brand building

So you want to start building your tree? Well, it is not an easy task. First, you must plant some roots. Then hammer some wood and bark on top of them. Tie on several branches and glue some blossom, for the bees to come over and pollinate them. Definitely glue some leaves to create a murmur in the air, so that the bees know you have a tree. Now wait for the bees, so that you can finally have fruit. Sometimes, to speed up the process, it helps to make a special offer for bees – e.g. “Pollinate 2 flowers, get honey from 3!”.

For years, people built brands (really their businesses, we didn't know about brands then) by learning how to deliver a consistent experience across everything they did. The product, their service, everything was teed into their business and they're profitability. They got instant feedback from the people who were their customers and word spread, both good & bad, based on the experience that was delivered. If you think about it, it was really all viral and social marketing back then, we just didn't have the technology at we talk about today.

Sheryl Adkins Green, Global Vice President of Brand Development for the iconic cosmetics brand Mary Kay Inc., is my guest for today’s interview.

Yesterday, I described the important role that strong, risk-mitigating brands plays in inbound lead generation. This is where B2B social media marketing comes in, since it provides a way for any company, not just large multi-national corporations, to build strong brands that in turn generate quality inbound leads.

Here are four key ways that social media builds brands.

by: Jennifer Rice

Whether you sit in marketing, CSR, supply chain, HR or the executive suite, you’re likely doing your part in ensuring your brand “does no evil” and perhaps even is doing some good. You can probably point to a laundry list of company initiatives from employee volunteer programs, fair labor practices, cause marketing, cradle to cradle manufacturing, and so on.

by: Jonathan Salem Baskin

David Vinjamuri's book Accidental Branding provides a great hint to what drives great branding.

Spoiler alert: it doesn't come from marketers.

by: Mark Rogers

How do you build brands post-Google?

As the recession begins to bite, brands are finding that getting through to customers is tougher than ever.

Offline advertising is showing diminishing returns. McKinsey predicts that by 2010, traditional television advertising will be one-third as effective as it was in 1990.

by: Iqbal Mohammed

Tripletz.com is an on demand publishing service for user created greeting cards. But that's not all. The designs one creates can also be made available for sale to others too. If a particular design sells 111 times, Tripletz will pay the creator $111.

by: Sigurd Rinde

Ray in his comments here led me to a beauty by Søren Kierkegaard:

"To win a crowd is no art; for that only untruth is needed, nonsense, and a little knowledge of human passions."

by: Sigurd Rinde

Reading Evelyn's post I (my fault) get stuck on one word, one concept: "Hang on, brand? Why brand?"
Yes indeed, why the notion of brand?

Of course I accept that a Brand is an important asset. Just like an old building. Great to inherit, important to keep up.