@BasilPuglisi

Content & Strategy, Powered by Factics & AI, Since 2009

Branding & Marketing

Personal & Professional: Social Network at Home

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If you’re a business owner, sometimes we forget that in the world of branding and marketing that Social Media is still about being personal. The person you are when you leave work is just as important to your customers as the professional.

There are many ways to extend your network and show the person behind the professional. One example of this is to share your experiences, and while we have taken to the 140 character world of micro blogging let’s not forget that sometimes more is, well more.

In this case I have attached a review of a restaurant in East Hampton that my wife and I recently visited. I had walked in and found at the end of my business meeting that he had missed a few basic structural needs for the SEO of his website, after thirty minutes he was well on his way to correcting the problem and my wife and I had the opportunitiy to be his guest just a few nights later.

In this case I took the time to share our experience and post it to TripAdvisor, Google Places, Yelp and more, after all, I felt this relationship and experience was worth more than 140 Characters.

(also note the added value of the link “restaurant”, this provides a SEO reference or backlink for his website)

Rugosa offers a contemporary dining experience with a service that almost matches the exquisite tastes its kitchen provides.

Let me start off by saying I am completely biased, or am I? After all, is it not a personal touch that we all want from a night out?

Bill Mammes had my wife (Natalia) and I as his guests this past Friday (Jan 21, 2011), it was an experience that I did not expect. The atmosphere is both elegant and comfortable, a combination that is tricky at best to accomplish.

We used OpenTable.com to set our reservation; it was simple and user friendly. The Open Table platform uses a web version and offers mobile applications. When visiting www.RugosaResturant.com, you will find it integrates fairly nice with the restaurant website as well.

While Yvette (Spouse & co-owner) provided a warm smile and courteous introduction, she was quickly matched by the young server Jon, whose enthusiasm and professionalism instantly uplifted our end of the week winter mood.

Jon is a student of wine (or Oenologist) and while he seems to favor Italian reds, he bolsters a wonderful respect for the Long Island whites. His enthusiasm could easily overtake an unsuspecting guest.  My wife and I found him to be a wonderful part of our night out.

Chef Mammes not only didn’t disappoint, he surprised us at the start. While I started with the Autumn Salad, I found myself quickly stealing from my wife’s plate. Jon had recommended the Duck Cannelloni (Duck Confit, Trumpet Royale Mushrooms and Sautéed Spinach with Star Anise Jus) which in itself brought new meaning to “appetizer”. While I would like to tell you that the Autumn Salad was good as well, the truth is that it’s Butternut Squash, Apples and more was really just a backdrop to the Duck Cannelloni.

The main course was exquisite; I went with the 14oz Painted Hills Rib-Eye with Bulgur Wheat, Spinach in a Red Wine Sauce. My wife (Natalia) bested me once more with the Lightly Smoked Salmon, Cauliflower, Fingerling Potato and Cucumber Horseradish Sauce. As you might have guessed, I found myself once again with poor table manners reaching onto her plate.

As the evening continued on, we enjoyed live music (which was appropriate) and I surrendered to Jon’s wisdom, as by now he had earned our trust. Natalia went with the Petit Basque which is a Sheep Milk Cheese from Pyrenees Honey Glee, Red Wine Poached Prune with whole Wheat Raisin Bread, and while she enjoyed it, I finally found my treat that would leave an impression. I had the chance to finish my night with the Bruleed Lime Meringue, a fresh lemon curd with cream and mixed fresh berries on top.

Rugosa was a wonderful experience and while I’d like to say that I recommend it, I dare not be so bold, but hope you will find this review worthy of a visit so that you may follow with your own review. I can say this, we left so refreshed that while it was a late departure, we quickly made our way to the East Hampton Theaters for Black Swan, but that’s another great experience for another time.

NEVER FORGET THAT YOU HAVE A NAME AND LIFE BEHIND WHAT YOU DO! CONSUMERS KNOW THIS TOO!

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What is About.me All About?

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About.me was founded by Tony Conrad, Ryan Freitas and Tim Young in December 2009, after they were looking for a way to create one place where their profiles can be posted and which has the ability to guide visitors to a more comprehensive information about them. A place that will serve as their ‘splash page’ for personal and professional use.

They seem to have touched a nerve. With seed money of only $425,000, they formed About.me.

During a short beta period that began in September 2010 and ended with the launch in December 2010, about 400,000 people signed up for the service. About.me was bought 4 days  after the launch by AOL for an undisclosed amount.

So what is About.me all about?

About.me provides a place for a user to have a professional looking calling card. The site’s advanced technologies enable users to upload a picture of their choosing that becomes the background for the page. Templates allow users to write a short profile, and ink their page on the site to other social network sites like LinkedIn, Twitter, Youtube, Facebook and personal blogs. Users can also post links to other sites they have on the internet and with the registration an e mails service is provided through the site. One place where users can create one concise profile, and visitors can find immediately everything they want them to know. 

Unlike other social media sites like MySpace and Facebook which started with the same concept, but evolved to be something else, about.me is all about you – the user. They leave the sharing and the conversations to other sites. When clicking on the link to Facebook for example a window opens with your pictures from the site. Another click will send your visitors to the site itself.

What is also interesting about them is what is going on in the background. There, machines and logarithms are crunching numbers and come up with information that might be very interesting to you: a dashboard with stats on visitors, where they came from, social media reach and how much time the visitors have spent on the page.

Being such a young company, it saw a surge of 316% in the past 3 months. Just last week they saw an additional surge of 62%. About.me is already ranked 1,907 in the United States, and the biggest numbers of users are in Canada, USA, Azerbaijan, South Africa and Israel.

About.me prides itself for being easy to use while having a high quality design. Looking at people’s pages on the site proves how far we have evolved from having to turn to expert designers for our personal space on the internet. It is very appealing and artistic.

A similar service exists in the form of Flavors.me, which has a paid service on top of having a free, limited, version. Many of the features of Falvors.me are available only through the paid plan while about.me is completely free. Falvors.me also makes you pay for the stats.

Analysis shows that the average users are in the range of 18-24, have no children and browse the site from work. It appeals more to higher income, higher educated crowd.

[vimeo http://vimeo.com/19914735]

video added 2/14/2011

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Internet Marketing: Watch out, get educated and be an informed consumer!

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University of San Francisco is offering Certificates, and Master Certificates in Internet Marketing, but beware of the rookies trying to sell you, or teach you about what they themselves barely seem to know.

If you find the advertisement on Facebook it seems to lead you to the website usanfranonline.com, however it opens up like any other early year 2000 capture website. It looks to convince you that they are the source for internet marketing, however the website and brand presentation fail on the most basic level. Once you spend a few minutes looking around and realize that nothing is interactive (with exception to the video) you start to get the feeling you landed on an infomercial (and you kinda did).

The video featuring Joe Laratro is the hardest thing I have ever had to watch, here is a individual that is mildly known for being an internet marketing source dragging through one of the worst video pitches . What’s so bad about it? Well in case you didn’t fall asleep yourself, let’s look at how it failed.

  • Video Length: 3:30 Seconds

Well if you can keep them that long, then great.  Unfortunately for most an initial pitch might want to meet the industry standard of 60 seconds.

  • Background: Blurry fake back drop, of what one can assume is San Francisco

Video Media is Social Media, how about a real shot of the San Fran Campus, perhaps a real scene which helps deliver the real feel to what’s going on. This next one really hammers home our point.

  • Message: Speech? Joe is reading off a teleprompt at best! What is worse he is doing a bad job of it, his eyes and facial expressions make me want to cry for him. Let’s try genuine, you know the most important part of Social Media and Internet Marketing back in 2009 till now!

Does Joe Laratro not know enough about what you’re talking about to have real pitch to the camera? If this doesn’t come second nature to him, then he shouldn’t be doing this!

If you are going to do this, let’s get a video shot in documentary style and have him talk to the side angle as if you where addressing someone in the room.

Summary:

While I am sure that Joe Laratro knows something about internet marketing, it’s a lot like watching a newspaper try to launch their first website, cumbersome at best. In this case, it is possible that their program could teach you something, and it better if it’s endorsed by USF. When you visit their main website, it at the very least shows signs of branding and web development that are only few years outdated (i.e. they have social bookmarks at the very bottom of the site, but nothing that allows you to see and interact with what they are doing with the most basic tools in twitter or facebook.

It’s great that someone in academia is trying to get into the digital world of internet marketing, just wish they had learned how to do it for themselves before trying to teach others.

Consumer and Business Lesson:

Do your homework, don’t take anything at face value, while the website may seem impressive even if it does show signs of Social Media and modern internet marketing, dig deeper and find out how they are using it so you are at least prequalifying them before tossing your money away.

In the end this is about protecting your brand, seeing the big picture and looking beyond the fact that the tool works. SEO doesn’t sell anything, SEO or Social Media create exposure which will lead to websites and calls. You have to make sure during execution that the brand image is consistent and shows value to meet a need.

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Sidenote: While this may seem personal, I have never met Joe Laratro or attended any of his meetings. I was drawn to this publically available media based on two concerns.

First, There are many people who have jumped out of the woodworks claiming to be SEO or Social Media experts and business owners should be aware of the most basic tools to determine if someone is credible.

Second, I spent years in student affairs and hold a Bachelors and Masters from Accredited Universities. I  have also studied online with Capella University and Walden University for Doctoral Level classes. I believe in online learning as a tool and when you toss together a program as vague and questionable as USF has here it makes all future programs and online degrees look bad.

***Note my upcoming book will look at this in detail***

Latest Trends in Branding or Rebranding of Companies

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The latest trends in branding or rebranding of companies are developed of necessity. To be successful at rebranding all elements must be consistent and the effect on all stakeholders must be taken into account. Rebranding should be done in a way that it doesn’t alienate current customers but does attract new customers and opens up new markets for the brand.

 

 

Rebrand to Counteract Negative Publicity

When tobacco became a product with many negative connotations, the tobacco giant Phillip Morris rebranded to Altria. At the time this happened, the company also owned over eighty percent of the Kraft Corporation. Changing the name gave the company a chance to show people that the company was involved in more than tobacco. This helped counteract the negative publicity that smoking tobacco was bringing to the industry.

Successful Rebranding

Rebranding requires that the various processes in the marketing campaign make sense. Everything should flow comfortably into the new brand image so that current customers will feel comfortable. When done properly rebranding will make potential customers take a second look while comforting current customers that their favorite items will still be available.

Successful rebranding should

  • Provide opportunities to communicate the brand shift in the business model
  • Allow the migration of your brand into new markets and new audiences
  • Help shed a negative image and disguise negative business events 
  • Allow the company’s mission to be updated bringing new vision to the team involved

Successful rebranding encompasses much more than changing a logo; there should be significance to the changes and this should be communicated to the stakeholders. They should be able to see the purpose behind the change so they will be receptive to it.

Branded Brands

The trend in branding today points to Branded Brands. To make this simple say you are taking a United Airways flight, while on the flight you will be offered Starbucks Coffee, cookies from Mrs. Fields and a Friendly Skies Meal complete with toy from MickeyD’s. This also affects the airlines popularity since the people receive brands they are comfortable with and enjoy.

Brands that Support a Good Cause

Cause marketing is also a growing trend in branding. This trend identifies a brand with a humanitarian cause. This approach has been very successful for many brands such as GAP. Most people feel good about their purchase if part of the cost is going for a good cause and this way of thinking doesn’t seem to be hampered by the recession.

The latest trends in branding or rebranding of companies are out of the box. A lot of creative thinking and marketing techniques are required to be successful in today’ tough economy.

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Social Brand Visibility: Klout

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Klout measures the impact a brand or a person has on the social media network. It is a social media analytics company.

Launched in 2008, they currently have more than 250,000 users and more than 300 API partners. Its founder and CEO, John Frankel, says his company is “well positioned to capitalize on the distinct need for a new layer of intelligence for the social web. Klout is a service that makes sense of what it means to be and to become influential.” It uses over 35 variables on Facebook and Twitter to measure true reach, amplification probability and network score.

True Reach – measures the size of your engaged audience. It does not take into account spam and inactive accounts. They answer a few questions; are your tweets interesting enough to build an audience? How far has your content been spread? Are people adding you to their lists?

How many people did you have to follow to build your count of followers?

Amplification Probability – The likelihood that your content will be acted upon. How diverse is the group you’re in touch with? How likely are you to be retweeted? Do a lot of people retweet you or are they the same followers? Are you tweeting too much or too little? And are the tweets effective in generating new followers?

Network influence – How influential you’ve become? How influential are the people who follow you? How influential are the people who list you? How influential are those who retweet you?

Klout identifies influencers and provides tools for influencers to monitor their influence.  According to their research the three most retweeted users in the world are: Justin Bieber, I Confess That (a Spanish language) and Raise Your Hands (another Spanish tweeter).

The company got $8.5 million in funding a few days ago, a sign that investors believe in the future of this company.

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How to Protect Your Digital Brand Online

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One of the first things the small or large business manager needs to learn is how to protect your digital brand online. Your digital brand is comprised of everything that is online about you so it is important to know what is already there before going any further.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9SRVIuNPCmo]

Damage Control

One of the easiest things to do is to go to a search engine such as Google and perform a search for your name. Googling yourself will give you a good place to start if you need to do some housekeeping on the web. You may be surprised at what you find and see the need to start performing some damage control.

Social networking is the way many people communicate these days and almost everyone has or has had a Facebook or MySpace account possibly beginning in their college days. If these sites do not project you or the brand that you represent in the way that you would like to be perceived, either clean up the site or take it down. Be aware that traces may remain on your friends’ pages.

Don’t Forget About the Good Old Days!

Go back through old history that you may have forgotten and delete comments and pictures that project you in a less than favorable light. You may still appear on your friends pages so if there is something particularly bad, contact your friend and ask them to remove it for you.

Training to Protect Your Digital Brand

When setting up social networking sites for your business, it is important that the people responsible for setting up these accounts realize their possible impact on the digital brand. Twitter can be one of the worst offenders as many business rush to have a brand presence on Twitter. An untrained employee can cause irreparable damage by tweeting unprofessional comments that may poorly reflect on the digital brand.

If you find untrue content on the web that is unflattering to your brand, you can ask the webmaster of the site to remove it. Many will do that just to avoid any possible legal consequences. Depending on your circumstances you may want to check the web for fake sites that are plagiarizing your content or products that can affect how people see your brand. The important thing is to stay informed so you can perform damage control.

Create a Positive Online Image

An online presence is a must for a brand to be successful in today’s competitive marketplace. A positive impact from your digital brand can be expected if you stay on top of the situation and take control. Make sure there are many positive images of your digital brand online which also helps bury any bad content that may exist.

Make sure that those who are trusted with the responsibility of maintaining these social networks are aware of the language, tone, and values that you want your digital brand to project. This is how to protect your digital brand online and make it work for you.

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What is Groupon? How Does it work?

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Groupon – a deal a day website, brings buyers and sellers together through a web and mobile application that offers the customers a great deal, while businesses get a large number of new customers.

Groupon Picture

The idea behind it is the power of group buying. The deal Groupon does with businesses specifies a minimum number of buyers. If enough people sign up, the deal will become active. If less than this minimum of people sign up, the deal is canceled. This way, businesses can offer great deals because they rely on valium.

The company offers one deal per day per a certain geographic location. It doesn’t cost the merchant a thing, but he has to share in the profits with Groupon. There are certain businesses that Groupon is staying away from; shooting ranges, abortion clinics, plastic surgeons and strip clubs, top their list.

The company sends scouts to different cities to research the businesses, and when they identify the potential, salespeople approach the business. By helping shoppers save while letting local businesses advertise, Groupon seems to have tapped into the intersection of the internet’s social media and physical shopping.

An example – 1,600 people in one day bought skydiving lessons in Chicago, getting a 44% discount on the $229 price. The company making the offer normally sells 6,000 lessons per year.  On one day they got 25% of their yearly business. They sacrificed some profit, but got lots of new customers.

And it sure feels like they hit a nerve. Groupon’s spectacular rise since 2008 turned meteoric in 2010. What started in Chicago with the first deal – half price off pizza in the building where their office was located – turned within a few short years into an amazing success. Groupon has expanded to 35 countries, growing their subscriber base by 2,500%, from 2 million to over 50 million.

With the sign of this huge success came attempts to buy them out. In October Yahoo was rumored to try and buy Groupon for $3 billion. A month later, Google offered $5.3 billion. Google was rejected in December 2010.

They now have a few competitors:  LivingSocial, Group Swoop and Scoop Street have tried to cash in, as have social networks like Facebook, with Places, and Foursquare, with Deals.

The main market of Groupon is composed of young, educated women. Deals are often focused on health, fitness and beauty.

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Social Brand Visibility: Connotea (Great Academic Tool)

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Connotea has been in operation since 2004, but is not widely known because it caters mainly to scientists, researchers and clinicians’ communities. It is a free management service; it is a social network bookmarking service, similar to del.icio.us where users can save links to their favorite sites.

Although it is aimed primarily for the scientific community, it is growing among other academic disciplines; it incorporates special functions for academic resources.

Connotea is linked to a number of scientific sites and collects metadata for the page or article being bookmarked, including author and publication information. When saving a page to Connotea, users tag the articles with keywords of their choice so they can retrieve the information easily.

To make it easier on researchers the site has the capability to export the references in RIS format to a citation manager program, which means it is possible to save references without bibliographic software. It also allows easy sharing of bookmarks with colleagues.

As for the social aspect of this website, it recognizes what people have bookmarked and alerts them to related material. It also provides RSS feeds that allow users to keep track of interesting articles published by the websites they have bookmarked.

Each user can comment any number of times on any bookmark in his library, and comments from different users are combined to display a chronological, and conversational, thread about a resource.

References can be accessed from any computer, and can be saves with just one click, without leaving the page you are viewing at the moment.

Essentially you can create a library of important articles for research and study. There is nothing to download to your computer and there is no need for cutting and pasting. References can be public, private or shared with a selected group.

As of November 2010, Connotea had about 40,000 visitors a month and has 6,557 sites linking in.

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Social Brand Visibility: Multiply, Social Media for Grown Ups

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Another way to look at, and benefit from, social media aside from the ubiquitous Facebook, is a site called Multiply – a social media site that has been in existence since 2004 and is just now gathering speed, after many improvements and modifications.

While Facebook is hip, young and aimed at teenagers and young adults, Multiply’s average users range from the late 20s to the upper 30s. Facebook wants to help you increase the number of your virtual friends, while Multiply aims to help you stay in touch with your existing, real friends, colleagues and family.

This social network grew nicely throughout the years. As of September 2010 it has 20 million unique visitors. A small fraction of what Facebook has, but not to be discounted with.

Multiply allows its users an easy upload of pictures, videos and music. Each user who has a contact list on the site, gets his own page which he can customize and on which he can post text or media. It means having the capability to have your own blog among the users of the community. Another helpful feature allows users categorize their contact lists to groups like family, friends, co-workers etc. and decide, very easily, who gets to see the new post.

Since 2009, Multiply is offering a premium service. For about $10 a year, the site can be used as a digital locker. You can upload all your family photos and videos (up to 20 minutes long), in high resolution, to safeguard your family memories and other important pictures. That service allows for easy access and sharing. You can import all your photos from Google’s Picasa and Microsoft’s Photo gallery.

Of course the social side should not be forgotten. Easy access to friends, family or schoolmates. Easy sharing of videos and links.

Multiply has a Social Newsreader. This is a collection of not only the user’s posts but those of his contacts and groups. It is customizable, so users can set filters to show specific posts only.

There’s a section for reviews, recipes etc. and a marketplace to showcase items people want to trade or sell.  You can have your own business page on the site, easily upload photos of your products and connect to your website.

A social media site for adults who don’t feel their co-workers need to see all the baby’s new pictures. But grandma will surely be delighted.

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Can you buy Reviews? The new marketing tools to beat the system?

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There are many sources for reviews on the web to help your product or service get the attention it deserves. It is also a great way to find out what the public thinks about you.  Some are well known like Amazon.com but there are many others that can be a valuable resource too. Some of the sources for reviews are targeted towards specific products but most are varied.

If you are an author of a self published book you might want to check out Kirkus Discoveries reviews. This can help your book get noticed by readers and includes a review of your book on their Facebook and Twitter accounts. If chosen your book review may be featured in a monthly newsletter that is read by journalists, school librarians, publishers, and booksellers. To have your book read and reviewed can be quite pricey, starting at $425, but the rewards can be great.

Another site that is recommended by many people is ReviewMe.com. They do not allow advertisers to require positive reviews but note that at the worst case most reviewers will only give constructive criticism even if they are not particularly pleased with the product.

SponsoredReviews.com is another well rated source for reviews. They have a great selection of blog writers and start their pricing at just five dollars per post. Smorty.com is another source that has strict requirements for their participating bloggers which should ensure that reviews draw in the right traffic to your product or service.

Many of the sources for reviews pay bloggers to write about your product and post it on their blog. There is also the opportunity for link backs through the information posted on the blogs. The more popular the blogs the more traffic you should receive from link backs.

There are many other sources for reviews that might be of interest; BuyBlogReviews.com, Linkworth.com, and ReviewParty .com are just a few of them. Reviews can add to your brand image so you want to connect with reviewers that will review you in a positive light.

There are many marketing tools on the web today and product and service reviews are one of the best. There is also a market for blog writers who don’t mind writing a review of products and services that they have tried and use. These sources for reviews will help you connect with people who want to tell people what they think about your company.

Beware:

Customers are not without intelligence, if you get caught with false reviews they will leave honest ones, especially with companies like yelp that have strict protocals to et your name be dragged through the mud.

Take A One Up! Lets look at how someone is using reviews in a positive light and pushing away the chance that you think its a fake review.

Petri Plumbing & Healting uses scanned copies of their review cards that have been hand written by their customers! It doesn’t stop there as they also have text copies of some of the reviews, likley for SEO purposes.

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