Today’s guest blogger, Ana Ottman is a copywriter and personal historian with a penchant for avocados. She lives in a small apartment at the top of a hill in Los Angeles.

Branding your online business is a process, just not a destination. At one point in the branding process, it’s common for business owners to mimic successful people in their field.

Image via WordsIGiveBy

We’ve all done it. Imitation is a form of flattery until we’re all imitating the same people and everyone starts to sound the same. When your idols are the same for thousands of other online business owners, your potential clients have no one to distinguish you from one person to the next.

Let’s change all that, shall we?

Unsubscribe from blogs and newsletters

Chances are that you subscribe to the blogs and newsletter that your industry leaders offer you. I’m not suggesting you eliminate this important market research from your business strategy. I am suggesting that unsubscribing is an important first step toward writing in your own language, tone, and brand, without your idol’s lexicon swimming around in your brain.

This can be a temporary measure. Try a blog and newsletter reading fast for at least a week before starting to work on your own marketing copy.

Picture your favorite client & speak directly to him/her     

We all have that one client who achieved impressive results as a result of our offering and was a dream to work with. Chances are pretty high that none of your competitors has that same favorite client. Close your eyes and picture that client. Now open them, and for whatever marketing collateral you happen to be working on, pretend you’re writing directly to them. Pretend that you’re creating content for their eyes only.

Create a word bank for your brand

When you work with branding experts, they’ll often name five to ten words that capture your brand and pull from this group when they’re creating your marketing materials. Why not do the same for yourself?

Start by making a list of at least 20 words that come to mind when someone asks you to describe your business and your results.Revisit the list a couple days later, and narrow it down to the ten most powerful and compelling words. Use these liberally throughout your marketing materials to strengthen your brand.

Mimicking your idols may feel easier than taking the time to develop your own voice, but it’s a short term solution. If you want to build a business with long-term earning potential, it is vital to tap into your brand’s voice and tone. The good news is that you can start small. Each of the tips I shared can be accomplished in less than ten minutes.

In the comments, I’d love to know: What challenges do you face in developing your brand’s voice? How have you worked to overcome those challenges?

Kate Courageous is a life coach, writer and speaker who teaches people why “integrity is sexy” and how the practice of courage is revolutionary. Since 2009, thousands of people have visited Your Courageous Life to learn more about working with fear in revolutionary ways through the practice of courage–with the core message being that when you’re trying to eradicate fear or pretend that it doesn’t exist, you’re working against yourself.

One of the reasons that I decided I needed to take a digital break is that I felt overwhelmed. Not by coaching clients, but by trying to “keep everything straight:” Facebook, Facebook messages, Facebook fan pages, Pinterest, Google +, Twitter…

It would be all to easy to suggest that one should simply just pare everything down, choose one place to create updates, and leave it at that. After all, say many, they can’t keep up with all of the new social media portals that are opening up.

First, a term that will be useful to learn: “digital sharecropping.”

It describes the phenomenon of growing your own crops on someone else’s land – which is what we’re all doing, metaphorically, when we build large fan bases on Twitter or Facebook or some other social media outlet.

We’re using someone else’s “land” to create a community where people will come to learn, to connect, and possibly, to purchase something.

While it can be a pain to always need to keep one’s “ear to the ground” with social media, creating ever-more accounts and seeing what happens with them, it’s worth it if you consider the alternatives. Here are a few reasons why:

Reason #1: It’s the somewhat obvious “duh,” but sometimes Twitter or Facebook experience down times where they’re offline. If you’re launching a product that it took you six months to create, you don’t want all your eggs in one basket on launch day.

Reason #2: If your account gets hacked, you might have no alternative other than having the account shut down. Facebook has been in the news with this, after they closed down the fan pages of some small entrepreneurs who had carefully built a following of several thousand fans, only to see Facebook offer them zero options aside from deleting the account, after the account was hacked and someone posted malicious content. The same can be true of any of your social media accounts.

Reason #3: Sometimes a person’s tribe will not live in the usual places – so why hang out in just one? Creative coaches: do you have a Pinterest account? Have you experimented with hanging out there? Business coaches: are you working the scene at LinkedIn? There are various social media venues that might be more appropriate for you, depending on the specific type of person you want to serve.

 There are a few safeguards you can implement in order to streamline the process so that the workflows stay manageable.

 As I’ve learned, this is a process that will always require fine-tuning as long as you’re growing (so it’s the “good” kind of “problem” to have). But here are the basics:

1.) Set up an account with hootsuite to manage multiple social media accounts and have one hub for all updates. I talk about this in-depth in the Workflow module of The Coaching Blueprint. Setting this up will save you a ton of time.

2.) Routinely let your followers on one account know about your presence on another. Occasionally tweet a shout-out for your Facebook page. Occasionally do a share of your Twitter handle on your Facebook Fan Page. You can get strategic about this. Hold a giveaway in just one forum, but not another.

3.) Focus on just one or two places. That will help with your sanity. Facebook and Twitter are the two I’d direct you to the most right now, with Google + coming in third.

Listening to Copyblogger radio, I hear that one of the features that Google is going to implement with Google+ that has Facebook beat – hands down! – is far greater metrics/measurability incorporated with Google Analytics (Knowing a lot about SEO is not vital to your success as a coach, but Google Analytics as a measuring tool definitely is!)

Google Analytics is already a powerful tool for knowing where your traffic is coming from and why they’re coming to you – to integrate a major social media hub with that would be a big boon for Google. A lot of marketing experts have already started to pull their crowds over to Google+ (here’s where I invite you to join up with the YCL fan page on Google+, which I’ll update more regularly after Google releases their API for integration with Hootsuite).

And it should go without saying: you really want to own your own domain name (not a blogger or typepad sub-domain!), on your own server (I like DreamHost), and have your own announcement list service so that your people have ways of getting announcements from you other than through social media.

Okay, last thing I’ll say – when I first started out as a coach, this sort of talk really overwhelmed me. Analytics what? Metrics what? Digital sharecropping what?

So do yourself a favor, if you’re not ready to think about this yet, and tuck this away. Trust me – it will come in handy later.

What are your thoughts about digital sharecropping? Let me know in the comments section below.

This is a guest post by Michelle Ward, CPC, PCC and – most importantly! – The When I Grow Up Coach. Michelle has coached hundreds of creative people discover (and achieve!) the passionate career they think they can’t have, and she won’t rest until all creative types can see the possibility in making a grown-up living doing what they love.  Her first book, The Declaration of You (co-written with the artist Jessica Swift and encouraging everyone to clarify their purpose and own their uniquity) will be published by North Light Craft Books in June 2013.

I’ve had it up to here, I tell ya! Up to HERE (yes, I am putting my hand way above my head, which without that visual you’d have no idea about where I am in the up-to-here scale) with “But I’m supposed to be doing X” and “So-and-so does Y so I need to, too” and “I know I should be doing Z, but…”.

It enrages me each and every time, so please don’t mind the enpassioned (that’s not a word, but I don’t care) lady as she steps on her soapbox to bring home the point that there is no right (or wrong!) when it comes to working on or in your creative business. 

For every Rule, there’s at least (at least!) one exception. There’s totally more exceptions, but honestly, I worked on this post for something like 3 hours and I just can’t bring myself to find and link to any more people. You understand.

The Rule: “I’m interested in so many things the thought of just picking one makes me feel like I’m in jail – but I’m told I can’t have a successful business unless I do just that!”

The Exception: Tracy Matthews. Head on over to her site and you’ll see it right away: “Bespoke Jewelry, Grounding Yoga, and Inspiring Offerings.”

Yup, all 3 of her offerings live on one site, together in harmony, allowing the visitor to get a real 360 degree view of who Tracy is and what she offers – custom & ready-to-wear jewelry plus yoga classes (workshops, group classes, and private lessons) plus coming-soon curation services. And, um, Tracy makes $30,000/month. So there.

How to adapt: If you saw your Renaissance Soul-ness as a blessing instead of a curse, what would your business look like? If you could do the type of work you love each and every day/week, what type of work would you love to do?

If it’s tough to differentiate the it’s-fun-now-but-might-not-be-in-6-months work from the one’s that’ll stick (that’s a classic Renaissance Soul trait, by the way), think back to the type of stuff that has held your interest for at least a couple of years.

Don’t forget, everything counts: your love of dogs, your fabric obsession, your mastery of calligraphy. Start thinking of how they interact, and/or let my workbook or Emilie‘s help ya along your way.

The Rule: ”It won’t be worthwhile to have an offering unless I have at least 1,000 newsletter subscribers.”

The Exception: Emilie from Puttylike. She talked to Srini about making $4K with a list of  ”only” 500 people, and has done a bang-up job on putting out products and services that are super valuable since she started her biz.

And ya know what? Offering things with value that put your perspective/process out into the world is just the thing to do in order to attract your audience/clients/customers to you … sure, it’s a bit of a Catch-22, but don’t let not having A Big List stop you from offering what you know you rock at.

How to adapt: You probably have an idea of what you wanna offer, and it probably is Big. Maybe Too Big. What would Phase 1 of that offer look like? That’s what you wanna be working on and getting out into the world as soon as you’d like.

Don’t forget – without people knowing who you are, what you stand for and what you offer, they won’t know why they need what you’re selling.

The Rule: ”If I want to grow my business, I have to be on Facebook and Twitter and blog and be on Pinterest and host a podcast and….”

The Exception: Alexandra Franzen. Man oh man, does this lady break all the rules in the best way possible.

Do ya notice how she only has 1 social media link on her site? Twitter. That’s it. That’s all. No Pinterest. No Instagram. No YouTube. No LinkedIn. No Facebook, even. No Facebook! She loves Twitter, so that’s what she sticks with. End of story. And, um, can we say she’s booked ’til Jan 2014?! January 2014. Let that sink in.

How to adapt: The bottom line is that you have to be engaged in whatever social media site you commit yourself to. If you’re not sure what platform you want to be your significant other (yes, I still call twitter my boyfriend), then don’t be afraid to play around – it’s time well spent.

Spend 2 weeks on Twitter, learning the ropes and see how/if ya like being there. Then move on to how Pinterest can help your biz and play around there for a bit – and so on and so forth.

If you know in your gut where you enjoy being – let’s say by vlogging and Facebooking – then cut out the rest of the noise and just do that for a month. See what happens. And if you wanna take a quiz as to which social media platform would be best for your targeted audience and your personality, sign on up for my newsletter and crack open the Business Building That Brings You Bliss exercise that’s included in the VIP Library you get when you subscribe.

The Rule: ”If you’re really serious about your biz, just take the plunge and start working in/on it now.”

The Exception: Me! Is that allowed? OK, since I’m the writer, I’ll allow it.

The first thing I did when I decided to make a go of this whole life coach business was to get a new job as an executive assistant. Yup – a 9-to-6 assistant’s job with a financial consultancy company.

The job I held prior was too draining (aka a boss who made me psychosomatic), too all-consuming (aka expected to answer emails on my Blackberry at midnight), too soul-sucking (aka see above) to allow me to work on getting certified and build my business – and I knew the biggest way to fail fast was to give up my steady job and jump into coaching full-time right away.

I shudder to think what that would’ve done to me.

How to adapt: But now that I think of it, this Rule is a Rule that needs to stand – just not in the way that some people see it. You don’t need to quit your job and take the leap right now – but you do need to keep putting one foot in front of the other as best you can, as often as you can.

It took me 2 years and 7 months from the time I started that assistant job to the time I was able to quit – and that was only because I spent the vast majority of my nights, weekends, and downtime at work getting certified, coaching, and doing other business building-y things.

So, think of what’ll make you comfortable and confident with diving in – and what’ll make the leap to being an entrepreneur feel more like a large step – and break it down into daily or thrice-weekly tasks (any less time than that and you’re losing momentum…and/or might not really wanna launch this business). This can help.

The Rule: ”You must have a niche if you want people to understand what you’re offering and see themselves in.”

The Exception: Kate Swoboda. We have a big discussion on this here, but I love that she’s able to differentiate that her niche is actually her perspective. Anyone is her client as long as they want to live a more courageous life. OK, it’s a bit of a niche because she’s “shutting out” (in a loose terms) those who don’t want that for themselves, but it’s not as if she’s only working with artists or Moms or insert-demographic-here.

How to adapt: Tanya and I have been digging into this over at Golden Ticket this week, and what we found needs to part of your business foundation is message, not niche. Fill in the blank: I want people to know _________. What goes in that blank is what you wanna make sure is absolutely clear in your communications and relationships – and then your “niche” will find you (you gotta be proactive about it, but still).

The Rule: ”Don’t put more than one type of work in your online shop – it’ll just confuse people.”

The Exception: Jessica Swift. There are 19 different product categories in her shop currently, and they run the gamut from accessories to stationary to artwork to apparel to sea elves (!).

She’s been doing this full-time for years, and her work has been licensed by Big Deal Companies like Casemate, Pier 1, and Hallmark – not to mention she raised $25,000 on Kickstarter to help produce her rain boots. Oh, she also has a lil’ ole’ book coming out this summer.

How to adapt: Tying it in with the rule above, latch on to your message/mission/style and be rest assured that you can put pretty much whatever you want under that umbrella.  I know you’ll agree with me that Jess’ work is uber-distinctive, and the fact that it’s all cohesive and a direct result of her tagline, “Live Color to the Max”, makes it all work together.

The Rule: ”But my blog has to have a niche, and I can never stray from talking about that one thing!”

The Exception: Yes & Yes. With the tagline “Yes is more fun than No”, Sarah gives us True Stories from all over the spectrum (examples: I Dated a Transman and I’m a Grocery Store Sample Lady and I Gave Up On My Dream) + weekly Web Time Wasters + Style Icons + travel posts …OK, you get the point. If it has to do with Yes, it’s here – and that obviously takes a lot of different forms.

How to adapt: If the thought of Only Writing About 1 Thing gives you a case of the no-fun face, think of your blog as a magazine or a curated store instead. What would be inside? What do you wanna showcase? How/what do you wanna share? And yes, this is another Rule that ties into message. Damn that message is important!

The Rule: ”When you set the terms of something, you better abide by them.”

The Exception: Me again! OK, sorry, but once permission was granted, I couldn’t help myself.

Earlier this winter I told everyone everywhere that my Clubhouse was closing after 50 sign-ups or on Dec 5th at 6p Eastern, whatever came first. Well, at around 2p Eastern, only 16 people had signed up. The last time I opened up the doors, in June, the spots went way faster – so this low number was unexpected. I wavered, knowing that we have room to accommodate more members without feeling crowded/overwhelmed in there, and that more brains in the Clubhouse = more knowledge and support.

Because of that, I decided to keep the Clubhouse doors open for the next 34 people to walk on through…or close ‘em earlier if I wanna. I’m the President, after all.

How to adapt: It’s always sticky to go back on your word, but when something’s not quite sitting right, don’t ignore your gut. As long as it’s not detracting value from what you’ve promised and feels like an ethically sound decision to you, then it’s fair game.

If you feel anything’s being compromised, ask yourself what you can do to make it up to your client/customer. When I first launched my Clubhouse, some people opted in to get a free seat in a virtual workshop I promised to host every 4 to 8 weeks. I realized after the first one that I totally super over-committed myself, so I pushed out the timeline to every 12 weeks and gave them each a free 30-minute private session. Everyone was happy.

The Rule: ”You can’t make a living selling pizza out of a firetruck!”

The Exception: Company 77. So successful they brought it to a new location. Also led to the best wedding food/activities ever (thanks Kelly & Dave!).

How to adapt: Stop thinking Can’t and start thinking How. This video can help you communicate that to your loved ones (including yourself!) and this can show you how (in 3 easy steps!).

I say it to my clients and I’ll say it here: it’s a blessing and a curse to be building a creative business in 2013, since there are soooooooo many ways to do things nowadays. Sure, a Magic Formula might give ya some guarantees, but just because something’s worked for someone else doesn’t mean it’s right/it’ll work for you.

So, embrace the unknown, filter out the noise, live in the questions, and make the decisions that’ll be best for you based on what your heart/gut says (and know it’s always funner to break the rules and run your biz/project your way instead of how so-and-so tells ya and be “successful” but miserable/inauthentic).

Then, let me know, and I’ll feature you as An Exception to the Rule.

This is a guest post by Kristen Fischer, the author of When Talent Isn’t Enough: Business Basics for the Creatively Inclined. The book is in stores nationwide and available on Amazon.

After we muster up the courage to follow our dreams and start moonlighting or freelancing on a full-time basis, it seems that we get timid when it comes to promoting ourselves.

Why is this? I think many creatives believe they don’t want to be too corporate by tooting their own horn, or think that doing so could make them seem arrogant. That mindset couldn’t be further from the truth, because the fact is that businesses have to promote themselves. Even those with one employee.

Getting out of your own way, or breaking free from these mindsets, can help you tackle the fear of self-promotion and get on to business.

1. Legitimize yourself.

When you think of yourself as a business, a real legitimate business—because you are—that is the first step to getting over the self-promotion phobia. You know that real businesses have to promote themselves, right? As a solo professional, you don’t have a marketing or public relations department, so you have to be your own. And believe me, you have to do even more to promote yourself—because no one else will perform this essential function for you.

Perhaps setting up your business will help you see that you are, indeed, a business. Which business format works best for you? Will you need to take any “official” steps, such as registering your business or a business entity, to be an official business?

Even if you don’t have to do anything, you still have to view yourself as a legitimate business. So create business cards or set up an office—whatever you have to do to start thinking about life as a solo professional, or solopro.

2. Remember the rent.

Big businesses know that money matters. They track money to keep tabs on their performance. Another way to get over your fear of self-promotion is to think about money. Keep it coming in and you can do what you love.

One way that legitimate businesses keep dough rolling in is by—you guessed it— promoting themselves … so you’ll need to do the same.

3. Leverage your creativity and strengths.

No one says that self-promotion has to be a complete drag. If you play upon your strengths, you can use tactics quite effectively. Be creative with it, because you are creative! For instance, I have had very positive results using email and online marketing techniques because it enables me to draw upon my writing skills. If you asked me to speak a seminar, I definitely would not be in my comfort zone.

You get to choose how you promote yourself and your business … why not do it in a way that lets you express yourself and draw upon your natural gifts?

4. Ask for support.

Whether you are drafting a social media message or working on a brochure, it’s always good to garner some feedback. While that in and of itself may be scary, it may also help you to be more comfortable putting yourself out there.

Putting in time and attention to your self-promotion efforts can only make them better. So if you have reservations about promoting yourself, make sure what goes out to the world is the very best. The good news is that there are plenty of other creatives with the same hesitations regarding self-promotion—so you can likely enlist their help to make sure you are best publicizing your business.

How do you handle self-promotion? Let us know in the comments section below.

(For more inspiration, see Richard Wright on Telling the Truth.)

“My own belief is that one regards oneself, if one is a serious writer, as an instrument for experiencing life. All of it flows through this instrument and is distilled through it into works of art.

How one lives as a private person is intimately bound into the work. And at some point I believe one has to stop holding back for fear of alienating some imaginary reader or real relative or friend, and come out with personal truth.

If we are to understand the human condition, and if we are to accept ourselves in all the complexity, self-doubt, extravagance of feeling, guilt, joy, the slow freeing of the self to its full capacity for action and creation, both as human being and as artist, we have to know all we can about each other, and we have to be willing to go naked.”

–May Sarton in Journal of a Solitude

As I enter my 37th week of pregnancy, I’ve been spending most of my time and brainpower just getting ready.

Tying up loose ends. Battening down the hatches.

Blogging has taken a backseat to breastfeeding classes and labor bag checklists. But that doesn’t mean I intend to abandon you. I’ve lined up an excellent roster of women bloggers who will be sharing their voices during the month of April.

Here’s what (and who) you can expect:

•  March 25: Author Kristen Fischer on Moving Past the Fear of Self-Promotion
• April 2: When I Grow Up Coach Michele Ward on The Exceptions to the Rules
• April 8: Life coach & writer Kate Courageous on Digital Sharecropping
• April 18: Copywriter Ana Ottman on Three Ways to Develop Your Voice

Are you excited? I am! I’ll keep you posted – but if you need to get in touch, please be patient with me as I enter this new stage called motherhood.

]]> http://www.onewomanmarketing.com/what-to-expect-while-im-expecting/feed 5 http://www.onewomanmarketing.com/what-to-expect-while-im-expecting http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/onewomanmarketing/~3/Gi30p2iFr2Q/google-experiment-results http://www.onewomanmarketing.com/google-experiment-results#comments Mon, 18 Feb 2013 11:00:09 +0000 Kelly Kautz http://www.onewomanmarketing.com/?p=9253 About a month ago, I decided to put Google+ to the test. I’d been hearing tons of mixed messages about the platform, ranging from “Google+ is a ghost town!” to “Google+ is the best thing that ever happened to online marketing!”

I signed up for Google+ with a healthy dose of skepticism. Well, I didn’t really sign up. Google automatically signs up its Gmail members for Google+, so I already had a profile. I just didn’t have a pretty-looking page.

I figured I’d spruce my profile up with a custom header, then post something to Google+ once a day. After thirty days, I hoped to have a sense of whether it was worth the time I’d invested.

The Road to Hell is Paved with Good Intentions

The first (and perhaps the biggest) lesson I learned: Don’t start a brand-new social media platform when you’re eight months pregnant. Especially if you already have a hard time updating your Facebook and Twitter accounts.

I’ll admit: I got bored of making daily updates on Google+. In my own defense, it’s easy to get bored when you do everything by the book – add people to your circles, post content, engage with other people’s posts – and still get no response.

Unless you belong to a niche group that’s already active on Google+, the platform will seem like a ghost town. And not to get mired in semantics, but getting the occasional +1 is just not as affirming as having someone “Like” your content.

The feed on my homepage isn’t particularly engaging, either. I have maybe half a dozen friends who post regularly on Google+, and their content is often interrupted by what Google+ deems “Hot and Recommended.” This depersonalizes the whole experience. Do I really need to see a picture of a beautiful sunset? If it’s coming from my mother-in-law, maybe. If it’s coming from a stranger, no.

The Plus of Google+

There is one major plus of Google+: posting content on the platform, especially links back to your own site, can improve your search engine optimization.

Measuring the success of your Google+ SEO efforts, however, can be difficult if not impossible. Looking at my own metrics, I could trace a handful of visitors who came directly from my Google+ content. But that content is also working behind the scenes to improve my site’s visibility. Because of the way Google indexes Google+ content, those Google+ posts that are generating zero discussion could ultimately cause my blog to rank slightly higher on the page, or show up for a search phrase that it previous didn’t rank for at all.

For business owners with a storefront, that SEO is even more crucial. Google Places has merged with Google+ Local, an online listing where consumers can find contact details, get directions and post reviews. Since Google+ Local pages dominate the right-hand side of Google’s search results, it’s especially important for business owners to confirm their content is correct and monitor reviews.

Should they work Google+ into a larger marketing strategy? It depends. Most businesses just don’t have the internal resources to manage another social media marketing platform, and Google+ probably won’t be their best option for customer engagement. But if that business already has an existing SEO strategy, it might be valuable to work Google+ into the mix.

Where I’m Going From Here

I’m not giving up on Google+, and I expect its opportunities for small business owners will continue to evolve and grow. But I don’t plan on maintaining an active posting schedule, either. I’m going to continue posting the occasional blog article and reevaluate in a year or so.

What do you think about Google+? Let me know in the comments section  below.

You can read a similar Google+ analysis geared toward larger businesses in a post I wrote for my agency’s blog: What’s the Plus of Google+?

While the technology isn’t necessarily life-changing, the app managed to make advertising both effective and useful – something that’s deceptively difficult to achieve.

Introducing “Take Them a Meal”

Chinet’s Take Them a Meal is another example of advertising that’s both effective and useful. The premise is simple: the microsite allows you to plan a meal schedule for a friend or family member, “simplifying meal coordination so friends, family, neighbors and co-workers can show they care.”

I heard about the site from a friend who recently gave birth to twins, and immediately thought it was a great idea. I didn’t even notice the Chinet branding until I’d started brainstorming what meal I could bring. That’s when I noticed this text at the end of a short list of tips:

“Consider making – and taking – your meal in disposable Chinet Bakeware®. They won’t have to worry about cleaning or returning your dishes to you later. Find a retailer near you here.”

I hadn’t even thought of how I’d store the meal, so it came as a welcome suggestion. Exploring the rest of the site, I discovered a bunch of other great content – recipes, blog posts, coupons, even a tip line – all subtly branded by Chinet.

The branding could have easily become intrusive had Chinet’s marketing team not exercised caution. But in its current form, I think Take Them a Meal is pretty darn perfect. And I’d bet money that it’s yielded a healthy return of investment.

What’s been inspiring you lately? Let me know in the comments section below!

“Creative Life” print by hellocherie on Etsy

To succeed at marketing, and business in general, you have to be willing to embarrass yourself.

I’m not talking about wearing a mascot costume and handing out coupons on a busy street corner. I’m taking about owning up to all the things that make you human: the idiosyncrasies that don’t fit your ideal brand. The failures you wish you could sweep under the rug.

Make Me Worry You’re Not OK

A friend who’s writing a memoir recently shared an article on this topic. In “Make Me Worry You’re Not OK,” Susan Shapiro talks about assigning her writing students an essay on their most humiliating secret:

Over 20 years of teaching, I have made the humiliation essay my signature assignment. It encourages students to shed vanity and pretension and relive an embarrassing moment that makes them look silly, fearful, fragile or naked.

You can’t remain removed and dignified to ace it. I do promise my students, though, that through the art of writing, they can transform their worst experience into the most beautiful.

Perfection, Shapiro implies, does not lead to compelling stories. Nor does it help readers identify with you. Rather, it just raises people’s defenses.

Humiliation in Marketing

The same is true of marketing. While you can’t deny the power of social proof, you also need to convince customers that you’re human. And one of the quickest ways to do that is to admit fallibility.

 I follow dozens of marketing bloggers, SEO gurus and social media experts. All have prestigious titles, enviable degrees and other impressive credentials. But the people I really admire – and those I trust most – are the ones who share success and failures.

Business coach Michelle Ward, does this brilliantly in her blog post, “Yup. 3 Sign-Ups. (aka How I Screwed Up Majorly, and What I’m Doing to Fix It.” In it, she describes a product launch that netted less-than-impressive numbers:

“I tried not to break down the 27 hours I prepped for the Clubhouse into the money I made, including the refunds. But I did. $138 divided by 27 hours is (gulp) $5.11/hour. …  I mean, can you see The Travesty? The Embarrassment? The Head Scratching and Brow Furrowing?”

It’s not hard to feel her pain.

Molly Gordon (whom I interviewed for a 2009 podcast on “Authentic Promotion“) experienced one problem after another when she launched “Profit Alchemy.” After a typo turned “saga of errors” into “sage of errors,” Molly decided to embrace the term:

“As someone who has a highly developed need to know, errors are a keenly phrased invitation to let it go.

And being a sage of errors means showing up even when you’d really like to hide.”

I could empathize with both women, because I’ve found myself in similar situations. But I also respect their business advice even more after reading their posts, because I know they’ve worked through the kinks in their own marketing.

They continue to take risks, and learn from them.

My Own Adventures in Embarrassment

I’ve written in the past about my own direct mail mistakes, and snarky responses to sales letters I’ve written. I once spent months launching an online marketing class that only netted two students. I’ve had a 60+ page marketing book proposal sitting on my hard drive for the past four years, because I cannot get it to sell.

And you know what? It’s OK.

I’m a better marketer – and a better person – because of these experiences. They’re not ones I planned, or even ones I would have liked. But I couldn’t have arrived at where I am today without them.

You probably have a similar list of failures and flubs, tucked away in the back of your mind. The next time you’re struggling with a sales page or need a topic for your next email newsletter, don’t discount the embarrassments. You may dig them up and find diamonds in their stead.

First, you have to come up with an original concept: one that captures people’s attention on social media, where most people regard advertising as an unwelcome guest at a party. Then, you have to bring that concept to life amidst client demands, strict Facebook regulations, daunting legal requirements and ever-changing technical specs.

That’s why I get excited over Facebook promotions that are actually cool. And Monopoly’s “Save Your Token“ promotion is brilliant.

Hasbro, maker of the popular board game, is replacing one of its iconic tokens with a more modern version. Facebook fans must vote daily for the token they want to save, and the one they want to add. (The new choices are a diamond ring, guitar, robot, cat and helicopter.)

This isn’t the first time Monopoly has replaced tokens. The lantern, rocking horse and cannon have all been discontinued. But it’s the first time fans have been able to weigh in.

Other brands are getting in on the action. Zappos is petitioning for the shoe to stay, while 9Lives is rooting for the new cat token. And if you’re a traditionalist, don’t worry – you can still purchase the game with its classic tokens. As long as you hurry. (No promotion is complete without an element of urgency.)

So far, the campaign has fascinated not only consumers but also the news media. The Washington Post is forecasting the winners with enthusiasm typically reserved for Oscar season.

Monopoly’s “Save Your Token” is still playing out on Facebook and the web, but I expect this promotion will net huge gains for the brand.

What’s been inspiring YOU this week? Let me know in the comments section below.