communications. She has made analytics her priority over the years, helping clients build and grow their online presence. Joy has been a member of the Web Analytics Association since its launch in May 2006. She stays plugged into the current world of analytics by participating in Facebook groups from "Web Analytics World" to "ClickTracks Addicts."

Video success is more complicated than I thought...

For anyone who works in an "online" environment, Website Magazine is a great way to get caught up on current issues. I read an article the other day called, "Getting Scene in a World of Clips," by Michelle Wicmandy. It gave me some insights into the basics of using online videos to promote products.

According to a comScore report from December 2008, the following is true of online video:
- 78.5% of online users watched video on the Internet.
- 309 minutes of online video were watched by the average viewer.
- 5.9 billion videos were watched on YouTube by 98.9 millions viewers.
- The overall average online video was 3.2 minutes long.
- Viewers on MySpace.com watched 367 million videos.
- Hulu.com's average video is 10.1 minutes long, which is higher than any of the other top 10 sites.

The article also talked about advances in SEO technology for indexing and listing video in search engine results. Some, like Blinkx, have software programs that can analyze audio to create keywords for search.

As social networking specialist at Bountiful Wi-Fi, most interesting to me was the social media aspect of online video. My job, as far as video goes, will be to write, produce and distribute company videos through as many online channels as possible. The article listed a few, and I need to learn more about each of the top 10 vehicles so I know how to use them for the benefit of the company. Any marketer who deals with anything online - or even those who should be using online channels (that's everybody, by the way) - needs to know the different ways that people can find out about their companies.

If we undestand online channels, specifically video, we can use them to our advantage to promote products and give people opportunities to interact with our brands.

Cheap ways to help your "personal brand"...

In this LinkedIn Answer, I was writing to a person who wanted to sell themselves as an inventor. They had past success with creating successful products, so it wasn't just out of nowhere. If you have NO experience in an area, you need to be careful not to lie, but if you have had even a small amount of exposure, you can highlight it in things you write and say.

Here's what I suggested to the inventor, and he rewarded me with a "Best Answer."

"It's interesting to see the difference between a company's definition - in this case, it's YOUR definition - and a consumer/customer view of 'brand.' You see yourself as intelligent, creative and under-recognized for your achievements. To someone looking to utilize your services or creativity, you may seem invisible.

"In the end, which is the definition that will prevail? It's always the customer's definition of 'brand.' They're the ones who decide what happens to your 'personal brand.' The old saying, 'Beauty is in the eye of the beholder,' holds true in this case. In the minds of consumers/customers is where the brand really lives.

"Once you come to that realization, the next step is to decide how you can INFLUENCE the way people view your brand. Have you changed your LinkedIn profile to emphasize your best qualities, or does it merely function as a list of things you've done? You need to do a search and see how you appear in references on the Internet. Every touch-point people have with your brand could be the deciding factor in what they think of you. Make sure all of these places are putting forth the right image.

"Next, I would start a professional blog that you use to talk about new creative ideas and about your past successes. Use generalities to talk about new ideas to make sure you don't give things away, but when talking about past successes, be specific. Promote your blog by including it in searches on Google and Yahoo!. That way, your name and blog will appear in people's search results; this will increase your visibility online so that people will be able to find you easier.

"These are all simple and non-costly ways of increasing your visibility and strengthening people's opinions of you as a serious inventor. Other options are available, but they will be more costly as you try to market yourself. Also, while you're at it, change your resume to emphasize your strengths as an inventor, too. Always remember that your 'personal brand' exists in the minds of those who come in contact with you. Make sure every instance is a good one!”