The Two to Have

March 11, 2010

One = Curiosity
Two = Delivery
You have to have both.

1. Curiosity. Curiosity is what makes people want to know more. It is what makes people seek information, seek expertise and seek solutions. You have to have curiosity with your brand; otherwise people may be content just to know you exist. Awareness is not enough. Curiosity also makes you interesting and in any economy, interesting is relevant.

2. Delivery. You must also be extremely good at what you do. The best, even. After you have created curiosity about what you do, deliver. People are disappointed when their expectations do not meet reality. Do not settle for what is easiest or what may work out, use the best. When you deliver what is equaled to what is expected you receive content, but when you deliver more than what is expected you deliver intense satisfaction.

Bonus: If you don’t know if you have curiosity and delivery, ask. Ask clients, employees, other professionals, you may learn something.

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“Oatmeal v Bacon” Pic.

March 11, 2010

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Back to the Basics

March 8, 2010

Kristina Knight at BizReport wrote an excellent article called "Why Community Building is Better than Simple Social Marketing". This should be required reading for any small business owner, lead corporate marketer, and marketing/branding/social media consultant that wants to truly wants to help brands effectively use social media.

The intro says: When it comes to social marketing many brands are doing themselves a disservice by simply creating a social profile or tweeting deal ads to followers. Sure, this gives the consumer a reason to visit a website, but for a truly integrated social campaign marketers need to take their social profile to the next level. That includes building a community the consumer will return to time and again, and that means more than deal tweeting. You can read the entire article here.

Kristina's article brings to mind the top 10 rules about social media and branding that I've been preaching for the past 4 years:

Being on social media doesn't make your brand interesting. Being interesting makes you interesting.
Social media is an amplifier. It takes what you truly are and makes it louder and more prominent. This is great unless your off-line brand sucks.
If you treat social media like advertising, your audience will treat it like advertising.
The best brands feel comfortable having their people talk to other humans. This means they embrace being transparent and don't block the use of social media.
Great brands already have a community; they just use social media to facilitate those existing conversations.
If you have made someone really, really happy or really, really mad then you are already on social media.
At some point in the very near future, if you aren't on social media (as an organization or a person), then you won't exist.
As with all things branding, be simple, unexpected, and consistent.
Lead by example: if an organization's top executive isn't using social media then what does that say about listening and relevance?
Spending money on how to use social media is stupid. Spending money to learn why is smart. In other words, once you know why, social media is a do-it-yourself project.

And a general rule of life: treat others like you would like to be treated.

Find Me:

Web: thetricycle.com
Blog: http://fosterunfiltered.com/
Twitter:http://twitter.com/brandmilitia
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/JustinFoster
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/agencyunderground
SlideShare: http://www.slideshare.net/brandmilitia

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Why Rock Bands Sell More

March 7, 2010

I bank with Wells Fargo. There is a branch across the street with a great staff. I don't know if this is true across all Wells Fargo locations, but these guys are cool. They dress cool and act cool, with quirky personalities, non-banking fashion, and a relaxed but still professional attitude. Banking there is a lot like buying coffee from Dutch Brothers. In short, I look forward to my visits to that branch.

After recent visits to both Wells Fargo and Dutch Brothers, this thought struck me: The more you act like a rock band, the more you will sell.

Disclaimer: By "rock band", I mean a real rock band. This eliminates Nickleback, Creed, and most 80s hair bands.

The reasons are pretty simple …

Rock bands are cool. A key driver of self-interest of most people is to be cool - and be perceived as cool. But a rock band actually has to be cool - otherwise you end up on a reality show with eye-liner left over from the 80s (Yes, I'm talking about you, Bret Michaels)
Great rock bands are forever relevant. Who doesn't want to be relevant? A thousand years from now, Elvis, The Beatles, and Nirvana will still be relevant.
Rock bands are quirky. This means they stand out. As I have loudly proclaimed, conformity is not a brand strategy.
Rock bands are interesting. Why do you think they have groupies? And what brand doesn't want groupies?
Rock bands are good at what they do - and know it. Some purists bang on Green Day for being sell-outs but you don't last 20 years and sell millions of albums by sucking.
The best rock bands work really hard to earn respect rather than purchase it. They tour constantly, interact with fans, and consistently produce great music - see above.

There are many other reasons rock bands are cool, but the above examples can be applied to any organization. But most don't. Most brands are content with conformity; or they fear change. So they play marketing's version of karaoke or Guitar Hero - copying other brands, singing other people's songs - pretending to sing and play.

So for those brands like my friends at the Bannock Street Wells Fargo in Boise and Dutch Brother coffee kiosks, this is for you:

For those about to rock, we salute you!

We rock at dawn on the front line
Like a bolt right out of the blue
The sky's alight with the guitar bite
Heads will roll and rock tonight!

FIND ME:

Web: thetricycle.com
Blog: http://justinfoster.posterous.com/
Twitter:http://twitter.com/brandmilitia
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/JustinFoster
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/agencyunderground
SlideShare: http://www.slideshare.net/brandmilitia

Remember: conformity is not a branding strategy!

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