Your Employee Is an Online Celebrity. Now What Do You Do?

Ok guys, here is your next problem!   What do you do about it?

Excerpt:  A growing number of professionals are using social media to build a personal, public identity—a brand of their own—based on their work. Think of an accountant who writes a widely read blog about auditing, or a sales associate who has attracted a big following online by tweeting out his store’s latest deals.

Co-branded employees may exist largely below the radar now, but that’s changing fast, and employers need to start preparing for the ever-greater challenges they pose for managers, co-workers and companies.

Read full article via Your Employee Is an Online Celebrity. Now What Do You Do? – WSJ.com.

Why Changed Goals Require Changed Metrics

Important read with small business takeaways.  Explore why your ROI has probably changed and what to do about it.

Business needs, changes in management, competitive pressures, or any combination, can lead to significant changes in paid search goals. Where the enterprise was using paid search for brand awareness and customer acquisition and was happy to invest in future growth, now the goal shifts to making search profitable in the immediate term, or vice-versa.

The beauty of paid search is that we can turn on a dime to hit those new goals.

The problem is that flawless execution will produce “bad” year-over-year comparisons that are a natural consequence of the change in goal. Senior executives in other departments and consultants (having no institutional memory) will proceed to beat up the paid search manager for doing her/his job well.

Read full article via Why Changed Goals Require Changed Metrics.  SEO Search Engine

4 Myths of Global Branding

Are you global or plan to be so?   Read this —  another line item in your global checklist.

Excerpt:  But as the barriers to global commerce have fallen complexities of global branding have taken their place. In today’s global economy business needs to be nimble enough to rapidly take advantage of new markets and opportunities as they arise. All too often these fleet-footed businesses are being slowed or sabotaged by hurdles they face when attempting to use their brands on a more global scale.

In this regard, I have assembled the four most common myths about global branding that I encounter almost on a daily basis.

Read full article via 4 Myths of Global Branding | Inc.com.

New Marketing Rules: When Social Media Spins Out of Control – Knowledge@Australian School of Business

More information and advice as we progressively establish the best practices of this new world of ours.

Excerpt:  Marketers are in a spin following the Advertising Standards Board (ASB) ruling that brands are responsible for user comments posted on their Facebook pages, and an Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) warning that court action can result for larger organisations if inappropriate material is not removed quickly. What do the rulings mean for the future? To what extent can companies control what customers and advertisers say on their Facebook pages or on other social media?

Read full article via New Marketing Rules: When Social Media Spins Out of Control – Knowledge@Australian School of Business.

Your Company Needs A Mobile Strategy Yesterday–And These Numbers Prove It

More advice on your mobile campaign — or if you don’t yet have a mobile campaign, this is a serious heads up.

Excerpt:  …….  seen how powerful mobile marketing has been for my clients and others. Here are a few examples:

A mobile-based loyalty program for Maurices, a chain of women’s clothing stores, was directly responsible for jump-starting $1 million in sales in only four months.

A text message list helped Pacha, a New York City nightclub, realize $12,400 in additional income.

A Foursquare check-in campaign boosted short-term revenues at Angelo & Maxie’s, a Manhattan restaurant, by $18,000.

These are only three examples of many success stories I’ve witnessed–and yet, the really shocking statistic when it comes to mobile marketing is how few big brands are doing it. According to a report from eMarketer, mobile advertising accounted for less than 1% of worldwide ad spending in 2011.

Read full article via Your Company Needs A Mobile Strategy Yesterday–And These Numbers Prove It | Fast Company.

Best Global Brands 2012 and Top 100 Brands 2012

This is pretty cool information.   You can sort the “best what” by top menu, and if you click on any of the brands, it takes you to more  information.   LOTS of takeaways for small business brand, marketing and campaigns here.

Check out brand here Interbrand – Best Global Brands 2012 – 2012 Report (Brand View).

Going Global? — Wharton@Work October 2012

Tool and tips in today’s hottest topics, marketing, branding, communications, and more.

Excerpt:  Nano Tool:
Some companies approach global brands by retaining complete control over branding, marketing, distribution, communication, and pricing. Others leave those decisions up to local players. But most use a hybrid approach, balancing corporate control with some measure of local autonomy. How can you determine the best approach for your company? It always starts by looking at your customers’ current and future desires and needs. By approaching each brand decision from the customer’s perspective, you can choose a blend of global control and local touch based on which does a better job of serving your customers.

Read full article via Going Global? — Wharton@Work October 2012.

6 Steps on How to Cash-In on the New SEO

Great how-to in this article for changes challenging us all.

 Excerpt:  Author Rank. Panda. Penguin. Mobile. Google+. If you think about it, these things were not on most SEO and online content marketer radars in the early 2011. But in just a year’s time, they have become major components of Web marketing.

Have you responded to these changes? Have you learned how to tap into the potential of these developments and increase exposure for your brand, traffic to your site, and money in your bank account?

If not, now is the time to jump on board. Let me show you six general steps you need to take to cash in on the new SEO and finish 2012 strong:

Read full article via 6 Steps on How to Cash-In on the New SEO | Search Engine Journal.

What’s Your Content Performance Ratio?

Good read with tips, tools and advice.   Part of learning best practices in an evolving trend is to collect the data and tools   —   this article stands out as a valuable.

Excerpt:  When people start content marketing initiatives, they often have lots of new, exciting ideas and brainstorms about how they can generate lots of social attention, influence the influencers, and attract high-quality links.

However, it can be very easy to get carried away with all of these new ideas and concepts and forget that the best content for your brand, might already exist….

Content Auditing
The first step for us, in any content marketing project, is to perform a content audit.

Read full article via What’s Your Content Performance Ratio?.  From Blue Glass

How to ‘Digitally & Socially’ Win Over Your Legal – Regulatory Team

The article contains good advice and steps to follow for not only the healthcare industry but many of the steps equally translate into best practices for other industries as well.

Excerpt:  This afternoon’s article provides some top tips in order to maintain a happy working relationship with your legal and regulatory teams, particularly when it comes to implementing social media communities.

Social media in the pharmaceutical industry continues to generate a great deal of interest, discussion and debate – creating unintentional, adversarial relationships for brand marketers. For brands that decide to move forward with a social media concept, gaining legal / regulatory approval can be a significant hurdle. In this article, we will examine three ways that brand teams can better collaborate with their regulatory counterparts in the review and approval process, and succeed in bringing their social media communications to life.

1. Packaging your social media concept for legal / regulatory success

When approaching your legal / regulatory team with a social media concept, you will need to help them understand the framework of the campaign you are developing, and the business rationale behind it

Read full article via How to ‘digitally & socially’ win over your legal/regulatory team | pharmaphorum.

Kicking the Sales Promotion Habit

An important read for all retailers today.  Sales discounting — when to use and when not to use or when it is too much and damaging to brand.

Excerpt:  It’s a tough world for retailers. New technologies enabling consumers to compare products and prices online have permanently changed the in-store shopping experience. Meanwhile, a sluggish economy and rising competition are testing consumers’ brand loyalty. Many retailers are responding with price promotions in a bid to keep people coming through the doors. But this short-term fix often exacerbates the very problems retailers aim to remedy. Over time, promotions train consumers to buy only when there’s a sale, and each new round of discounts must be deeper than the last to get their attention. As prices fall, margins suffer. Any incremental revenue gains from promotions eventually shrink as the sale sign becomes a fixture in store windows. Most troubling is the long-term damage to a retailer’s brand when consumers come to see it as a place that always has sales.

In short, the overuse of promotions can become an addictive behavior that can deeply damage a company’s brand identity. Yet a drastic change to eliminate promotions is not the answer:

Read full article via Kicking the Sales Promotion Habit.  From Strategy + Business  — Booz & Co.

8 Key Insights from a Social Media Masterclass

In our evolving state of how-to social media, this article is more information in the category of ‘what we know so far and what we can do with what we now know’.  Marketing, advertising and sales.

Excerpt:  The key to successful social media is measurement. If we can understand who is picking up our brand messaging, and sharing it, then we can refine, re-tune, improve, win etc. It’s obvious. The problem, however, is that most social media measurement involves unpleasant compromises.

Even though the huge publicity around the Radian 6 acquisition by Salesforce.com gives the impression that we’ve passed a watershed in measurement, the reality is quite different. And yet the future of companies like Salesforce, Facebook and more depend on getting this right.

Read full article via 8 Key Insights from a Social Media Masterclass – Forbes.

Cracking Into Video’s Cost Structures

With video now becoming, or is, a big part of online marketing success, this article gives you some basics of the various video price structures in use and what each mean to you.

Excerpt: That being said, CPM remains the main tactic for buying reach and scale, so while the price varies depending on the seller and the level of content, this structure is typically more cost-effective than the others. Conversely, advertisers buying on a CPCV and CPE basis are buying with the explicit understanding that someone is actually seeing their ad and are hopefully more likely to remember the brand, so they are going to be paying more. Similar to display, the online video market may never agree on one single pricing model.

As long as we get both sides to understand the differences between the standard pricing models, advertisers will be ensured high impact and scalable message delivery while mitigating wasted spend.

Read full article via MediaPost Publications Cracking Into Video’s Cost Structures 09/13/2012.  via Online Video Insider

An Unlikely Partnership: When HR and Marketing Join Forces – HBR

Here is an idea with listed merits  —  certainly not the usual task pairing but creativity is today’s word.  Human resources and marketing

Excerpt:  The HR discipline is evolving into a strategic voice because its sphere of influence — talent attraction, engagement and retention — is now recognized as the foundation to organizational success. But the pervasive influence of social media on the work world demands change in the way employers motivate and communicate with talent. We’ve seen success with a novel approach to talent engagement: an integrated HR-Marketing strategy that teams Marketing’s brand messaging savvy with HR’s internal perspective and expertise. When HR brings a communication orientation to its role, the entire company benefits. The partnership brings added value to Marketing as well. How much more effective could a CMO be if he or she knew for certain that talent would deliver on the brand promise made in every external marketing message?

Read full article via An Unlikely Partnership: When HR and Marketing Join Forces – Patricia Nazemetz and Will Ruch – Harvard Business Review.

The Relationship between Corporate Social Responsibility, Reputation, and Activist Targeting — The Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance

Small business of-interest, need-to-know and news-to-watch.  The study provides an update on the status of “this is today”.   Leadership, governance and management

Excerpt:  The global market has created a complex political environment for corporations. On the one hand, they seem less beholden to state control, but on the other hand they have become more concerned with brand, image, and reputation as assets used to gain customer loyalty, stakeholder support, and regulatory freedom (Klein 1999). Their reliance on reputation as an asset has meant that they have become more committed to impression management tactics, like philanthropic activity and improving firm environmental standards, in order gain the approval of the stakeholders that matter most.

Read full article via The Relationship between Corporate Social Responsibility, Reputation, and Activist Targeting — The Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance and Financial Regulation.