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

Its been said that a company can boost profits by 75-100% by retaining as few as 5% of their current customers. Whatever business you’re in, you’re success will be that much greater if you focus on creating a brand. The value behind a brand strategy offer long term benefits that increase your bottom line exponentially.

And with that in mind, here are some branding quotes for further inspiration…

“A brand for the company is like a reputation for a person. You earn reputation by trying to do hard things well.”

- Jeff Bezos

‘Brands are the express checkout for people living their lives at ever increasing speed.’

- Brandweek

“If you are not a brand, you are a commodity.”

- Philip Kotler

“Any damn fool can put on a deal, but it takes genius, faith and perseverance to create a brand.”

- David Ogilvy

“A Brand is not a product or a promise or a feeling. It’s the sum of all the experiences you have with a company.”

- Amir Kassei

“A great brand is a story that’s never completely told.”

- Scott Bedbury

*A brand is a personification of a product, service, or even entire company.”

- Richard Blanchard

“Products are made in the factory, but brands are created in the mind.”

- Walter Landor

“A business based on brand is, very simply, a business primed for success.”

- David F. D’Alessandro

“A brand that captures your mind gains behavior. A brand that captures your heart gains commitment.”

- Scott Talgo

“A brand should strive to own a word in the mind of the consumer.”

- Al and Laura Ries

“The internet is fast becoming a “cesspool” where false information thrives. Brands are the solution, not the problem. Brands are increasingly important signals that content can be trusted.”

- Eric Schmidt, Google

“The primary focus of your brand message must be on how special you are, not how cheap you are.  The goal must be to sell the distinctive quality of the brand.”

- Kerry Light

“A brand name is more than a word. It is the beginning of a conversation.”

- Lexicon

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

To understand what’s driving the growth, its important to look at both demographics and psychographics of social media users in order to put things in perspective. Females make up the largest segment of social media users, and 18-34 year olds being the most active among all age groups.

Even today targeting is overlooked. Many are lost in a world of different metrics like followers, likes, retweets and more. Even social media marketing should cater to a customer segment through some kind of targeting.

All this is interesting, but what’s important to note here is how fast mobile is gaining on popularity.

Almost 40% of people now access social networks from their mobile phone, and Web users over the age of 55 are driving the growth of mobile social networking. That’s twice as many accessing social sites from their smart phones as last year.

Targeted Social Media 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

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

Created by the Queensland Tourism Board in Australia, they asked prospective employees to post one-minute application videos to YouTube so they could create a short list, and choose someone (eventually) to be the caretaker for Hamilton Island for six months. The only real task as caretaker would be to blog about how much fun he or she is having doing their “job”.

As promised, here’s a few social media case studies worth looking at…

3 Things We Can Learn From IKEA’s Facebook Campaign

How Does Microsoft Do Social Media Marketing?

Old Spice Social Campaign Case Study Video

Social Media and Car Insurance: A Match Made in Heaven?

The NBA’s Social Media Strategy

Best Buy: A social media case study

Being HUGE on Twitter – A Small Business Case Study

Old Spice – The Man Your Content Could Smell Like

How Social Media Helped Cisco Shave $100,000+ Off a Product Launch

Case study: The Home Depot

Twitter ROI Case Study – Dell Generates $3 Million in Sales Utilizing Twitter

Social Media case study – Dairy Queen

Canadian Social Media Case Study: Loblaw

Case Study: How To Blatantly Advertise Through Social Media And Get Away With It – H&R Block

Hotel Social Media Case Study: Fairmont Chicago

LEGO Click case study

Clorox: Rewiring The Brand Experience With Social Media

Social Media Marketing Case Study – Twitter Drives Traffic, Sales

Molson Canada – Harvard Business Review – Social Media Case Study

Also see:
5 B2B Social Media Winners
How Social Media Drives New Business
Barack Obama’s Social Mediea lessons for business
http://www.debbieweil.com/blog/list-of-67-big-brand-corporate-blogs/
26 social media marketing examples
300+ case studies for social media
Social media case studies from Nokia, Disney, NBC, and 17 more
Social Media ROI and the Pepsi Refresh Project
6 Social Media Marketing Case Study Lessons
Working With Your Brand Enthusiasts, Not Against Them
Integrating PR and Social Media
Understanding Luxury Brands and Social Media
3 Killer Social Media Case Studies from SMC San Francisco
5 Case Studies Of Social Media’s Viral Power
Marketing lessons from the [Grateful] Dead – David Meerman Scott
Breakdown: 4 Ways Brands Are Earning and Buying– Followers on Twitter
Why does Comcast care about Twitter?
Influence Versus Popularity on Twitter: Celebrity Kim Kardashian Social Media Case Study
1000 + Social Media Marketing Examples – Peter Kim

http://www.womma.org/casestudy/
http://mashable.com/2008/07/23/corporate-social-media/
http://nowisgone.com/case-studies/
http://www.getelastic.com/social-media-examples/

40 Social Media Case Studies is a post from: Online Branding Blog - reactorr.com

As smart phones become increasingly more powerful, the mobile web will change how we live, work and play. Mobile web adoption is increasing at rate that is eight times higher than the desktop just 10 years ago.

We’ve just begun to scratch the surface for location based potential, and the apps keep on coming. But imagine what the future holds for marketers as we start to integrate proximity detection through RFID, bluetooth and other technologies so we can begin to deliver advertising messages that are not only timely, but of relevance to your surroundings. It won’t be long before we walk past a store and receive  sms promo codes.

Mobile apps have grown at an exponential rate, and according to a study from the Pew Internet Project its estimated 1 in 4 U.S. adults now use them. The iTunes store is home to over 200,00 mobile apps, and the iPhone was created only a few years ago. And Juniper Research suggests that mobile phone apps will reach an astonishing 25 billion by 2015. The mobile technology is advancing faster than probably any technology in history and exciting new uses like augmented reality keep on coming. The most recent advance is something called LTE, which is often referred to as 4G and allows improved speeds that will bring us closer to mobile tv and more.

But what’s really exciting is mobile commerce, or M-commerce. Between 2008 and 2009 mobile transactions grew from $25 million to $141 million in one year, and things are expected to exceed $500 million in 2010.

Concerns about whether location will outweigh SEO in mobile search have come up in the last few months, and it seems unlikely that one will replace the other. It’s more likely that marketers will have to factor in yet another channel, that being location based marketing.

Social media and mobile marketing provide exciting opportunities, considering most individuals have their smart phone with them throughout the day more so than any other device. We’re now hyper connected, and companies like Google, Apple, and Nokia are driving the industry forward.

Exciting times indeed, but what’s the take away from this? We’ve heard the mobile gospel before, but now is the time to get serious. And if you’re venturing into mobile branding, you’ll not only want to be on FourSquare, you’ll want to make sure your app is available for the main OS options like Android, iPhone, Blackberry and others.

Preparing for Mobile Branding is a post from: Online Branding Blog - reactorr.com

Possibly the shortest Internet marketing conference ever, the Influence Project involved 60 speakers for 60 seconds. Some of the speakers included Brian Clark, Guy Kawasaki, Mitch Joel, Muhammad Saleem, Brian Solis and more.  MP3 recording and transcript  available through the above link.

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