In many ways, the Internet is almsot a hybrid of most other marketing channels (print, broadcast, DM) with outdoor possibly being the exception. But the segments that really stand out would be social media and search. Engagement and influence has never been known to such a degree before.

Branding Online as a Medium is a post from: Online Branding Blog - reactorr.com

Driving your online branding strategy often requires one to be perceived as a key resource or authority within your market or niche. Sometimes referred to as thought leadership, aiming to position yourself as “The Source” (or one of the top alternatives) poses more of a challenge than one might expect.

If you’re committed to this approach, read further for details on how to get started.

It’s important to have c-level buy for this approach to work within a market that has any real competition as it will require both resources and commitment for an extended period of time before you begin to see things working.

Communications are the cornerstone to developing authority, and as such, it’s important that a team of competent writers are at your disposal. While you might consider turning to internal resources, its worth mentioning why this often fails. Staff that already have a job to do or typically busy with doing just that, and even with the strongest intentions, will often find it difficult to find the extra time necessary to research and produce the content required to achieve levels of authority.

If cost isn’t a big concern, then creating an editorial team is the start towards success. Since most won’t have this luxury, or to a limited extent, another option would be developing a network of freelance writers that can complement the writings of any internal contributions. Be forewarned this often has mixed results, and if you’re handling your own administrative tasks like sourcing, proofing, and providing creative direction, its all far more time consuming than it seems.

Building authority creates trust, when builds equity in credibility. Keep in mind this can go far beyond a blog and include graphics, webinars, white papers, interviews, video and other mediums to distribute and share knowledge. Curation of resources to filter out noise can also be a great equalizer towards your quest.

But positioning your digital brand starts with a strategy or direction that’s been mapped, so dive in and explore the above options to see what makes the most sense for your own organization. It’s also worth noting that before you commit to a direction, you should do a competitive analysis of your chosen niche to get a sense of how difficult it might actually be. If you look up a few phrases in Google and keep seeing the usual suspects showing up, analyze them individually. How old is their site, how many pages do they have indexed, and refer to their backlinks to get a sense of their authority. Saying “we’re going to become the ultimate finance resource” would require extremely deep pockets and patience, but zoning in one certain aspects often makes more sense, in almost every instance.

Positioning With Digital Branding is a post from: Online Branding Blog - reactorr.com

Branding Infographics is a post from: Online Branding Blog - reactorr.com

It’s often wise to look through the eyes of an external and impartial observer to get a sense of how your brand might be interpreted. It’s this perspective that can contribute to your direction, and help define an online branding strategy.

While social media is a start to the conversation of who you are, keep in mind that search is often where things start. How you go about influencing one’s perceptions of your online brand also relies on is not that different to an offline approach, where positioning can determine everything.

Does Your Brand Scan? is a post from: Online Branding Blog - reactorr.com

Story telling often creates an emotional connection that the listener can identify with. One of the great examples of story telling would probably be Nike. In case you haven’t heard, they sell running shoes. Nike’s positioning strategy has been to appeal to those that not only take their sports seriously, but the product is also for those that want an edge to be at the top of their game.

The heritage of your company could be an intrinsic part of corporate culture, and also your brand. There might be a story there.

Recommended:
The Importance of Story Telling

How to Tell a Great Story

Steve Jobs and the Power of Story Telling

Brand Building and Story Telling is a post from: Online Branding Blog - reactorr.com

Let’s clear the air and get this in the open to remove any misconceptions. They aren’t one and the same, but one can have a significant impact on the other.

Online branding and SEO (along with social media to some extent) have shown an increasing value to each other in the last few years, but somehow more than a few don’t get it. So let’s break it down and get to it.

When taking the approach of using online branding with SEO, you need to build your rankings for keywords of relevance so that your brand begins to become synonymous for a phrase through search. Read that last sentence again.

Not only does it have a positive affect on your online reputation, it also creates momentum for the entire marketing initiative.

It’s not one versus the other, they need to work in a cohesive manner.

Online Branding SEO is a post from: Online Branding Blog - reactorr.com

Vancouver’s downtown looked like a post apocalypse movie scene following the Canucks loss to the Boston Bruins last week. Thousands took to the streets, store windows were smashed, and cars set on fire. Fortunately no one was seriously hurt, but for the locals that call Vancouver their home watched the events unfold on TV it was a painful display as they saw the city they love have it’s name tarnished as a world-class city as over 100,000 people took to the streets. While about 1,000 were actually responsible for the riots, social media was buzzing with comments and photos shared.

As the police confined the chaos to a couple blocks, many felt the disgrace of the actions as a small group eroded the brand that is Vancouver in just a few short hours. But the sense of pride for the city was later exemplified by the many volunteers that were downtown. Thousands took to the streets after midnight once things were under control to help with the clean up. When I walked by Granville and Hastings the following day and looked up the street it was as if nothing had happened. Possibly a little more trash in the street than usual, which is typically none, but it was hard to believe this was the site of the same events that I witnessed on CTV the night before.

Do the recent events harm the Vancouver brand? After several years of making it on lists like ‘best city to live in’, host to the recent olympic games, and many other accolades, much of its brand equity seemed to be undone in one evening. Macleans commented the city’s damaged reputation as incalculable. The Province declared it resilient and believe tourism won’t be hurt. As a reaction to the events, Tourism Vancouver in partnership with DDB launched This Is Our Vancouver as a testament to the commitment of the  city’s citizens to set things right.

I had held back on posting on the subject as I considered what I might say, but after being contacted by CBC for commentary regarding reputation management and what happened in Vancouver I felt compelled to post on the matter.

I think that while this might be an embarrassment for the city, Vancouver as a brand will not feel long term impairment. The city has built considerable equity in their brand and handled things as well as could be expected. I thought they could have made arrests and taken control faster to reduce the damage, but I’m sure there are reasons for the way it was managed at the height of the madness.

While this was a city and not a consumer brand, there are things that could have been better managed if such were the case. Social media could be used as platforms to alert the masses to efforts in communication to address the situation, from engaging in comments to make those following the story aware of newly setup websites to direct flow of discussion to releasing more information faster and rallying supporters quicker. The incident was anticipated and preparation might have been better in terms of brand support.

As social media sites like Mashable and Digg mentioned posted photos and video, the comments that followed were very interesting.

Also see Huffington Post for more.

A couple days later I found myself at The Bay, which was ground zero for the chaos. While the ground floor windows had all been boarded up, it looked more like a memorial than a department store from the outside. There were at least a couple hundred people looking at all the messages left on the plywood, and that was just on the block I was on. Everyone shared a feeling of disbelief as they read the words of others that shared similar sentiments.

Over 45,000 tweets mention Vancouver riot, and more than 150,000 mentions on Facebook, along with nearly 5,000 media mentions. While the media portrayed it linked to the Stanley Cup loss, many believe that this was coordinated regardless of the outcome. I know a few people that had seen a few individuals walking around Granville wearing a scarf over their face at around 5 PM, when the game had just started, which suggests to me that many individuals were planning to riot regardless of the outcome. It’s worth mentioning that the majority of these hooligans that defaced downtown Vancouver were from outer areas like Abbotsford and Langley. Thanks to social media, the numerous photos and videos taken have helped Vancouver police with their investigation.

Saying thanks to Vancouver Police after riots click to enlarge

Possibly one of the most memorable photos from the incident:

Vancouver riot couple

Backstory to above image – The police laid an unprovoked beating on Alexandra Thomas (Canada) and her boyfriend Scott Jones (Australia) gave her a kiss to comfort her as she lay on the road in pain after the attack. While Jones feels these officers may have overreacted somewhat, both he and Thomas think the cops were simply overwhelmed and coping as best they could.

Reputation Management and the Vancouver Brand is a post from: Online Branding Blog - reactorr.com

Over the last few years marketing budgets are seeing an increasing shift to digital marketing. With budgets tightening, there was a natural attraction to online advertising for reasons like its improved measurability and ability to make campaign changes almost on the fly. Almost as appealing is the near real-time tracking and analytics that online advertising can offer.
Does this mean an entire marketing campaign should be online? Definitely not, but it should be part of every campaign. Online marketing and advertising have proven themselves as part of the marketing mix, and that now includes social media.

An issue with offline advertising is its based on presumed eyeballs (or in the case of radio, ears) but it doesn’t mean that your ad was actually seen. Someone came up with the expression that an ad needs to be seen 7 times to be effective. Yes, there are variations such as 11 or even 20 times. Whether that’s true of not, the idea was probably started by someone looking to sell more ads. Although it does stand to reason to some degree.

One area I think that’s often overlooked is the entire campaign is a factor of influence. From the print to outdoor or any other advertisements, they all contribute towards brand awareness. It just so happens that the click often takes the credit.

Digital branding is the new frontier, and we’re starting to see more Facebook pages and iPhone apps integrated with a campaign. Brands are placing more emphasis on “fishing where the fish are” and increasing their social media efforts.

Yet there’s still one undeniable fact, that being that when a customer is looking to make a purchase, the vast majority will do a search on Google or another search engine.  Sure, consumers often rely on social networks for referrals, but that’s usually followed by a search.
If you’re to consider how SEO and social media affect digital branding, they aren’t really comparable, but linked and can work together.

Recommended reading:
Comparing SEO & Social Media as Marketing Channels – SEOmoz

Social Media, SEO, and Advertising – A Digital Dilemma is a post from: Online Branding Blog - reactorr.com

Digital branding is about building equity through the online marketing channels available, and your online visibility. These can be broken down into a few key areas – social media, seo, and online advertising.

With social media, digital branding is comparable to the PR and communications strategies. Shaping the perception and what a brand stands for helps to create value for your business. Whether online or offline, this part of branding is critical to positioning in a positive manner.

Social media provides a voice for the brand, allowing your business to not only engage, but also listen to the conversations that already exist. The power of social media isn’t to be underestimated, having proven itself several times over. There are numerous social media tools available to monitor and measure your brand online.

SEO is another way to create a shortcut in the mind of the consumer. When someone is preparing to buy, or doing some preliminary research for a product or service, most turn to the web and look up information with their favorite search engine. Since we now know that about 90% of searches never make it to the second page, being in the top ten is where it counts. The value of SEO is often misunderstood, and one way of determining what it might have to offer is by using a SEO ROI calculator to determine its worth.

Internet advertising creates digital branding opportunities across web properties your customer might be visiting and help increase its online visibility. While not all impressions lead to measurable success, they do increase the exposure, regardless of what some might say about banner blindness. Marketers budgets continue to shift to online advertising, social media and SEO, leaving many traditional publishers to rethink their business model.

The rules of changed, and the shift to digital now includes mobile branding. The thing about this whole digital branding business is its more measurable, provides better ROI, and better targeting than anything previously available.

You might also be interested in:

5 Quick Tips for Online Branding

Introduction to Online Branding

Online Reputation Management – Guarding Your Brand

Digital Branding – The Marketing Shift is a post from: Online Branding Blog - reactorr.com

Mobile video increased a whopping 51.2% over one year

In a study comparing repurposed TV ads versus made for web video, it was found that online ad awareness enjoyed a bigger lift from the repurposed video ads than made-for-web video. Recent research conducted by Dynamic Logic shows that re-used TV spots resulted in higher brand awareness metrics than made-for-web ads.

The study found that the highest completion rates for repurposed TV ads were primarily from retail outlets (60%), while made-for-web creative completion rates were 37%. The highest completion rates for made-for-web video were in the food and beverage industry, at 58%. Repurposed TV spots hovered around 40% completion rates.

In Dynamic Logic’s study there were a some interesting points worth noting:

• The brand needs to be displayed in all frames of the creative
• Reveal ads don’t work well – in any category
• Viewers should never have to interact with the ad to see the brand or message
• Online creative that relate to an offline campaign reap synergy

Publications such as the NYTimes.com and other top online publishers are increasingly using video to monetize certain content options, and 30-50% of the visitors watch the entire ad.

So who’s watching? Online video is reaching all major age groups, with over half (52.9% ) reaching viewers over the age of 35 years old.

Video Branding Online is a post from: Online Branding Blog - reactorr.com