Liz Craig, Writer

Here’s another one of Guy Kawasaki’s five tips for personal branding success (again quoting from that BNET blog post I linked to in my last post):

Make Meaning, Not Money. If you’re into personal branding with the goal of making money, stop now. You will attract the wrong kind of people into your life. Instead, start with the goal of making meaning. What better way to align all your actions with your long-term goals. What kind of meaning will you make? Kawasaki suggests two ideas for inspiration: 1) right a wrong, or 2) prevent the end of something good. What will you do to make the world a better place?

“Life is empty and meaningless, and it doesn’t mean anything that life is empty and meaningless.”

Guy Kawasaki didn’t say that. The leader of my Forum weekend did. That’s the first cosmic two-by-four that hit me in the head at The Forum, an introduction to the Landmark Education curriculum. It sounds pretty bleak, doesn’t it? But all it’s really saying is that life has no inherent meaning — it’s a fresh, new canvas you can paint any way you want. Whatever the meaning in your life is, you choose it. You create it. You live it.

Early in my career, my life was all about getting together a great portfolio and winning creative awards so I could get more money at the next agency where I worked. These days, of course, I still need money, but winning awards is no longer what gives my life meaning. What does, though, is being in integrity with my own values and helping people create their own successes.

There’s more to meaning than what you do for a living. There’s the spiritual thrill that comes from seeing a great work of art or hearing a Mozart concerto played by splendid musicians. The warm feeling that bubbles up when you’re giggling with a toddler. The expansive feeling when you’re admiring the beauty of mountains or the ocean. The satisfaction you feel savoring a superbly prepared meal. Or the tender love you feel for your parent, your child, your mate, or your best friend. All of this has meaning on a personal scale.

On a broader scale, working for a cause in which you believe can imbue your life with tremendous meaning and the feeling that you’re making the world a better place. You might teach someone to read, coach a kids’ softball team, join an organization that champions the rights of the disabled, work for candidates whose views you share, join the choir at church, or serve on the City Council.

To me, the greatest exemplar of meaning-making is Mohandas Gandhi. His long-term goal was “to become a complete zero.” That meant reducing his ego desires to zero and acting as a purely selfless human being. He held no elected office and sought no fame, yet world leaders sought his counsel, and he commanded tremendous power — through nonviolent civil disobedience — to lead the Indian people in a symbolically important strike against the salt tax imposed by Great Britain. See the 1982 movie, if you haven’t before. Wow. Did he ever give his life — and the lives of his countrymen — meaning! Gandhi died in 1948, having lived to see India achieve independence the previous year.

Gandhi righted a wrong — the exploitation of the Indian people by Great Britain — and made the world a better place by peaceful means. Probably none of us will become the meaning-maker Gandhi was, but all of us, in our own ways, create meaning in our lives.

What gives your life meaning? I’d love to hear from you.

If there’s anyone in the world who knows a thing or two about personal branding, it’s Guy Kawasaki. He’s written a book called “The Art of the Start,” in which he suggests five principles of successful personal branding.

One of them, quoted in a BNET blog post, particularly intrigued me:

Make a Mantra. In three words or less, what are you all about? Kawasaki believes that mission statements are useless. He says, make a mantra instead. FedEx stands for “peace of mind.” What do you stand for, in the simplest terms?

At networking events, people are asked to give their “elevator speeches” or 30-second commercials. Most people describe what they do for a living. But a mantra is not about what you DO; it’s about what you’re ABOUT.

Okay, what you do is sell life insurance. But maybe what you’re about is “helping families be financially secure.” Or maybe your mantra is about an even higher level of consciousness, like, “to embody the peace I wish to see in the world.” That mantra, if it’s truly what you’re about, will infuse your every action and thought with an intention to create peace. The more meaningful your mantra is to you, the more you will internalize and reflect it.

When I was working in community theater, which I loved, my mantra was “creating community.” The community theater experience brought together everyday people, some with acting training, some without, some with family and social connections, some without, to put on a show. And as they worked together, they made fast friends. And they found that their contribution, as small or large as it might be, was valued. By working together, they could complete a puzzle with real meaning. That truly inspired me.

Now, what is my mantra? Well, right now, it’s “creating a lovely home” — for someone else, a potential buyer. I’ll keep mulling over my essential mantra during the process.

Can you get your life’s mission down to a mantra of three or fewer words? Try it. You’ll deepen your understanding of yourself and strengthen your presence in the world.

After writing on consumer packaged goods accounts at ad agencies for years, I think I understand the concept of “brand” pretty well. It’s more than a logo, it’s the promise a product stands for. What I have a harder time getting is how branding extends to your own person.

Marketers used to adopt spokespeople, animals or things to represent the fine qualities of their canned goods, frozen food, air conditioning units or what-have-you. Their product brand’s virtues. The Unique Selling Propositions.

• In consumer packaged goods, you had Mr. Clean, that handsome brute in white, representing the ultimate cleanliness you could achieve by using the product.

• Ajax laundry detergent was “stronger than dirt,” championed by a knight on a white horse as a jingle drilled the key phrase into our heads.

• The Jolly Green Giant was friendly, green and out standing in his field (sorry for the pun). He represented garden-fresh vegetables in cans or frozen. Ho ho ho!

• Poppin’ Fresh was a literal dough boy representing dough that popped out of a can when you rapped it on the edge of the counter. The name is ingenious — the unique selling proposition in two words — and the spokesdough unforgettable. But for me, the little guy was too cutesy, especially when he giggled. I wanted that finger that poked him in the tum-tum to poke all the way through. Am I the only one? I am? Okay.

• The Keebler elves are gently mischievous and fun. The adorable little cartoon people appeal to kids, who beg their parents to buy the cookies. But since the parents grew up with the elves, it’s not too hard a sale. That’s the power of a strong brand with an appealing image that remains consistent over time. A quality product doesn’t hurt, either.

The point of all this is, I understand conveying a product’s qualities via a brand symbol of some kind. What I don’t get very well is how to do this “personal branding” thing for myself.

What if I adopted a spokesthing to represent me? No, that’s so yesterday. R.I.P. Charlie the Tuna, Reddy Electric and Speedy Alka-Seltzer. Besides, what kind of animal or other creature would represent a writer? A mole who digs for just the right phrase? A brain whose frontal lobe lights up like a Christmas tree, to represent creative ideas sparking? A pen that flies? A computer with a thought bubble? Naah. To build a personal brand today, you use different tactics.

Oddly enough, a personal brand today is something you construct, not in person, but through social media. I just read an article about “7 Ways to Start Building Your Personal Brand for Free.” These suggestions sound helpful. But in the advertising or marketing business, at least, there’s no substitute for getting to know people. In person, not online.

Social media “personal branding” tactics can be a helpful part of your overall strategy. But it’s important also to get out and get to know people, either in networking groups, industry meetings or social settings. If the only close relationship you have is with your computer, that’s not good.

There’s an old sales formula that still is valid: people have to Know, Like and Trust you before they give you business. Just makes sense, doesn’t it?

Social media marketing is big. It’s the new best thing for marketers. Isn’t it?

According to the April 2010 Social Media Marketing Industry Report, by Michael A. Stelzner, the answer seems to be a qualified “yes.” You see, marketers are just getting into SM marketing, and they feel as if they’re walking a new puppy on a leash for the first time without having read a Puppy 101 book.

In the report, 65% of marketers surveyed are just now dipping a toe into the SM marketing waters. So naturally, they have questions. The top three questions marketers want answered related to –

• how to measure SM marketing ROI
• what SM marketing best practices are
• how they should manage time spent on SM marketing

But querulous or not, the majority — 56% — are using SM for six or more hours a week, and close to one in three invest 11 or more hours weekly. What are they doing with SM marketing? And who is spending those hours doing it? Last year’s report indicated few companies had a designated person for SM marketing activities, or any SM marketing plan in place. But those that did thought SM marketing was helping their biz.

You can download and read this fascinating report yourself here But to me, the most interesting factoids were these:

1. The majority of marketers — 91% — indicated they were using SM for marketing purposes, with small businesses slightly more likely to be using it.

2. Most marketers — 76% — are spending at least four hours per week on SM marketing efforts. The median for those who have been into it for a few months or longer is 10 hours per week.

3. Only 14% of businesses are outsourcing any aspect of their social media marketing.

The benefits of doing SM marketing seem richer for B2B companies than B2C companies, but all companies fee that it —

• reduces their overall marketing expenses
• helps them climb in search engine rankings
• increases their traffic or subscribers/opt-in list members

And get this –

“At least 67% of marketers plan on increasing their use of blogs, Facebook, video/YouTube, Twitter and LinkedIn….”

… “[M]arketers indicated that blogs were the top area in which they planned on increasing their social media efforts.”

Yet 86% of marketers said they weren’t outsourcing any of their SM marketing efforts. That’s pretty startling, but the report’s author predicts that in a year or so, as SM marketing becomes more clearly recognized as a source of business leads and sales, outsourcing will increase. It is less expensive than hiring a staff person, getting them SM marketing training, and paying them a salary and benefits.

On my small scale, at least, based on several new inquiries in the past two weeks, it seems the trend is toward outsourcing blogging. It just makes sense.

One caveat: If you’re thinking of outsourcing your company’s blogging, don’t make the mistake of throwing the work to a company employing Indian writers. I visited the website of one such company the other day and read one of their blog posts. They said their writers all speak English, but they didn’t say English was their first language. It was quite obvious that either a foreigner or a robot had written the post. You don’t want to let stilted, awkward writing represent your company. So if you’re planning to outsource your blogging or other SM marketing functions, hire American!

This article explains how often you need to update your posts on various Web outlets, including LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter.

But the thing you ought to update as often as possible is your company blog. Read the article, and see why your blog is the most powerful tool in your social media marketing toolkit.

In a networking group to which I belong, I have used the services of at least five fellow networkers. But no one has used mine. Why?

Because a lot of small businesses can’t understand for the life of them why they would need to pay someone to write blog posts — or anything — for them.

I pointed out a crucial misspelling on the business card of one member. And most small business people are too close to their own businesses to know what to say on their websites. Or don’t know how to say it clearly. And the website designs? Some make my skin crawl. Don’t get me started about pink fonts on black backgrounds.

Urk.

I don’t think any of my fellow networkers think of themselves as professional writers. But they also don’t have the money to spend on “frills” like having well-written websites, blogs or e-mail newsletters. Or so they think.

Here’s a secret: If you want your small business to become a bigger business, you need to post regular blog entries to get high Google rankings and send out e-mail newsletters to your customer and prospect lists to keep them thinking about you.

It’s essential that your company remains top-of-mind with your target audience, so when the time comes that they need your service or product, they’ll call on you. Common sense, right? Once you cede that top-of-mind position, a competitor can grab the business right out from under your nose. So hang onto it for dear life. By traditional advertising? Not so much these days. Now, it’s by social media marketing.

Here’s why social media marketing works best for small businesses, versus other forms of advertising:

• Creating and placing advertising in newspapers and magazines costs a boatload of money.
Far more than most small businesses will net from the ads. Social media placement costs nothing.

• Sending out direct mail is prohibitively expensive.
Add Design + Copy (Hire it done; don’t ever try to write it yourself for *free*) + Printing + Postage. See if it adds up to profit. Response to a really good DM appeal is around 2%.

• Unfortunately, few people bother to read newspapers anymore.
So if you advertise there, who will see it?

• People are flooded with direct mail from a jillion sources.
If they’re like me, they sort mail right over the trash can and jettison anything that looks like DM. No score there.

So if people aren’t reading newspapers or DM, where the heck can you connect with them?

On the Web, silly.

Social media marketing is where it’s at these days.
Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and other SM platforms encourage interaction, conversation and engagement, which, over time, leads to loyalty. No more is it a matter of “tell and sell,” which makes traditional blah-blah-blah advertising obsolete.

If you are going to reach out to potential customers and retain current ones effectively, you’re going to have to be present and noticed in social media. I’m sorry, but that’s the truth. Everybody — even your Great-Aunt Edna — shops and looks for information online these days.

So how do I attract and retain customers via social media, you may ask.

By blogging frequently (Google loves new, relevant content, changed regularly). Sending out e-mail newsletters. Maintaining a vibrant presence on Twitter and Facebook.

Anyone can establish a Twitter or Facebook account in minutes. But knowing how to communicate effectively on them is not so simple. Hire a professional communicator to do it for you. You know you don’t have the time to do it yourself; you’re busy running your business. And frankly, you know your business, but you probably don’t know writing as well.

So, in summary, here’s how a small business can make a big splash on the Internet and reach and win customers:

• Have a good website.
(easy to find, easy to use, providing useful info for your target audience).

• Blog like mad.
Be real. Be human. Establish a human connection with your prospects and customers. Offer valuable insights, knowledge and a piece of your own humanity. Regularly, consistently.

• Send out e-mail newsletters.
Not all about YOU, but about things your target audience would like to know. If you’re a tire store, how about tips on how to brake safely on ice? And by the way, we’re having a 25% off special on the best winter tires to buy.

• Finally, do not try to do these things yourself.
Hire professionals. Whether it’s design, writing, website development or anything else regarding your Web presence, you’re better off to find reasonably priced freelancers out there who are experts. You’re an expert at your business. Probably not at social media marketing.

If you are an expert in social media marketing, kudos. But you’ll have to make a choice: are you going to run your business, or are you going to take all the time to get online and do your tweets, blogs and e-mail newsletters regularly, consistently?

How much is your time worth? I’m just sayin’.

Here’s a brief, but excellent article from the Marketing Profs.

The article points out that although most marketers know that customers/clients make decisions based on emotions (where some products/services are concerned), most don’t try to forge a relationship with their target audiences.

They’re leaving out a vital component in the selling process these days.

Here’s a bit from the article:

Asked about what constitutes an emotional connection, marketers cite the following:

* Customers telling others about the brand via word-of-mouth: 78%
* The values of the brand are similar to my own: 78%
* Using the brand makes me feel good: 75%
* Customers telling others about the brand via blogging and other online activities: 61%

Blogging is a great way to boost your company’s Google rankings. It’s also a good way to hurt your company’s image. Like a bad paint job on your house, bad blogging can hurt, not enhance, your image.

It looked a lot better after a few cocktails...

Companies online are now offering customized blog content to clients. One site I visited promises better Google rankings and quality blog posts from all English-speaking bloggers, and the package prices aren’t bad. Hm. Sounds okay so far.

So I went to their own blog to see examples of their bloggers’ writing. Well. I use the term “writing” loosely. As Truman Capote once said, “That’s not writing, that’s typing.”

Here’s a snippet:

Therefore, we see that blogs are a very important tool in the hands of a businessperson. It is the latest and very significant weapon in the web2.0 armory. It is the best marketing method available. They help in spreading your business and draws in people who are excited about your business venture. If you are interested in making your business succeed, then you have to be serious about blogging. Blogging is the medium on which you have to bank upon to be a successful businessperson. Do not overlook it; you will regret for doing so. Realize the value of blogging and there will be no looking back.

How do I hate this? Let me count the ways.

• Subjects and verbs disagree violently
• Whoops. Missed a space.
• “the medium on which you have to bank upon???” Really?
• “you will regret for doing so.” I regret having to read that.
• “Realize the value of blogging and there will be no looking back.” To what? How about a more harmonious wedding of the first independent clause and the second? (And how about the required comma in between?)

Or how about using conversational English. Like, “Blogging may sound like a lot of extra work, but as your Google ranking rises higher and higher, you’ll know it’s worth it.”

The blog content mill site claims all the blog writers are English speakers. But they don’t say whether English is their first or second language. The language is so stilted and awkward, I’d bet on the latter. Either that or the writer is a robot. I’m not kidding. Some companies are literally using copy written by robots. How?

BTW, the post was two long, gray, unbroken paragraphs, a no-no in blogging. The text should be broken up into smaller units and bulleted whenever possible. I admit I violate the rule sometimes, but I feel my writing is so darned captivating I can get away with it.

When you hire a professional blogger, you should be able to talk to him or her directly. You should be sure that he or she speaks good English — including casual, everyday English — and can communicate your message in a smooth, easily read style. If so, his or her blog posts can help your business be noticed and followed by your target audience.

But make no mistake, badly written, poorly focused blogs can do you harm. So beware blog content mills. Their package deals might contain content that’s toxic to your business. Too bad the EPA can’t require a skull-and-crossbones label on bad blogging packages. Be careful out there. “Buy American.”

WordPress has been the front-runner among easy-to-build, easy-to-use websites for some time now. But Squarespace is coming up fast on the inside. I’m thinking of trying it, because what I see and hear about it is pretty cool.

According to their website, Squarespace gives you a designy-looking site with the convenience and control of WP, plus better integration with social media platforms and mobile devices. And you can do it all starting at $8 a month. (Note the “starting at” part. Wonder what it covers.)

You can post lots of photos (or samples), see built-in analytics, and use intuitive editing. And best of all, if you’re on a WP site now, they claim transferring all your content and images to Squarespace is seamless.

They offer a free trial for two weeks. Go to their site and discover “The secret behind exceptional websites.” I’d love to hear from anyone who has tried it or is now running a Squarespace blog or website. Is it as great as it seems?

Occasionally, at a networking event, you meet someone you click with — someone who is right on the same page with you. That’s what happened when I met David Soxman, a KC area marketing consultant. He knows his business, and he’s also quite a good writer (Dang it!). But he did give me props in a recent blog post. So I will follow his suggestion and give credit where it’s due.

In this post, he gives you some good tips about blog writing. Here’s an excerpt:

2. Give People Credit Where Credit Is Due

As was once said, “when you steal from one person it is called plagiarism, yet when you steal from many, it’s called research.” (I can’t remember who to give credit to for this quote) It is really easy to put links into your blogs that will take readers to your source’s website if they would like to learn more. It helps their website by having an inbound link and it is the right thing to do.

Do yourself a favor and drop in to David’s blog to read his insights into Web marketing. It’ll be well worth your time.