Uggh! Every time I hear the term "Brand" I cringe...
If social media is telling us anything, it's telling us that people are tired of 'brands', we are tired of institutions, we are tired of being treated like a mass of consumers instead of individuals, We are DONE with reach & frequency advertising.
What we want is to deal with people...real human beings that like what they are doing, like the customer, believe in their products & services and think that they have something of value to offer.
The way we find these real humans is through search.
The job of the marketer is no longer to shout and interrupt...fighting to create a brand message. The job of the marketer is now to listen. The prospect will tell us when they have a need (by typing that need into a search engine) Marketers need to listen...stand up respectfully, raise their hand and say...."hey, we can help you".
This is the real power of corporate blogging. Empower the humans involved in your business..your employees to create content, offer that content and get found when people search. The searcher lands on content that reflects their search intent, written by a real person who honestly deserves consideration....
This is how social media like blogging successfully fits into the modern marketing mix.
Sorry for the rant... :-)
Best,
Chris BaggottCEO
Compendium Blogware
www.compendiumblogware.com
Posted by: Kathy on Thursday, June 26, 2008
AMEN! A century ago, "branding" meant something you DID to an animal. Today, many marketers forget that BRANDING is what your CUSTOMERS do to YOUR business. It's a common misconception that fussing over fonts and making sure the RGB values are just so in your logo is the "core" of branding. It's not. Your business needs to establish TRUST with your prospective customers before they will do business with you. People don't like doing business with an unknown. Blogging is a GREAT way to establish communication and trust with the HUMAN BEINGS you hope will become your customers someday.
Posted by: Brian Wyrick on Friday, June 27, 2008
Maybe it is my naievete, or my age, my DIY ethics, or maybe I am just out there, but to me this has always been painfully obvious. I remember sitting in a Seth Godin presentation at Exact Target's first user conference, astounded that what he was talking about was NEWS to the people around me.