1. To find where one of my past business buddies went to work, double check a spelling of a name for a potential new client and see who else they may know that I know - LinkedIn
2. To learn how to install Lame with Audacity (convert a file to an mp3 with editing software) - YouTube
3. To fix my notes from a recent seminar (when I can’t read my handwriting) - Google Blog Search/blogs
4. To get inspired about how to create a powerpoint that people want to watch - SlideShare.net
5. To figure out where everyone is meeting for a drink after the seminar - Twitter.com or Plurk
6. To check on my kids and their friends to see their current status - MySpace & FaceBook
7. To double check someone’s birthday because I forgot to send a card - Facebook
8. To save the links to my favorite blogs to read when I wake up - RSS feed reader
9. To find out which of my blog posts are the most popular - Feedburner stats, Wordpress Stats
10. To instantly (under one minute) write and post a blog with a photo with keywords- Flickr.com
11. To build relationships and learn from other branding & marketing experts - Brandingwire.com blog, Age of Conversation

Okay, so I added 11, not 8 –  That’s because number 6 has nothing to do with branding & marketing — so I gave you two bonus ones.  (Note: I’ve written about personal branding in this blog before — and I believe that the photos you put up and comments you make on MySpace/Facebook, even joking, can (will) come back to you. So what my kids & their friends post on line does reflect on their personal branding… AND I know employers actually do check out social media pages and photos before they hire!)

This post was inspired by my London friend Lolly at Blog ‘Til You Drop — we met on line about 2 years ago and met in person about 18 months ago — best of luck with your new job, Lolly!!

How do you use social media? Leave a comment or write about it on your blog with a tag/trackback to this post.  I’m tagging: Steve Woodruff StickyFigure, Director Tom, Ben Jones at Ben Means Business.

The Age of Conversation ‘08 explains how to take the next step with Web2.0 and make it meaningful for you, your business and your brand.

From “Life in the Conversation Lane” to “Keeping Secrets”, each one of the authors has something signifigant to share.  And as an added bonus in the spirit of sharing, all proceeds go to Variety International, The Children’s Charity.

Authors linked to their websites:

Adrian Ho, Aki Spicer, Alex Henault, Amy Jussel, Andrew Odom, Andy Nulman, Andy Sernovitz, Andy Whitlock, Angela Maiers, Ann Handley, Anna Farmery, Armando Alves, Arun Rajagopal, Asi Sharabi, Becky Carroll, Becky McCray, Bernie Scheffler, Bill Gammell, Bob LeDrew, Brad Shorr, Brandon Murphy, Branislav Peric, Brent Dixon, Brett Macfarlane, Brian Reich, C.C. Chapman, Cam Beck, Casper Willer, Cathleen Rittereiser, Cathryn Hrudicka, Cedric Giorgi, Charles Sipe, Chris Kieff, Chris Cree, Chris Wilson, Christina Kerley (CK), C.B. Whittemore, Chris Brown, Connie Bensen, Connie Reece, Corentin Monot, Craig Wilson, Daniel Honigman, Dan Schawbel, Dan Sitter, Daria Radota Rasmussen, Darren Herman, Dave Davison, David Armano, David Berkowitz, David Koopmans, David Meerman Scott, David Petherick, David Reich, David Weinfeld, David Zinger, Deanna Gernert, Deborah Brown, Dennis Price, Derrick Kwa, Dino Demopoulos, Doug Haslam, Doug Meacham, Doug Mitchell, Douglas Hanna, Douglas Karr, Drew McLellan, Duane Brown, Dustin Jacobsen, Dylan Viner, Ed Brenegar, Ed Cotton, Efrain Mendicuti, Ellen Weber, Eric Peterson, Eric Nehrlich, Ernie Mosteller, Faris Yakob, Fernanda Romano, Francis Anderson, Gareth Kay, Gary Cohen, Gaurav Mishra, Gavin Heaton, Geert Desager, George Jenkins, G.L. Hoffman, Gianandrea Facchini, Gordon Whitehead, Greg Verdino, Gretel Going & Kathryn Fleming, Hillel Cooperman, Hugh Weber, J. Erik Potter, James Gordon-Macintosh, Jamey Shiels, Jasmin Tragas, Jason Oke, Jay Ehret, Jeanne Dininni, Jeff De Cagna, Jeff Gwynne & Todd Cabral, Jeff Noble, Jeff Wallace, Jennifer Warwick, Jenny Meade, Jeremy Fuksa, Jeremy Heilpern, Jeroen Verkroost, Jessica Hagy, Joanna Young, Joe Pulizzi, John Herrington, John Moore, John Rosen, John Todor, Jon Burg, Jon Swanson, Jonathan Trenn, Jordan Behan, Julie Fleischer, Justin Foster, Karl Turley, Kate Trgovac, Katie Chatfield, Katie Konrath, Kenny Lauer, Keri Willenborg, Kevin Jessop, Kristin Gorski, Lewis Green, Lois Kelly, Lori Magno, Louise Manning, Luc Debaisieux, Mario Vellandi, Mark Blair, Mark Earls, Mark Goren, Mark Hancock, Mark Lewis, Mark McGuinness, Matt Dickman, Matt J. McDonald, Matt Moore, Michael Karnjanaprakorn, Michelle Lamar, Mike Arauz, Mike McAllen, Mike Sansone, Mitch Joel, Neil Perkin, Nettie Hartsock, Nick Rice, Oleksandr Skorokhod, Ozgur Alaz, Paul Chaney, Paul Hebert, Paul Isakson, Paul McEnany, Paul Tedesco, Paul Williams, Pet Campbell, Pete Deutschman, Peter Corbett, Phil Gerbyshak, Phil Lewis, Phil Soden, Piet Wulleman, Rachel Steiner, Sreeraj Menon, Reginald Adkins, Richard Huntington, Rishi Desai, Robert Hruzek, Roberta Rosenberg, Robyn McMaster, Roger von Oech, Rohit Bhargava, Ron Shevlin, Ryan Barrett, Ryan Karpeles, Ryan Rasmussen, Sam Huleatt, Sandy Renshaw, Scott Goodson, Scott Monty, Scott Townsend, Scott White, Sean Howard, Sean Scott, Seni Thomas, Seth Gaffney, Shama Hyder, Sheila Scarborough, Sheryl Steadman, Simon Payn, Sonia Simone, Spike Jones, Stanley Johnson, Stephen Collins, Stephen Landau, Stephen Smith, Steve Bannister, Steve Hardy, Steve Portigal, Steve Roesler, Steven Verbruggen, Steve Woodruff, Sue Edworthy, Susan Bird, Susan Gunelius, Susan Heywood, Tammy Lenski, Terrell Meek, Thomas Clifford, Thomas Knoll, Tim Brunelle, Tim Connor, Tim Jackson, Tim Mannveille, Tim Tyler, Timothy Johnson, Tinu Abayomi-Paul, Toby Bloomberg, Todd Andrlik, Troy Rutter, Troy Worman, Uwe Hook, Valeria Maltoni, Vandana Ahuja, Vanessa DiMauro, Veronique Rabuteau, Wayne Buckhanan, William Azaroff, Yves Van Landeghem

Beyond getting GREAT ideas and step by step how-to’s and what-not-to-do’s, I think some of the best take-away’s for me were:

• The support and sharing of all this great info — for F*R*E*E!
• The spirit of comradery among all the participants
• How fun it was to go there on a road trip with some awesome women business owners
• I learned as much in the “debriefings” over the meals as I did in the sessions
• Generous people: After Kenny Ruffin (music/video/photography/web) Media artist won the Soccer Moms Myth book as a doorprize, he was so nice to give it to us to read.  Thanks! 
• Great Sessions: Dave Jackson Podcasting in Plain English was wonderful and a great intro for those who are still beginners.  He’s a great presenter and –bonus — he’s from Akron!  He talked about Blubrry pronounced blueberry , so I’ll have to check out that and libsyn as a hosting place too.   I didn’t realize that there was a media host (server for the media), a webhost (for the blog/website) , the media (actual podcast) and that iTunes was where people went to find it. 
• Great Sources, Links and Contacts:

1. All was recorded and will be posted at PodCampOhio’s Podcast by CoefficientMedia.
2. Talkshoe for hosting. BlogTalkRadio for recording and hosting.  Audacity for recording and editing. GarageBand for recording and editing. Skype’s Pamela or FreeConferenceCall for recording.  iTunes for distributing the RSS.
3. Mitch Cantor from StudioNashVegas (marketing communications, graphic design agency) posted his slides at SlideShare.net: Wordpress 101 and Wordpress 201 . Mitch used to work at Dell. By the way, he drove all the way from Nashville to Columbus to deliver the presentation while his wife is 8 1/2 months pregnant!  We were all expecting the phone to ring & Mitch to take flight at any moment.  Best of luck to you and your wife with your new baby, Mitch!  I like your business card too - very creative.
4. Heard quite a bit about Blip.tv as a f*r*e*e host for audio or video.  Another place I’ll need to investigate.
5. Check out some of the other podcamps or look for a podcamp near you at PodCamp Community Unconferences.  These Unconferences are: “for new media enthusiasts and professionals including bloggers, podcasters, YouTubers, social networkers, and anyone curious about new media.”
6. You can learn alot from other PodCamp’s SlideShare shows too. The photo below shows organizer Angelo Mandanto with another staffer passing out more freebies:

So, here’s my Podcast Plan.  (Comments welcome, especially if I’m on the wrong track with this!!)

There are two challenges for me: organizing the content and organizing the technology.  PodCampOhio gave me some great ideas for both, but lunchtime with my friends helped my plan to really come together into an actionable to do list. 

We’re all planning to get together for “A Podcast on the Pontoon” in about a month to see how we’ve progressed in a quest for learning to podcast with confidence.

The Akron Bloggers Community got together yesterday at the Arabica Coffee Shop in Stow Ohio to swap marketing tips and catch up with new events in our blogs and businesses.

Just a few of the highlights:

Stephen Hopson will be the closing Keynote Speaker the National Tractor Association Meeting next month. UPDATED 7/1/08: Stephen’s Keynote speech is in Berea, OH for the National Tractors Parts Association in July - doing a keynote closing presentation called “Transforming Adversity Into Success.”    He joins Jim Cermak on July 15 at Panera Bread in Medina Ohio to deliver his “HEAR” Principle for overcoming adversity.   Stephen is also waiting to hear from major publisher and literary agent on the status of a book proposal for his first-ever book, which will be a collection of first person narration stories about events that have happened in my life including some of the funniest, most embarrassing and scariest moments.

I leave tonight withDeborah Chaddock Brown and Norma Rist for Pod Cast Camp in Columbus PodCampOhio for an all day session on Saturday.

Ron McDaniel recently launched a Buzz Assistant Network to help companies who want a Web2.0 buzz but aren’t sure how to do it. He’s looking for more assistants to help support all the leads coming his way. It’s a win-win for the assistants and the companies. Very clever!

We’ve decided to meet once a month at the same place each time. When we tried to vary to location and time/dates to accomodate everyone’s schedule, it just wasn’t working for the group and we ended up not meeting for a while.
Next Meet up: July 31st 9:30 am at the Arabica in Stow Ohio.

I used to think a widget was someone’s logo that you put on your blog to signify something — like the logo with a link to my LinkedIn page or maybe like the MyBlogLog little squares on the right hand corner so you can see who visited. That’s what I considered a widget.  I think of widgets like refrigerator magnets for websites, blogs and social networking sites.

Now I’m learning that widgets can be much more than that a graphic with a link. I think the big push came when Facebook encouraged programmers to come up with widgets and run their applications on Facebook. 

Of course these widgets drive traffic. If you click on the LinkedIn Widget, you go to LinkedIn and If you click on a face in the My Community group, you go to MyBlogLog. All of the sudden I’m seeing the marketing appeal.

And I realize, I’ve been using a widget all along for my Branding & Marketing blog on my Marketing Resources & Results website. It doesn’t have any cool programming with it that provides a rank or a photo, just a little toe-in-the-water-widget, but it’s a widget none the less. Any one who writes a blog knows you have to start somewhere… even with a widget strategy!!

Some of the best marketing widget strategies have come from Mack Collier at the Viral Garden with his 25 best marketing blogs and Todd And for the Power150 Marketing & PR blogs.

Okay, so what’s my widget strategy? I guess making it small enough to fit in someone’s right hand column. Oh NO!! That’s a tactic. The strategy needs to be something that supports an objective.

Objective: Have Branding & Marketing become more of a leader in the marketing blogs. 

Strategy: Get the Branding & Marketing widget with a link on relevant websites, blogs and social media sites. Create a compelling reason why websites, blogs and social media sites would want to put your widget on their websites.

Tactic: Make the widget small enough to fit in the side bar. Make the code easy to copy and paste. Give people a reason to want to do it (recipical links?!)

Great. I have the beginning of a widget strategy.  I think it still needs work!!  And, oh-yeah, the execution. Therein lies the rub. Hmm.

There are a lot of things to like about retractable banners… in fact, it seems like a no-brainer:

• Easy to set up
• Customizable for each show
• Easy to carry
• Easy to pack up
• Inexpensive shipping (many take them on the plane as checked baggage)
• Full color, bright and colorful

I’m not suggesting you throw away your big 20 foot booth, but next time you are preparing for the trade show, think about a Table Top Display with two Retractable banners.  You’ll feel like you’re going to your kid’s soccer game with 3 fold up chairs – instead of getting ready to ship a pallet, assemble a collapsing grid, try to get carpet with magnetic strips to adher and then velcro on the posters.  Not to mention the whole tear down!

If you’re planning to market your company’s products and services at a trade show in the next few months, you may want to download and print our trade show booth checklist so you don’t forget anything!

Need ideas for your trade show booth exhibit?  You may get some ideas if you take a look at our trade show banner graphics web page for ideas. 

What clever ideas and new trends have you seen at trade shows that you’ve recently attended?

When I was in Baltimore a couple of weeks ago, I noticed this “engagement spot” and thought that it is a clever way to tie an event and a brand to a popular place. Smyth Jewelers uses a tourist photo opportunity as a great way to market and brand their business.

Is there a place or an event that you can tie your brand?

Today Patti Renner had an interesting article at Making Words Stick called “What flavor is your marketing?”  Sometimes you can provide too many choices to a new customer and it’s hard for them to know which one to pick.   She compared it to a time when she ran a coffee shop:

To make it easy on their brains, still numb from lack of java, I started suggesting my favorite drink - a caramel latte. And very soon, caramel lattes became our best seller.

At my marketing firm, sometimes we like to start our working relationship with our clients with a full blown strategic marketing plan.  It just makes sense to start with a plan, rather than doing tactics that might not support the overall objectives. 

On the other hand, some clients need to put their toe in the water before they are ready to go swimming.   To those clients, we sometimes offer a press release program.   So, I guess, in a way, our press release writing and press release distribution programs could become our caramel lattes.

Since I have a family, and a business to run, and oh yeah, need to do the normal things in life like exercise, sleep, grocery shop and laundry, I’ve had to figure out ways to crunch my Web2.0 or Social Media participation time.

“How do you keep up?” That’s a question I get a lot… and my question to all of you. Here are some of the tools I use. Please tell me what else you do. What takes less time to learn/use than something else that I currently use/do. Please don’t tell me to give up sleeping!

• Goggle Alerts
• RSS
• Podcast downloads
• Google Blog Search

I’ve recently become aware of FriendFeed. Haven’t used it yet, but it may be helpful. And microblogging at Twitter.

What do you use that helps to condense your time so you still have time to sleep?

I regularly read Brain Based Biz by Robyn McMaster and Brain Based Business by Ellen Weber but yesterday I was re-introduced to Neuro Science Marketing. This morning while reading the blog, imagine my surprise after I clicked on “The Smell of Marketing” to find that I had commented on this post about a year ago.

4 Responses to “Does Your Marketing Smell?”
Chris Brown Says:
July 30th, 2007 at 5:41 pm
How does my marketing smell?

hmm, hopefully like a:

* campfire burning with ambience.
* chocolate fudge sundae w/brownies, very rich but not expensive.
* like the sweat of a horse after a workout… Okay, I like the horse smell!
* like freshly mowed grass all neat and tidy.

No really. How should I make my marketing firm smell? Usually it’s more like the smell of air conditioning. Not good.

Thanks for making me think about it!
Chris

This is developed along the same path as another website: Sales Brain & Neuromarketing which was recommended to me yesterday.  When things like that happen, some people call it serendipty, others call it karma. I figure something is giving me a sign.  

Studing how the brain listens and evaluates information is extremely interesting to me.  Learning to use all the senses to engage the emotional part of the brain will trigger the “call to action” that we marketing and branding professionals use to get the prospects to take the next step in the sales process.

Touch, Sight, Hearing, Smell, Taste:  What sensory cues does your brand evoke?