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Sunday Musings w/ Shore Branding 5-12-13

May 12, 2013 By Leave a Comment

Branding and Digital Marketing

Another Sunday in May and another holiday to go celebrate.  Happy Mother’s Day to all the moms that are readying this!  Here are this week’s ‘Sunday Musings w/ Shore Branding’ – the top five stories in branding and digital marketing.  For those interested, you can find the archives of this weekly write-up under the Blog-Sunday Musings tab at the top of the page.

#1 – “Maker’s Mark’s Plain Dumb Move Proved To Be Pure Marketing Genius” – Forbes.com

Premise: Back in February, Maker’s Mark announced that due to rising production costs they would be watering down their product.  This caused a social media circus, with droves of consumers taking to various platforms to complain about the decision.  However, this also drove consumers to the store apparently, as sales skyrocketed for the brand.  Ultimately, Maker’s Mark has reversed its decision to water down its product due to the backlash.

Thoughts: Here is another example of the power of social media.  Fans of Maker’s Mark came out and rebelled against a decision the company made and it helped change its position in only a short matter of time.  There is a bit of a conspiracy theory presented in the article that Maker’s Mark decided to create this news in an effort to boost sales, but I have a hard time believing that; in fact, the author doesn’t seem to either, but brought it up anyway.

#2 – “LinkedIn Tips: 10 Ways to Get the Most Out of Your Network” – Entrepreneur.com  

Premise: With LinkedIn turning ten years old this past week, the author provides ten tips to build your LinkedIn presence and drive engagement with readers/others.  Beyond the ten tips presented, each one has a follow-up write-up and link to a story of greater detail.

Thoughts: There may not be a better article available for LinkedIn tips than this one.  Not only does the author provide ten thought starters, the links that follow each provides you more robust information and detail for each.  

#3 – “Using Pinterest to Grow Brand Awareness” – ICUCModeration.com

Premise: The article provides several key statistics to warm you up to using Pinterest and then provides ten recommendations for how to optimize your Pinterest page.  No surprise, Starbucks is mentioned as a brand/company that is using Pinterest in an engaging way.

Thoughts: This caught my attention given the numbers presented in the article and the comparisons made to Facebook.  In fact, it drove a search on Pinterest to find an infographic that compared the two sites further than this and was a post earlier this week on our Facebook page.  Pinterest is driving engagement and helps spur purchase decisions at a much greater rate and is a site that must be considered as part of your brand/company’s social media platform.

#4 – “Coca-Cola Announces Global Commitment To Help Fight Obesity” – SustainableBrands.com  

Premise: Earlier this week, Coca-Cola announced that it would offer low/no-calorie beverages in each of the 200 countries it currently has business in.  The company also announced that it will help support programs and/or organizations that run physical activity programs and will no longer market towards children 12 and under.  The company has launched a website (Coming Together) to help promote these efforts.

Thoughts: A little bit of an interesting branding story from this past week from one of the largest companies in the world.  The separate online platform caught my eye as well, given that it isn’t branded in the web site / domain itself, but brings you to the company site right away with a single click off of the hyperlink above.

#5 – “Microsoft Mulling Nook Media LLC Purchase For $1 Billion” – TechCrunch.com

Premise: Microsoft is looking to buy into Nook’s business for a hefty price tag, while other tidbits in this article are equally intriguing.  By the end of its fiscal in 2014, Nook will stop making Android-based tablets and will shift its focus to third-party platforms; i.e. drive its business through Nook apps.  Nook e-readers will not follow suit, but they are planned to be phased out given the declining trends in the e-reader market.  Microsoft’s partnership with Nook continues to evolve and may lead to greater synthesis between the two companies with future Microsoft products coming in the near future.

Thoughts: While the tablet and e-reader market continues to quickly evolve, it is hard to see or understand what the short and long term goals are for both Barnes and Noble / Nook and Microsoft.  Every quarter, one or the other seems to announce a decision that is counter-intuitive to their prior plans for development and growth.  Microsoft continues to baffle me with what their plans are as they look to compete with Apple and Google in many of the same areas.

What caught your attention this week in branding and digital marketing news?

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Sunday Musings w/ Shore Branding – 3-31-13

March 31, 2013 By 6 Comments

Sunday Musings 3

Here are this week’s ‘Sunday Musings w/ Shore Branding’ – the top five stories in branding and digital marketing from the past seven days.  As always, you can find the archives of this weekly write-up under the Blog-Sunday Musings tab at the top of the page.

#1 – “Twitter Forecast Up After Strong Mobile Showing” – eMarketer.com 

Premise: eMarketer adjusts their estimates on the amount of ad revenue Twitter will generate in 2013 and 2014.  They now believe Twitter will raise almost $600 million in 2013 and just short of $1 billion in 2014.  They suggest that more than half of their ad revenue will come from mobile advertising, which is incredible given that amount was $0 in 2011.  The vast majority of Twitter’s ad revenue comes from the US.  However, this percentage is decreasing over time; 90% in 2012, ~83% in 2013 and projects lower in the future.

Thoughts: If you haven’t noticed by now, I believe Twitter is the most powerful mechanism on the web.  Micro-blogging is incredibly powerful.  While Facebook seems to be struggling to get their mobile strategy deployed, you consistently see stories like this from eMarketer on Twitter and its projected growth areas in the future.

#2 – “Brand Positioning: The Art & Science” – Brad VanAuken via BrandingStrategyInsider.com 

Premise: What is the importance of brand positioning and how do you do it?  This write-up is a great starting point for you if you are looking to (re-)position your brand or company.  The author takes you through a number of steps/recommendations on how to appropriately position your brand, starting with conducting research, delivering and defining several key components, and finally, explaining what a good brand position would be / stand for.

Thoughts: After reading this article, I started to click around on the site and found a lot of great, branding-related material.  In fact, I’ve already gone ahead and added the site to the Recommended Reading column on the home page.  This is a great summary on/for brand positioning.  If you can’t answer these questions or aren’t sure how you would respond to defining the key components they have laid out here, take a timeout and make sure you do that first before taking any more steps forward with your brand or company.  

#3 – “Klout Users Can Now Add Bing To Their Account And Include Instagram In Their Score” – TechCrunch.com

Premise: Earlier this week, Klout announced that it will further integrate users’ Instagram and Bing accounts in their influence scoring.  This is the first time that Klout is being integrated with a search engine.  While Instagram users were able to add their account to their Klout score already, their activities and usage will now be part of the equation.

Thoughts: If you aren’t aware of what Klout is or does, it is simply a web site that measures one’s overall influence via the reaction, feedback, and/or interaction one has across a number of social media platforms.  Users can sync their accounts through Klout and they will calculate their influence score on a scale of 0-100, with the higher the score being stronger/better.

It is a little surprising to see Instagram just now taking this step with Klout, as I would have assumed that process would have been transitioned quickly after Facebook purchased the photo sharing site.

#4 – “Twitter’s Vine Bears Fruitful Branding Opportunities” – BrandingMagazine.com 

Premise: As Vine continues its growth, it is providing marketers with new options in how to better brand themselves or their companies, build stronger engagement with consumers, and drive loyalty.  There is also a link here for the site “Brands on Vine” which is capturing some of the best work being done by companies right now through Vine.

Thoughts: I continue to be fascinated by the way companies and everyday people are leveraging Vine, while continuing to implore Twitter to release a version in Google Play!  The article takes a branding angle on how companies are beginning to leverage the site.  Definitely take a look at BrandsOnVine.com when you get a chance – a lot of good video on there from a wide array of companies.

#5 – “LinkedIn Is Getting Smarter With Enhanced Search Features & Improved Query Results” – SearchEngineLand.com

Premise: LinkedIn started off the week with an announcement that it was making a number of enhancements to its site, including their search features.  The “unified search” will list out people, companies, etc. all in one page after a user’s search.  The algorithm has been upgraded, but so has the look and feel of the page.

Thoughts: It is pretty safe to say that LinkedIn is the gold star in tech IPO’s since going public in May of 2011.  They continue to rollout improvements for users, but they are also improving their own positioning for building future revenue through the data and information they are collecting.

What caught your eye in branding and digital marketing news this week?

For those celebrating today, Happy Easter!

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Sunday Musings w/ Shore Branding – 3/3/13

March 3, 2013 By 1 Comment

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Here are this week’s links and stories that caught my attention in branding and digital marketing this week.

#1 – “Why Some Brand Extensions Are Brilliant and Others Are Just Awkward” – Time.com

Premise: Brand extensions are happening all of the time – some of them work tremendously, while others are tremendous flops.  This article provides a few, recent examples of both.  The good: Chipotle and NyQuil; the bad: Zippo and Virgin.

Thoughts: Failed brand extensions and product launches that go too far beyond a brand’s core principles drive me a little batty.  If a brand feels the need to reinvent their wheel and go in a completely different direction, just start a new brand and give it a unique name.  Know your strengths and your limitations of where you can go, and “Focus” on what you are doing right to ensure you have a sustainable business.

(The “ “ around focus is intentional, as we’ll be starting a book review this coming week on some of my favorites around the world of branding and digital marketing.  Cliffhanger alert.)

#2 – “Groupon’s Andrew Mason: ‘I was fired’” – AdAge.com

Premise: After Groupon’s latest quarterly report, the board finally pulled the plug on its founder and CEO, Andrew Mason.  The article pastes in Mason’s full email to his employees.

Thoughts: I have sparingly used Groupon over the past few years but never truly understood how this could be a sustainable business model, particularly with the likes of Google and Amazon continuously looking to get into this space.  Groupon has proven to be one big mess of a company since going public, burning through cash at an alarming rate.  (Mason once turned down a $6 billion offer from Google several years ago.  Ouch.)

With all of that said, I thought Mason’s email to employees, as well as his general humor on social media about being let go, were done in good fashion.

#3 – “Zynga Joins Gamble on Online Gambling” – MobileMarketingWatch.com

Premise: It isn’t a matter of “if” but “when” online gambling comes in full force to the United States.  Nevada and (my very own) New Jersey are pushing down on the accelerator here and others are sure to follow.  Zynga and its CEO Mark Pincus are looking to join the fray, taking online gambling and making it “social”.

Thoughts: Zynga’s move towards “real” online gambling is a no brainer for the company.  The potential revenue from this is tremendous.  The company already enjoys millions of players for its Zynga Poker game and has recently launched ‘Go Slots’ and ‘Lucky Play’ (a sportsbook) on its own web site.  Similar to Groupon, Zynga has had a tough time convincing investors the company has a sustainable business.  However, the quicker online gambling is adopted in the US, the quicker Zynga can turn around its business.

(Disclosure: I bought Zynga stock when it first went public and have since bought on the huge drop-off.  Still holding now and waiting for … well, the above to come to fruition.)

#4 – “Making LinkedIn Work For Your Business” – manireblog.net.  

Premise: LinkedIn continues to mold itself into a preeminent spot on the web for businesses.  The author takes us through a few of the more powerful steps in which LinkedIn can be leveraged, most specifically on lead generation.  With the redesign of the site’s ‘company pages’ feature, businesses have the opportunity to customize their design and message on their page.

Thoughts: As we have mentioned here a number of times over the first month of the Sunday Musings, LinkedIn has continued to shape the functionality of its site for both businesses and individuals.  While a few of the thoughts and recommendations may seem a little basic to some, this article does a nice job of explaining what you should be covering off on if you are creating or updating your businesses LinkedIn page.

#5 – “Google Glass Changes Everything Including Inbound Marketing” – Square2Marketing.com

Premise: Google Glass has been launched and rather than just “Ooh” and “Aah” over its design and capabilities, this article takes a unique perspective on how Google Glass can have a significant impact on inbound marketing.

Thoughts: This is an interesting spin on what Google Glass can do for businesses and marketers.  The continuous search for more content, knowledge and power takes another step towards being at our fingertips 24/7 with Google Glass.  Connecting and sharing content through voice command is going to be taking a significant step forward in 2013 and into 2014 with Glass.

Take a look at the official video and feel free to “Ooh” and “Aah”:

There was a lot of news in technology this week, particularly in three companies (Groupon, Zynga, and LinkedIn) that went public more recently.  While LinkedIn has seen tremendous growth over that time, the others have struggled.  What do you think the future is for any of these three?                   

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Sunday Musings w/ Shore Branding – 2/24/13

February 24, 2013 By Leave a Comment

Sunday Musings 1

Here are this week’s links and stories that caught my attention in digital marketing and branding across the Internet this week.

#1 – “Mobile World Congress – 2013 Preview” – MobileWorldCongress.com 

Premise: Starting today and continuing through 2/28, the Mobile World Congress conference is taking place in Barcelona, Spain.  As mobile continues to evolve and become more prevalent, the conference takes you through all of the new and forthcoming innovations in the mobile world/community.

Thoughts: While far too late to start looking into travel to Barcelona, there is content provided on the web from this conference that is worth looking at it if you are integrating mobile into your brand/business strategy.  Note that they do have live look-ins at conference materials within a few links on the site.  You can also read through the highlights of previous conferences.

#2 – “Google+ Communities and Why They’re Important To You” – SocialMediaRevolver.com

Premise: While detractors are quick to dismiss Google+, you/they may want to reconsider your/their plans to be on the platform to help build your social media presence.  The Communities pages on G+ are a valuable resource for businesses.  Andrew Scherer, the author of this articles, provides two major factors for consideration for why you should use G+ – Integration and Power.  A unique selling point (USP) for G+ remains the Hangout feature as well.

Thoughts: I have found G+ Communities to be a wealth of knowledge and opinions on a number of topics – social media strategy, branding, SEO, and Google Analytics.  I also find Communities to be much more engaging than LinkedIn’s pages.  (Note, I have never used Facebook Groups to discuss these topics.)  I completely agree with Andrew’s points that he makes in this article and would recommend to anyone to at least take a few days to search and read through Communities that have common interests to your specialty or field.

#3 – “Why Price Will Always Trump Brand and Why It Shouldn’t Matter To Marketers” – Forbes.com

Premise: The author of this article, Steve Olenski makes an interesting argument that says pricing has become more important than branding.  The article includes several data points that suggest fans of brands are typically looking for deals, rewards, promotions, etc.

Thoughts: I’ve cut this premise short because I don’t want to speak further for the article itself.  I found the article to be a walking contradiction and I’m interested to hear what others may think.  I do not believe that price always trumps branding, which is what the title of the article would lead one to think.  However, there are multiple contradictions throughout the article to say otherwise.  It shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone that people have ‘traded down’ in any number of products they use on a regular basis around the house, and elsewhere.  However, there are also items that I’m not willing to trade down on due to the strong connection I have made with them, their overall quality, etc.  What do you think of the premise on this one?  Am I reading into the title too deeply?

#4 – “Why LinkedIn is a Sleeping Giant in Publishing” – Digiday.com

Premise: The author of this article, Josh Sternberg takes us through how and why LinkedIn is an ideal place to put your content on LinkedIn and how the site is just beginning to scratch the surface of its potential in this arena.  With the launch of LinkedIn’s “Influencers” (examples: Richard Branson, Mark Cuban, Guy Kawasaki, etc.) the site has become much more “social”.

Thoughts: I have to admit that what LinkedIn has done since going public in May of 2011 has been very impressive.  What used to be a site that held my online resume and skillset, I now find myself checking into the site just about every day to read the news, several Influencers, and postings within the Groups that I’ve joined over time.  While the site has transformed itself into something much greater than what it was, there is still tremendous potential for LinkedIn to go much, much further.  There was one other interesting fact in the article that I never really thought of explicitly – but you see very little spam and ridiculous commentary on LinkedIn postings, given the straightforward nature of how those are published in the public and tie back to your name/account.

#5 – “How to Use Pinterest for Business” – desivelikova.com 

Premise: Pinterest is one of, if not the fastest growing sites the world has ever seen.  The author puts together a strong infographic for how to use Pinterest to build your business and then provides several detailed steps/recommendations on best practices.

Thoughts: Admittedly, I did not jump on the Pinterest bandwagon right away.  I found it to be full of content that wasn’t of interest to me originally.  However, over time and with the growth of infographics, I have found the site to be much more engaging and a place to peruse to find interesting content and recommendations for social media sites.  For more advanced users of the site, definitely look into recommendations #5 (measuring your page’s performance) and #7 (monitoring your pins).

What caught your eye this week?  Did any of the information above help you or your business?

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Poll Question: Which social media sites do you leverage the most?

February 23, 2013 By 1 Comment
Which social media sites do you prefer?

Which social media sites do you prefer?

You have probably noticed the poll on the right sidebar of each page – Which social media sites do you leverage the most?  This poll will be leveraged to kick-off a series of write-ups that Shore Branding will be blogging about over the next few months.  The social media site with the most votes at the end of March ’13 will be the focal point of the first blog entry in the series.  The write-up on said site will consist of recommendations and thoughts on how to best leverage the site for businesses, a “do and don’t” list for your consideration, as well as infographics for the site that have been put together for each.

Over the course of time, each of the social media sites in this poll will become separate blog entries that include similar thoughts and recommendations for users and businesses of each.  Let us know which site you use most frequently and in the comments below and/or let us know what you like most about your selection and what benefits you may have already gained from leveraging the site.  We are interested in hearing what may have worked for you.

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Sunday Musings w/ Shore Branding – 2/17/13

February 17, 2013 By 2 Comments

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Here are the links and stories that caught my attention in digital marketing and branding this week.  As mentioned in the first Sunday Musings entry last week, we’ll be updating this section each week with stories that caught my attention and found to be of particular interest.

#1 – “The Brilliant “Most Viewed” Award from LinkedIn…” – MarketingCommunicationsInk.com 

Premise: LinkedIn went over the 200 million user mark recently and they sent out notifications to the top 1%, 5%, and 10% most viewed profiles in 2012.  Their strategy of sharing this news across the web and with others seems to have been a success, as this was one of many articles written up about the initiative.

Thoughts: The writer of this particular link/article went through a similar set of emotions and thoughts that I had earlier this week when I received the email from LinkedIn saying that I was in the top 10% as well.  Was it spam, how many people does this actually consist of, and then admiration that LinkedIn was creating a good amount of buzz for their site.  I would assume this will now be an annual tradition for the site moving forward.  Here is the infographic that LinkedIn provided with the email that illustrates some of the more basic stats for their site.

#2 – “Here’s How People Look at Your Facebook Profile” – Mashable.com

Premise: Mashable provides some interesting perspective on how and where viewers tend to look on a number of social media / digital web sites through eye tracking.

Thoughts: I almost didn’t click on this due to the title and thinking it was only about Facebook.  However, I’m fascinated by eye tracking testing and where people are going/looking when they get to a web site.  Open up the gallery towards the bottom of the article to see the eye tracking results across a number of popular SM sites, including; Twitter, Google+, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Klout, etc.

#3 – “64 Google+ Content Strategies” – copyblogger.com

Premise: Copyblogger puts together a number of recommendations and thoughts on how to use Google+, along with the overall recommendation that you should use G+.  The article includes an in depth infographic at the end for your consideration.

Thoughts: Interesting thoughts and ideas here from the copyblogger.com team.  I tend to agree with a lot of their thoughts, including how to share, leverage G+’s Circles, linking your blog, etc.  While I have not used G+ too much as a personal web site in the mold of Facebook, I find the content in the Communities and the ability to speak to specific people through Circles to be tremendous assets for the site.  The Hangouts feature is still just at the cusp of what it can be and what it can become in the business world.

#4 – “Poland Spring blows Rubio #watergate moment, fails Twitter 101” – CNET.com

Premise: Earlier this week President Obama gave his State of the Union speech.  The Republican response to the speech was given by Florida Senator, Marco Rubio.  During the latter’s speech, there was a Twitter storm due to Rubio’s need to reach for a drink of (Poland Spring) water several times.  This could have been an excellent time for someone on the Poland Spring team to log into their Twitter account and jump in on the fun to promote their brand, but they failed miserably.

Thoughts: This is one of my biggest pleas with companies, if you aren’t going to use a site consistently to get your message out there, why bother signing up or post anything at all?  I could understand wanting to grab the page/name itself, but to post for some time and then just give up is another thing.  At the time of this writing, Poland Spring hasn’t tweeted since 7/26/10.  This was a tremendous opportunity for Poland Spring to get out in front of the action as it was happening and capitalize on it.

After Rubio’s speech, his team must have seen the news that this was creating and tweeted the following – a second, golden opportunity for Poland Spring to capitalize on!

#5 – “American Express Syncs with Twitter to Unlock the Purchasing Power of the #Hashtag” – AmericanExpress.com Press Release

Premise: Amex continues to strengthen its digital presence with the announcement that consumers can now tweet specific hashtags and buy products on Twitter.  The early partnerships with Amex include Amazon, Sony, Donna Karan’s Urban Zen Bracelet, and Xbox.  All you have to do is sync your Amex card to your Twitter account and you are all set to start purchasing through the site.

Thoughts: Continuing to invent new means through the purchase channel on digital channels has been a real strength for Amex relative to their direct competitors.  This is another great idea for trial.  My one concern is the ease of how people can likely tweet the key words and then claim they didn’t mean to or want to do so or that they were just ‘fooling around’.  This really just comes down to user self-discipline.  Overall, I think this is a great idea and has the potential to grow with more partners.

What do you think?  Did any of these particular stories grab your attention as well?  If so, why?  Let me know if the comment section below.

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