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Four Questions to Ask When Aligning Your Brand & Reputation

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When you decide to advise, partner, collaborate, or join forces with another organization, their brand automatically becomes an extension of your own. You make connections all of the time. When deciding to align, sometimes there are important questions that are often overlooked, especially when passion runs high, the potential of the outcome looks promising, and there’s a lot of excitement between parties.
 
However, it can takes years to build a strong brand in the market and a matter of minutes to damage a reputation. The steps you take before you align can prevent the latter. 
 
Recently, Star Mountain Capital, a specialized investment manager, announced that I’ve joined the company as a Senior Advisor. You can check out Star Mountain here to learn more about their focus on the lower middle market. 
 
With my background and expertise in communications, marketing and digital media, I’ll help to further Star Mountain’s development in these areas, as well as provide value to its small and medium-sized portfolio company investment partners. 
 
When you’re making a decision to align your brand (and reputation), here are four simple questions you can ask and answer:
 
  1. Does the brand align with my ethics and values?
  2. Does the culture of the organization match my company culture and what I look for in a group of professionals?
  3. Would I be proud to promote and share on behalf of this brand, because I believe in the vision and mission?
  4. Am I learning and growing as a result of the partnership, initiative, collaboration, joint venture, or the reason that brings our brands together?
These questions may take a little more time and effort to uncover. However, by answering them, you can make all of your brand alignment more meaningful, and the answers will make your selection process easier too.
 
Here’s my video with more details on the topic of brand alignment, and answering these four simple questions.
 
Are there any questions you ask when you’re evaluating your alignment to other brands? 
 
 
 
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Social Listening: When #AI Takes Over

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A Guest Post by Albane Flamant, Marketing Manager – US, Talkwalker

Once upon a time, brands and agencies relied on human analysts to identify brand mentions and extract insights on their campaigns. Today, because of the sheer online data volume, this approach is no longer sustainable: in the next ten minutes, there will have been over 3 million new tweets posted online, along with hundreds of thousands of Tumblr articles, Instagram posts, YouTube videos and much more. Let’s not even start talking about more traditional online sources like blogs, news sites, and forums.

In order to make sense of all that “noise”, social listening, monitoring and analytics tools have become essential parts of the marketing and PR toolbox. Here are three ways artificial intelligence is helping unlock new data insights within these platforms.

Image & Video Recognition – Analyzing visual content

Cisco predicts that by 2021, 80% of online content will be videos. We’re not yet at that stage, but the rise of visual content is undeniable, with Instagram reaching the milestone of one billion users (and counting) in June 2018.

Because of this new reality, brands can no longer afford to just monitor text mentions – they also want to know what happens in all of these images and videos. With the help of machine learning, social listening platforms are now able to analyze visual content to identify logos, scenes and objects.

The idea is not only to detect hidden brand mentions (visual posts where the brand is not mentioned explicitly in the companion text), but also to understand the context in which your brand, products and services are being discussed. Use cases go from brand monitoring to event sponsorship ROI, user-generated content identification and product research.

Example of video recognition technology
on the Talkwalker listening & analytics platform

How does it work: algorithms are trained to recognize patterns in images and videos by going through huge data sets (this process is called machine learning). 

Sentiment Analysis – Putting tweets in context

Sentiment analysis technology used to have a bad rep in the PR industry because guess what? Platforms had trouble understanding all the small nuances of language! This is mainly because the “old” approach was to look at keywords to determine sentiment (whether the post is negative, positive or neutral).

The first reflex of brands and agencies was to turn to human analysts to manually sort through the data and correct sentiment. Yet there were too many inconveniences: sentiment was still subjective based on the analyst, and at the end of the day, there was just too much data to sort through to be able to rely on their work.

Imagine: a brand like Starbucks averages over 63,000 daily mentions! How do you keep up with that? By the time you’d detected a surge in negative sentiment, the crisis would already be well underway. 

With the help of machine learning, platforms are now able to look at the full context of a sentence to determine sentiment and start to understand basic irony (again, the trick is to train them with a big enough data set).


Brands and agencies also have the option on specific social listening platforms to train their own custom models, so the platform can adjust to the sensitivities of each industry and even understand which brand is in front of the screen.

Case and point: how would you classify the following tweet if you didn’t know if you were doing it from the point of view of Pepsi or Coca-Cola?

Sure, I like Coke Zero. As in zero cokes. This is Pepsi country.

It’s been a pleasure doing business with you.

— Cauliflower Shane (@KingDomeGnome) April 9, 2019

Custom models – Filtering out the noise

As previously mentioned in this article, custom models help brands and agencies get the relevant results to surface. Let’s imagine you’re a brand marketer for Apple. How do you filter out all the fruits, Big Apple, apple martinis and other irrelevant junk from your queries.

The answer used to be through sophisticated boolean queries. The problem, however, was that these queries were complicated to write for the average marketing or PR professional, and often included or restricted too many results.

Enter custom models, which prompts you to tag results as relevant or irrelevant without any data training. Once you’ve provided the tool with a big enough training set, it applies your model to any future results. Too complicated? Here’s a quick video to sum it up.

AI: Friend or foe?

Artificial intelligence is still perceived by many in the PR & marketing industry as a danger to their job. I’d argue the reality is much different. AI helps us get rid of manual tasks, it allows us to automate processes so we can focus on the more creative aspects of our jobs.

Albane Flamant, Marketing Manager, US, Talkwalker

Albane is a marketing manager at Talkwalker, where she coordinates the brand presence’s in the United States, from influencer relationships to content marketing. She lives on Twitter and works with social media experts from all over the world on white papers and webinars about new technologies and digital trends. She always has at least one book in her purse and has lived in 6 different countries over the last 12 years. Feel free to reach out to her on Twitter (@AlbaneFlamant).

Featured Image Photo by Christopher Burns on Unsplash

Socializing your brand

#PRExpanded Guest Post: Socializing Your Brand … What’s That?

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A Guest Post by Corina Manea, Chief Community Officer of Spin Sucks & Founder of NutsPR

Just a few short years ago, brands were pondering whether to give this social media thing a try or not. There was this popular belief that social media wouldn’t last, so why put yourself or your company out there? It was for the kids. A fad.

Plus, people would use this opportunity to backslash brands, right?

Wrong!

First off, social media is here to stay. No one doubts that anymore.

Second, by putting your brand out there, whether as a business or a personal brand, it opens up tremendous opportunities.

So, how do you socialize your brand? Where do you start?

There are three steps to get started. Let’s take them one by one.

Socialize Your Brand in Three Steps

If you look around in the social world, some of the most successful brands are those that focus on people.

Socializing your brand means interacting with people—your customers, your prospects, your employees, your brand loyalists, and even your detractors—with the purpose of listening to them, and building relationships.

It’s not a one-way communication street, and it’s definitely not about throwing your brand’s message out into the wild. Those times are long gone, and you better wrap your head around it if you want to make your brand social.

  1. It’s about your team

The first thing to keep in mind before launching your brand in social media is it’s not about you. It’s about your audience, those people you want to reach and build relationships with.

And what a better way to do that than showing off your fantastic team? Remember people do business with people, not with logos.

By involving your employees, those who become your internal brand ambassadors, you show the human side of your brand. You show that you care.

Because a brand that takes care of its employees takes care of its customers.

Women of Microsoft does a great job highlighting its female employees. By sharing their stories, it encourages women to pursue a career in technology. What better way to inspire your audience than by showing your employees’ success stories?

 

Women of Microsoft

Hootsuite Instagram account is dedicated to showing the world how a day working for Hootsuite looks like. From team meetings to parties, it’s all about their team.

Hootsuite Insttagram

Make it about your team, and you’ll reach your community’s hearts. And that’s only the beginning.

  1. It’s about your community

Next on your list should be to build a community and involve them in your social media efforts.

Highlight your most loyal fans. They might be those who share your content consistently, comment on articles you produce, engage with you on the social networks, or write handwritten letters to your executive team.

Make them the stars on your social media channels. Start the conversation and let your community take the lead.

It’s not easy, and it’s scary to give up control. But think of it this way, instead of trying to control the conversation around your brand, why not let it flow? After all, you’ve only ever had the perception of control. Your customers have always controlled it and now they have a bigger megaphone to tell people what they love (and hate) about you.

Let your community talk about your brand. Let them show their loyalty and passion for your brand. Reward that loyalty by highlighting them through your content.

Interview them on your company’s blog and invite them to write for you.

Once you have that covered, take things forward and create contests on social media. The prizes can range from company swag to a 30-minute video call with you (the business owner) or a high profile executive in your company, to a guided tour of your company’s headquarters.

The sky is the limit here. Just be sure it makes sense for the community and your team.

  1. It’s about authenticity

You hear this a lot, “you need to be authentic.” And while for some it might have become a buzzword, it has value.

Unless you are a copycat of other brands, there is only one you.

To make your brand social, you need to express your brand’s personality and its uniqueness. You need to embrace its flaws and shortcomings. Because there is no such thing as perfect (which is boring; no one wants to hang out with perfect).

If you don’t know where to start, pay attention to what your competitors do.

Look at the content they share on their social channels. How do their audiences react and interact with the content they share? Are they engaged? Interested?

Deirdre Breakenridge suggests in her book, Answers for Modern Communicators, to take things a bit forward and ask yourself the following questions:

– Do your competitors have a clear branding and messaging strategy that is consistent and focused throughout their social channels?

– Are they using dedicated links to landing pages to track social media engagement and activity?

– Are they timing their social media posts or engaging frequently with people in real time?

– Does their social media efforts stop on weekends and holidays?

Socializing your brand doesn’t stop here.

Being active on social media also means you need to proactively listen to conversations happening around your brand.

Are they positive? Are they negative? What can you do to address them?

Social media is not set it and forget it. It’s being active; it’s investing your attention on what your community and the rest of the world thinks and says about your brand. Yes, it is a lot of work, but it’s worth it.

Corina Manea is the Chief Community Officer for Spin Sucks and founder of NutsPR. Connect with her on Twitter.

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7 Ways Students Can Use the Digital Space to Enhance Their Brand Today

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PR Expanded Student Series: A guest post by Shawn Bond, a Student at American University.

Jeff Bezos said that your brand is what people say about you when you’re not in the room. Because the digital space gives people a new way to take a look into who you are, here are 7 steps to use so digital to work for you.

  1. Perform a digital audit

The first step in boosting your brand is understanding what’s currently out there. This past June, I did a quick Google search for my name and the results were shocking. I found old photos, YouTube channels, and even Twitter accounts from when I was 13.

If I could find this quickly, so could any employer. Take an hour or two and dig through several pages of Google and close accounts that no longer align with your goals. Dig through old email addresses and passwords to make sure these accounts are closed. You’ll thank yourself later.

I wrote a blog post about how to perform a quick digital audit on yourself, you can find it here.

  1. Own what’s left

Once you have the accounts you want to keep, focus on what’s left. For me, there was little to no reason for me to have a public-facing Pinterest account. Most of my professional interests lie in politics and politics simply doesn’t happen on Pinterest. Map out what social media accounts you still have, how you want them to work for you, and how they can be used to reach your target audience.

Politics happens on Twitter for better or worse, so Twitter is my primary public-facing social media account. It’s changed the way people communicate and it’s where I spend most of my time.

  1. Create a website and host an online portfolio

There’s a remarkable difference in the effectiveness of telling someone your skills and being able to show someone your skills. Domain names can be extremely affordable and websites are easier to build now than ever. Your website can serve as a central hub for your online presence and serve as a breathing portfolio and resume as you jumpstart your career.

Your website should be clean, informative, and reflect your goals. Because this is your living portfolio, practically everything you do online should link back here. The URL in your bio on your social media accounts should be linked to your website. Unlike the old accounts you closed, you WANT people to find your website.

It’s worth noting that your online portfolio doesn’t need everything you’ve ever written. Use it to highlight your best work.

  1. Maintain consistency & adapt

Now that you have your own corner of the Internet carved out, it’s important to develop consistency. If someone was to open your LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram accounts, it should be clear that they all belong to the same person.

Take a moment to use a clear photo of yourself that captures your personality and goals and upload it to each of these sites. Create your bio and do your best to make them uniform, tweaking them to adapt to the platforms.

Default profile photos should already be a thing of the past — no one wants to follow a Twitter egg and no one trusts a Facebook account without a profile picture. Maintain consistency with similar photos across the platforms.

  1. Location matters

Now that the basics of your new personal brand are in place you can work to get your content in front of more people. Many social media sites, including Twitter and Instagram, offer a way to do this with relative ease — locations.

To provide a quick case study, I updated my Twitter location from being a set of area codes for cities I’ve lived in to simply being “Washington, D.C.” and saw results instantly. Twitter makes it easy to search by location and tweets may show up differently depending on where they come from.

Instagram is a similar, but a different beast to tackle. The location bar allows you to get creative and funny, but consider actually using the location you took the photo. This will help put you in front of more people with similar interests to whatever you were just doing.

  1. Post more & engage

You can’t expect your content to be in front of more people if you aren’t producing more content. Tweet consistently but thoughtfully, post on Instagram regularly, and tailor content to each platform. Use images and implement best practices across the services to create the more shareable content you can.

The simple truth to social media is that it’s just as much about shareability as it is anything else. Research shows that images, photos, and links are interacted with more.

The next step is to follow more influencers and interact with both people you follow and people you don’t. Jump on hashtags, reply to comments, and give your readers something to buy into.

Share your own work, but more importantly share others. If you see a blog post by someone that fits with your message, tweet it out! You’ll be amazed at how quickly people return the favor.

  1. Analyze

Your work shouldn’t stop there. Continue to check in on how your individual posts are performing and then check topline statistics. Twitter offers a useful tool at http://twitter.analytics.com to see some of the most important stats. Let go of what isn’t working and continue doing what is.

Data should help you make informed decisions about what you’re posting and over time it’ll begin to tell a story.

In conclusion…

This is only the beginning. Entire books can be written about this topic and they would be outdated by the time you finished them. Your brand should be ever evolving. Get started in college and get your professional life jumpstarted.

Shawn Bond, Student at AUShawn Bond is a fierce advocate of an expanding digital world & student at American University. He packed up his life in Kentucky and moved to Iowa to work for Hillary Clinton less than a week after graduating High School and hasn’t looked back since. He currently works in digital strategy for political candidates across the country and is passionate about using digital to build brands, tell stories, win elections, and craft meaningful relationships. Learn more at shawnbond.net or @TheShawnBond on Twitter.

 

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#PR Takes Your Business Beyond #Brand Awareness

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Presentation to MillennialsBrand awareness is just the beginning of what good PR can do for your company. By incorporating PR into your communication program, a business can quickly move beyond awareness straight toward customer loyalty and advocacy. When you take the time to build relationships, you can create the trust and transparency with your customers that will lead to long-lasting bonds. But, where do you begin in a constantly changing media landscape with the highly digitized consumer?

Consumers Drive Their News and Information

With the rise of social media came democratized content and the opportunity for consumers to drive their own news, information, and entertainment. Your buyers decide what information they like, where they want to receive it and with whom they’re going to share their favorite stories and experiences. For example, Millennials are especially difficult for businesses to engage. According to a Refuel study in 2015, they’re increasingly connected and glued to their smartphones for more than six hours a day. If you add in other devices, such as computers and tablets, then you’re up more than 12 hours of online connectedness in a 24-hour period.

Let PR Deliver Trust & Credibility

With more access to social and mobile technologies, the highly digitized consumer, at some point, will only recognize the highly digitized company. Modern communicators realize that delivering a mix of media from paid and earned to shared and owned media is the best way to be seen and recognized, always taking into consideration where your consumers congregate. However, without the trust and credibility factor that good PR delivers, the brand will not obtain the advocacy it seeks. PR is what makes the difference by moving the needle from brand awareness to meaningful engagement because there’s a relationship in place. Simply connecting and sharing information or receiving coverage through various channels is not enough. PR develops the relationships, which lead to great experiences that should always live up to your customer’s expectations.

Build Your Base of Loyal Advocates

What makes a consumer want to engage, form a relationship and become a loyal advocate? Just look at the younger generations for your answer. Millennials have incredible passion and a strong desire to make the world a better place. Connecting with Millennials requires a much greater value, depth, and understanding. They want to engage with brands that care about the planet and create meaningful experiences with them. Younger generations will acknowledge and invest in brands they trust and have “credibility status” based on their own interactions or the recommendations of their peers. Brands such as Toms, Starbucks, and Chipotle to name a few, attract and retain the loyal attention of younger audiences. No longer is the brand just sharing what it thinks is unique, exciting and / or interesting. They’re not speaking to people. Instead, they’re speaking with and involving their own audience’s drive and passion.

So, yes, businesses will continue to rely on PR for brand awareness. But, the companies that realize the full potential of PR know it’s only the beginning. They will use PR strategically as they travel down the path to trusted relationships with their loyal advocates.

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Book Review: Stand Out by Dorie Clark

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In the spirit of learning, and reinventing yourself to find what’s next in your career and in your life, here’s a book that takes reinvention and the big idea to a whole new level. If you don’t want to stand idle and feel the need to propel forward, but just don’t know how to get there, then the book, Stand Out: How to Find Your Breakthrough Idea and Build a Following Around It, by Dorie Clark, is a great place to start.  You can listen to my video review and then pick up / download a copy for yourself.

 

Sticky Branding

#PR Expanded Guest Post: Drawn to the Spotlight, Part 2

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A Guest Post by Jeremy Miller, President, Sticky Branding 

Sticky Branding by Jeremy Miller
Sticky Branding by Jeremy Miller

In this two-part series, we are examining how some people naturally gravitate towards platform building, and what companies can do to harness that talent.

Humanizing your company can be an immense competitive advantage. It immediately differentiates your firm from everyone else, because it provides a person who embodies your brand.

For example, Apple had Steve Jobs, Virgin has Richard Branson, Facebook has Mark Zuckerberg. Each person is not only a symbol, but a human being that, at their core, represents the brand and its values. And it’s people that customers identify with, get to know, like, and trust.

The human factor creates a richness to the brand that is incredibly engaging and powerful. And it’s not just the big companies that can harness these personal brands — any company can harness a Platform Builder to humanize its brand.

A Person to Connect With

An excellent example of a firm that has integrated a Platform Builder into its corporate brand is Twist Image.

Mitch Joel, president of Twist Image, explains, “We made a decision in the very early days that a human face would best suit the company’s brand. And that happened to be my bald face. Out of all of us it was me because I was a content creator and I enjoyed it. It’s something I really like doing.”

Mitch has the DNA to be heard. Prior to joining Twist, he was a journalist and an entrepreneur. He is a fantastic writer, speaker, and connector. And he has done a remarkable job applying those talents at Twist Image.

He’s written two bestselling books, Six Pixels of Separation and Ctrl Alt Delete. He’s a sought after professional speaker with big name clients like Google and Walmart. And Mitch blogs seven days a week, podcasts weekly, and writes for a number of newspapers and magazines.

But Mitch is more than a Platform Builder who is an executive in a company. His work is strategically integrated into the company’s brand and business strategy.

Mitch says Twist Image manages three brands:

  1. Twist Image: The digital marketing agency
  2. Mitch Joel: The persona or the human manifestation for the brand
  3. Six Pixels of Separation Content Platform: The blog, podcast, speaking, books, Facebook page, and all the other content touchpoints

The three brands work in harmony. Mitch is the face of the company, the content is the platform and vehicle for connecting with a large audience of influencers, and the business delivers client services.

Integrate the Platform Builder Into the Corporate Brand

Mitch Joel’s name is intrinsically linked with the Twist Image brand, and vice versa. Customers identify the company’s perspective and quality of their work with Mitch’s platform.

But it is also not “the Mitch Joel show.” He explains, “People know that I’m part of Twist, because every time I ever have my name somewhere it’s ‘Mitch Joel, President of Twist Image’ or ‘Mitch Joel, Twist Image.’ It was a very deliberate, concentrated effort to ensure the clarity of the words ‘Mitch Joel’ were always followed by ‘Twist Image.’”

When he describes the brand he’ll say, “Twist Image is a digital marketing agency with one hundred plus people in two offices.” This is also a deliberate branding line he uses to keep the Twist Image brand front and center.

He continues, “Part of my thinking through the years is social proof is a big part of how people make decisions. When the blog and the platform became so popular I was concerned I would get lumped in with the independent social media gurus who speak and write for a living. I was speaking and writing as an engine of business development, and it just so happened that the platform became popular.”

The platform is also fully integrated with Twist Image’s business model. Mitch could make an outstanding living as an author and professional speaker, but he does not take a dollar from the revenue he generates. All of his speaking, book sales, and writing fees go back into the firm as a revenue stream.

“If we’re not driving economic value to the brand, the company, then there’s no point doing any of this. So when I speak, it’s an engine of revenue. And when I write, hopefully it’s an engine of revenue,” says Mitch.

Create Space for the Platform Builder

A Platform Builder will grow their personal brand and their platform no matter what. It’s in their DNA. They are naturally drawn to the spotlight, and will seek it out.

And this creates an opportunity for you and your company. If you find a Platform Builder in your midst, the question should not be how to manage them. The challenge is how to empower them, support them, and integrate them into your business.

The Platform Builder’s natural desire to connect with people and be heard creates an immense opportunity for your business. They can generate a significant amount of customer interaction and brand awareness over time. And they have the ability to humanize your brand, and reach out and connect with people at a deep, personal level.

The challenge is how to harness their talents and integrate them into your corporate brand. This will include a combination of strategy and evolution. But if you spot the talents of a Platform Builder in your midst, you’d be a fool to ignore them. That Platform Builder just might be the golden goose who puts your company on the map.

Jeremy Miller is a Brand Builder, Keynote Speaker, and president of Sticky Branding — a brand building agency. Jeremy helps companies stand out, challenge the giants of their industry, and grow Sticky Brands. He is the author of Sticky Branding: 12.5 Principles to Stand Out, Attract Customers and Grow an Incredible Brand — it’s your branding playbook. For more information or to connect with Jeremy visit www.StickyBranding.com. Or connect with him @StickyBranding on Twitter.

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#PR Expanded [Guest Post]: Drawn To The Spotlight, Part 1

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A Guest Post by Jeremy Miller, President, Sticky Branding

unnamedThere’s something in the DNA of people like Deirdre Breakenridge, Chris Brogan, Mitch Joel, Michael Hyatt, and Darren Rowse that propel them to grow remarkable platforms.

Some might chalk up their success to their early adoption of blogging and social media. But that’s not fair or accurate. You could take away each of their respective platforms (blog, Facebook Page, Twitter followers, etc.), and I am willing to bet they’d be back in no time with a new one.

The tools don’t make these individuals into celebrity CEOs and respected thought leaders. These people are destined to this life. They are drawn to the spotlight, and they are programmed to connect with people. It’s in their DNA.

In this two-part series, I will share with you how some people are naturally drawn to the spotlight, and what companies can do to harness that talent to engage their customers to drive sales.

Pulled to the Spotlight

I’ve been chewing on this idea for a few months — some people are naturally born to grow platforms. And a platform is just as it sounds, it’s a stage. It’s that thing you stand on to be heard, which in the digital realm could be a blog, Facebook Page, YouTube channel, or some other group.

The idea was sparked from a conversation I had with Gini Dietrich as we were developing the launch strategy for my new book, Sticky Branding. During the call Gini asked me, “If you were to do it again, would you grow your social media community on LinkedIn?”

It was an interesting question, because I run one of the largest branding groups on LinkedIn with almost 40,000 members. My answer was, “No. The conditions for success have changed.”

I launched my group in May 2010, and with the help of my members we have grown the group into a vibrant and engaged community. But Linkedin has also evolved and changed a lot over the same period of time, and the obstacles to scale a group are dramatically higher than they once were.

Gini then asked, “Would you build another group?” I said “yes” without hesitation.

This is the response of someone drawn to the spotlight — or as I like to call us, Platform Builders. Ask anyone with a platform if they’d do it again, and chances are they’ll say yes.

The Conditions to Share

The advent of the Internet and social media created the conditions for countless people to be heard.

In the pre-Internet era, audiences were restricted to a few sources of content — TV, radio, and print — and only a select group of people who were chosen to be heard. Audiences didn’t have the opportunity to discover new personalities, and individuals didn’t have the opportunity to connect with audiences.

Now, everyone with the desire, talent, and stamina can be heard.

Look at the growth of YouTube celebrities Bethany Mota, Felix Kjellberg, and Michelle Phan. These are young people (19, 25, and 27 years of age respectively) with millions of followers. Felix, for example, has over 33 million YouTube subscribers. He’s bigger than most TV celebrities!

The power to self-publish creates an opportunity to be heard. And if you have the DNA to be drawn to this new digital spotlight, you will show up.

Harness a Platform Builder

From a business context, Platform Builders are exceptionally valuable.

Gini Dietrich is a great example of this. She says, “Spin Sucks is one of the top three PR blogs in the world, and it has afforded us the ability to compete with the largest agencies in the world.”

And there’s a clear ROI to Gini’s platform building efforts, “The blog drives eighty percent of our growth.”

That’s the power of a Platform Builder. When you can link the individual’s need to connect with a set of products and services, you can achieve remarkable ROI on your marketing.

The Platform Builder not only grows his or her personal brand, they pull the corporate brand along with them. The platform creates the conditions for a business brand to punch well outside its weight class.

Tie the Brands Together

A Platform Builder can function very well on its own, but when integrated with a business brand they can go even further.

In part two of “Drawn to the Spotlight”, I will tackle how businesses tie together the corporate brand, the Platform Builder, and their content, enabling them to stand head and shoulders above their competition.

Jeremy Miller is a Brand Builder, Keynote Speaker, and president of Sticky Branding — a brand building agency. Jeremy helps companies stand out, challenge the giants of their industry, and grow Sticky Brands. He is the author of Sticky Branding: 12.5 Principles to Stand Out, Attract Customers and Grow an Incredible Brand — it’s your branding playbook. For more information or to connect with Jeremy visit www.StickyBranding.com. Or connect with him @StickyBranding on Twitter.

 

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