I’ve been making time lately to read everything I can on digital and social media as it applies to small business marketing and branding. Trust me, it is like scaling Everest — one step forward and twenty steps back. For every creative, well-written and informative post you find, there are hundreds that simply re-gift it.

Most of it is just recycled. People blogging about same old/ same old or, in Twitter language, re-tweeting other people’s stuff. I have no problem with re-tweeting — in fact, it is great to be able to share the really original and useful bits of information one finds floating around in the cyber sphere.

This morning I happened upon a blog post that truly stands out, one that I’d like to tie my clients to a chair and make them read. In the always-interesting Hubspot blog, there’s a piece called, “Ten Ways a Start-Up Can Use Social Media to Market Itself.”

While each of the ten points is well worth taking to heart, here is the first, to which I say, hallelujah!

Craft a brand position rooted in a customer benefit.

An awful lot of young companies do a good job of describing a product’s features rather than synthesizing them into a single benefit. A simple handle, either expressing what a brand stands for or declaring its point of difference, will serve you well in everything from appearing in search results to being remembered.

If you read nothing else today, read the whole article. And then start applying it to your small business.

Technorati Tags: branding, marketing

What’s fast, easy to use, incredibly inexpensive, and has the potential to reach millions of new customers instantly?

Answer: Social Media. But you knew that, right? Then what’s the hold-up? Why are small businesses so slow to adopt these power-packed marketing tools?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know. You plan to incorporate Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn –  even a blog! — into your marketing mix next year!

Have a look at these stats, according to the Social Media Examiner’s published results of a BIA/Kelsey report:

When asked about their current social media experiences, results showed many businesses are slow to adopt social media:

Have used Twitter to market in the last 12 months:  9%

Have used social sites in the past 12 months:  23%

Have incorporated video into their website: 16%

In addition, according to the survey results, adoption of social media by small- and medium-sized business is more prevalent among younger businesses:

Businesses 3 years or younger: 16% report using Twitter

Businesses 11+ years:  2% report using Twitter

We small businesses are supposed to be nimble, agile, resilient and strong — able to leap tall buildings in a single bound. Why are so many of us afraid to learn new marketing tricks?

It seems to me that folks just can’t grab the social media products off the internet shelves fast enough –whether they understand how to use them or whether they’re right for their business or not. They just plain have to have them!

My advice: slow down! Take a deep breath and stop trying to make the problem fit the solution. Yes, eventually we will all be adept at our usage of Twitter, but for now it is still in the early adopter stage–meaning, it’s not as mainstream as everyone thinks it is.

I tell me clients that they need a brand — for themselves and for their business — before they even think about going more than ankle deep in the online social media waters. If Twitter only gives you 140 characters (not words–characters, including spaces) you better have the right words, the right memorable words,  that are going to immediately identify you bobbing amidst the tsunami of other people who are vying for their place in the social media sun.

And speaking of beginning at the beginning, click here for a terrific “how-to” for getting started on Twitter by Scott Kirsner of The Boston Globe.

Technorati Tags: branding, online branding, personal branding, scial media branding, scott kirsner, the boston globe, twitter

That’s certainly the take-away for many people dipping their toes into the raging Twitter current.

According to a recent study out of Penn State:

The researchers examined half a million tweets during the study. The team looked for tweets mentioning a brand and why the brand was mentioned — to inform others, express a view on the brand or something else — and found that people were using tweets to connect with the products.

There is a trend when it comes to micro-communication and what it is used for, according to study author Jim Jansen.

“Businesses use micro-communication for brand awareness, brand knowledge and customer relationship,” he said. “Personal use is all over the board.”

That is putting it mildly. The urge to self-purge is so great in micro-blogging (Yawn, another day…Just grabbed some coffee….Gotta get home and let the dog out….) that The Wall Street Journal asked yesterday, “What Kind of Twitterer Are You?”

Are you a an Informer or a Meformer? Citing a new Rutgers University study, the Journal says:

“…..four out of five Twitter users are the [meformers], posting updates mainly about themselves. The remaining 20% are “informers,” tweeting information, such as links to news articles.

They coined the term “meformers” to describe users whose tweets could frequently be categorized as “me now” — what they were doing or how they were feeling. These updates do serve a purpose, they said. “Although the Meformers’ self focus might be characterized by some as self-indulgent, these messages may play an important role in helping users maintain relationships with strong and weak ties.”

I’m trying not to choke with delight on my Cheerios.

As evangelists of our own brands, we should strive to be informers — giving and sharing information, responding to others with more information, commenting on relevant postings and the tsunami of information coming at us every day. While it may humanize me in my followers minds to learn what kind of dog I have and whether I believe Starbucks can really make an instant coffee that tastes like fresh-brewed, at the end of the day it none of that really matters.

It’s like the small talk before the meeting begins.

Necessary, hard to do well, but not the real business at hand.

Technorati Tags: branding, personal branding, tweets, twitter, twitter and branding, twitter for business

Oh, I dabble in it. I can even tell you how it works. I advise clients on whether to use it or not.

But, praise the Lord, I’ve got religion. And I’ve got it with the zealotry of a Janey-come-lately. There is crucial information for everyone in this sea of bobbing souls, but you gotta believe — AND — you’ve got to do more than just jump in and hope the current will carry you to some useful place.

If more convincing is needed, check out this piece called \”Did You Know?\” on YouTube.

OK, nervous about YouTube, too? Digest this little  preview:

Americans have access to:

1,000,000,000,000 web pages

65,000 iPhone apps

10,500 radio stations

5500 magazines

200+ cable television networks

In the last 5 years, readers of online newspapers were up more than 30 million.

The clarion call for having a clear, compelling and memorable online brand has gone out. You cannot ignore it. Well, I guess you can if you don’t want your corporation,  professional service business, or job search to succeed.

Full disclosure #1: I go to Home Depot all the time.

Full disclosure #2: I have spent the last seven years renovating the old house that I live in so I’ve had plenty of opportunities to be proven wrong, but I’ve always felt that HD cared more about its male contractors and weekend warrior husbands than women like me who just needed a little  info in order to successfully tackle fix-its and renovation projects around the house. I much prefer Lowe’s , where women are welcomed with open arms and no one treats you like you’ve inadvertently walked into the Men’s Room.

I guess Home Depot figured this out, too, because I received an email this week announcing the Home Improver Club at Home Depot. This is a new “sign-up and we’ll send you emails about workshops, coupons, and weekly home improvement tips” loyalty program. And there, right in front of my eyes, was something called DO IT HERSELF WORKSHOPS.

OK, a little patronizing but a step in the right direction — workshops that I could sign-up for at my local HD on topics such as “Tiling Your Shower” or “Fixing a Running Toilet.” Be still, my heart.

All I have to do is to join the club–you know, email address, choose username and password. My fingers fly across the keyboard, et voila!

But as soon as I try to enter the magic kingdom, I am asked for my username and password. Incorrect! I try again. Incorrect. I try to go to another part of the site. Again, asked for my info–this time, I get in! But each time I try to go to another page, I have to sign-in.

This is tougher to get into than my online bank account! Would someone please tell me why anyone would want to steal the color palette for my bedroom?

This is wayyyyy too much heavy lifting. Thanks anyway, Home Depot. I’m going back to Lowe’s.

I was, shall we say, underwhelmed, by the response from John Arnold, CC’s Director of Constant Contact University. He was “sorry for my frustration,” even though he admitted in the very next sentence that it was “an oversight on our part” not to include a telephone number anywhere in the direct mail piece about a new offering.

If you are in the business of customer service, as I would argue CC is, then you should know that:

1. Telling a customer that they are ‘frustrated’ sounds patronizing, and that you just want them to go away.

2.  The first sentence out of the gate should have been “you’re right–we goofed,” or something to that effect.

3. If it were me (and I have been on the other side, too) I would have spent time thinking about what I could do to go above and beyond to win back my client’s trust. Not just because I drive business to CC, but because I am a customer of theirs, too. Free registration in the program I was writing about? That would have made sense. Not only would it have been a  nice gesture, but I might just have become a CC University evangelist. The program cost a measly $99. Worth the risk, don’t you think?

The take-away here? Look at it from your customers’ point of view–NOT JUST YOUR OWN! How can you go above and beyond to correct a mistake ? Because in the long run, it’s not the mistakes that we remember, but the lengths to which people go to show you why they’re worthy of being trusted again.

Tomorrow: Home Depot –If their new tag line is “More Saving. More Doing” why are they making it so hard to DO?

How I hate it when great brands let me down! The other day I received an email from Constant Contact telling me about a program they were launching called The Constant Contact Experts University. Looked interesting, but I had several questions. Nowhere–I repeat nowhere — was there a number to call or any way to contact them, if by some slim chance, I might want more information before forking over the $99.00 fee.

Is this the arrogance of success? I sincerely hope not. But the lesson I take away from this is that here is a brand that has become synonymous with email marketing – making one of the biggest email marketing mistakes in the book.

Will I continue to use CC? Yes, but with a little less confidence, and that’s too bad.

Many people I know tell me they wish they could write. I have begun to see that writing phobia is akin to my own math phobia — I see numbers and I instantly go brain dead. For others, it is the blank screen or a piece of clean paper.

And when I ask what it is they want to write they tell me “my life story” or “a memoir.” To which I can now say, Pilgrim, your search has ended………

The acclaimed memoirist Sue William Silverman has just come out with a book called Fearless Confessions: A Writer’s Guide to Memoir.” Full disclosure, Sue is on the faculty of Vermont College of Fine Arts where I am currently pursuing my MFA.One of the great beauties of this gem of a book is that it is aimed at beginning and more experienced writers alike. As Sue says:

Everyone has memories. Everyone has a story to tell. Too often those memories, those stories, remain silent, for lack of the right words to bring them to light. That’s why I wrote Fearless Confessions: A Writer’s Guide to Memoir, to help writers transform the fragments of memory into compelling stories. Writing can be lonely. Having a guide to lead you through the maze of memory and show you the power in being unafraid of revealing your secrets, can help you discover your true story. Fearless Confessions explores how to blend what actually happened, what I call the Voice of Innocence, with what those actions means, what I call the Voice of Experience. Combined with chapters on how to find the plot of your life, how to write with style and then market the final product, Fearless Confessions can help take your real life experiences form the scrapbook to the bookshelf.

Here’s Sue talking about the book:

Listen to Sue William Silverman talking about writing memoirs.

Memoir, whether short or long, just for you or for publication, has everything to do with one’s authentic, personal brand. And if there’s one book that can set you on this path, it’s this one.

Technorati Tags: memoir, sue william silverman, writing