Who is in control of your brand?

You may or may not know that Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is more of an art than a science whilst it’s well known that there are things on your site and things off your site that impact your ranking in Google.

The most important concept to understand is that Google see’s it your website very differently to you. Google loves text & links, images & videos are OK and flash (as a general rule) is BAD. Without getting into the details of how to develop content, links and a site structure that helps your ranking in Google (there are many people who talk at length about this) I’ll show how you can quickly see your site how Google sees it, and the results may not be pretty.

Once you’ve done the quick audit below the best way to resolve any issues is to talk to an SEO consultant or your digital agency or web developer, they will help you understand what keywords should be in there, how to structure it and write the content for you.

Approach 1 – Quick and dirty

1. Go to Google.com

2. Search for a term your know you already rank on

3. Click ‘cached’ just below your listing in Google

4. Click ‘text only’ in the top right hand corner

5. Now you’re looking at the text & link component of how Google see’s your site. If there’s not much there, or it’s not accurate then you’ve got some work to do.

Approach 2 – More detailed analysis

1. Go to http://www.seotoolset.com/tools/free_tools.html

2. Add your website URL to the Keyword Density Analyser

3. It will provide a comprehensive analysis and provide some direction for you

Approach 3 – Employ a SEO specialist

You can spend days, months and years analysing and optimising your website, if you want to be at the top of your category you may need a team of them.

Anita over at Small Business Trends asked a bunch of marketing experts a simple question “Please share one of your best kept marketing secrets” and got a bunch of great responses.

Here are a few that rung true to me and may be relevant to you too.

1. Seth Godin, SethGodin.com – “Make promises and keep them. So obvious, it’s become a secret.”
2. Jackie Huba, Church of the Customer – “Attracting is the new selling. It is the least-visible, and least-examined principle behind most companies today that are growing quickly through word of mouth.”
3. Andy Birol, Author of “The 5 Catalysts to 7 Figure Growth” – “In striving to please their customers, too many marketers believe they must exceed expectations. Better yet, marketers should just ask and listen, for what they will learn and hear is often a different, more modest need, which when fulfilled, will profitably delight the customer.”
4. Siamak Taghaddos, GotVMail Communications – “People don’t like to be sold. If they did, they would spend all their free time in car dealerships. Instead, people want to be informed, they want to be educated. You’ll find your best customers are those you educate about your product or service and who then decide to purchase it because it is a good fit for them.
   Prospects who buy your product/service but are not educated about your offering will be disappointed. They will not be return customers. Worse, they will tell others how they got ‘sold’ by you. In the Internet age, this can quickly be very destructive to your business.”
5. John Battelle, Searchblog – “The best kept secret in marketing is to invest your time in eliciting and responding to your customer’s feedback, even if it’s negative. It’s the secret to building a network of evangelists who keep on giving back to your business ….”
6. Guy Kawasaki, Truemors – “Do the opposite of what bloggers think you should do.”
7. Matt McGee, Small Business SEM – “SEO is just like traditional marketing. In the “real world,” you want to create a great product and get people talking about it. Online, you want to create great content and get people linking to it. Same theory, and often the same techniques. Develop relationships with journalists offline; do the same with bloggers online. Engage with customers offline; engage in social communities online. Give people something to talk about (and link to), join the conversation, and you’re on the road to SEO success.”
8. Dharmesh Shah, Hubspot – “The power of second-order Internet Marketing: Small businesses should consider the positive marketing impact of “second order” effects in Internet marketing. A second-order effect is when you do not promote yourself directly, but help promote others who have mentioned you, linked to you or referenced an idea or concept that you agree with. The simplest example is when a blogger mentions your business in an article they write (even if you are mentioned only incidentally). If you like the article, you should help promote the article in the social media sites (Digg, StumbleUpon, etc.). This is better than trying to promote yourself and can often create significant traffic, PR and marketing good-will.”
9. Ivana Taylor, Strategy Stew – “Target those markets and customers that you love that love you back. In other words don’t work with jerks or people you don’t like. There are enough customers out there for everyone and the ones that love you value what you do and see so much value that working with you is literally priceless. The first step in doing this is knowing your strengths and special gifts that make you irresistible to your target audience. The next step is to love them enough to know what they want and then just give it to them lovingly and from the heart.”
10. Tim Berry, Planning Startups Stories – “One of the most expensive myths in marketing is that lower price produces higher volume. That might be true for coal or gasoline, but not for most businesses. Lower price means, well, ask yourself: do you always eat at the lowest price restaurant? Buy the lowest price clothes? Do you drive the lowest priced car? Pricing is your best statement of value.”

They’re all so simple, but I think they’re often forgotten in the day-to-day chaos.

Just found IBM’s guidelines for staff to use social media thanks to a friend on Twitter.

There are lots of words, and as you’d expect from an IT company, no pictures. So read it at your own will (all 2701 words).

Here are the highlights for me, not all new ideas, but a very good balance of all areas to consider when venturing into the scary world of social media.

Anything they’ve missed?

Whether or not an IBMer chooses to create or participate in a blog, wiki, online social network or any other form of online publishing or discussion is his or her own decision. However, emerging online collaboration platforms are fundamentally changing the way IBMers work and engage with each other, clients and partners.

IBM is increasingly exploring how online discourse through social computing can empower IBMers as global professionals, innovators and citizens. These individual interactions represent a new model: not mass communications, but masses of communicator

IBMers are personally responsible for the content they publish on blogs, wikis or any other form of user-generated media. Be mindful that what you publish will be public for a long time—protect your privacy.

Identify yourself—name and, when relevant, role at IBM—when you discuss IBM or IBM-related matters. And write in the first person. You must make it clear that you are speaking for yourself and not on behalf of IBM.

Respect your audience. Don’t use ethnic slurs, personal insults, obscenity, or engage in any conduct that would not be acceptable in IBM’s workplace. You should also show proper consideration for others’ privacy and for topics that may be considered objectionable or inflammatory—such as politics and religion.

Find out who else is blogging or publishing on the topic, and cite them.

Try to add value. Provide worthwhile information and perspective. IBM’s brand is best represented by its people and what you publish may reflect on IBM’s brand.

Be who you are. Some bloggers work anonymously, using pseudonyms or false screen names. IBM discourages that in blogs, wikis or other forms of online participation that relate to IBM, our business or issues with which the company is engaged. We believe in transparency and honesty. If you are blogging about your work for IBM, we encourage you to use your real name, be clear who you are, and identify that you work for IBM. Nothing gains you more notice in the online social media environment than honesty—or dishonesty. If you have a vested interest in something you are discussing, be the first to point it out. But also be smart about protecting yourself and your privacy. What you publish will be around for a long time, so consider the content carefully and also be judicious in disclosing personal details.

Speak in the first person. Use your own voice; bring your own personality to the forefront; say what is on your mind.

Be the first to respond to your own mistakes. If you make an error, be up front about your mistake and correct it quickly. In a blog, if you choose to modify an earlier post, make it clear that you have done so.

Don’t forget your day job. You should make sure that your online activities do not interfere with your job or commitments to customers.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Corporate Social Media Policies (socialmediatoday.com)
• Where is My “One Social Network to Rule them All”? (jkontherun.com)
• Social Media Transparency and Real Transparency (yoono.com)

Your brand is defined by everything from answering the phone, store lighting, cost of product, advertising campaign, PR and much much more… Its a load of things that build up a perception in ones mind about a person or an organisation.

When any of these elements are out of whack the brand is damaged to some extent. Your marketing manager, marketing department or YOU may be responsible for managing this challenge.

Think about a person as a brand, and clothing as marketing activities.

What does this person mean to you? And what would you buy from them?

Source: flickr

Each piece of clothing on its own may be great (maybe not), but when considered together they clearly don’t work for the person in building a brand. Uncoordinated fashion = uncoordinated marketing. It’s like having a website and TV commercial that don’t match.

Consider these three very well constructed and considered brands.

Source: istockphoto This guy = professional, approachable

Source: photos.com This chick = funky, music, dance

This dude = travel, semi-alternative

Clearly each element has been considerd in relation to the others, coming together to build a clear and easy to consume brand. Now each of these brands may or may not appeal to you, but that’s not the point.

Having decided what your brand means is one thing, but is every single communication helping or is it fragmented?

It’s your job to:

1. Understand your target

2. Create a brand they’ll want to connect with

3. Establish a coordinated approach where each activity builds on the others

Some simple steps to becoming more coordinated:

1. If you outsource to more than one agency, get them talking to each other

2. Put all elements of your brand up on a wall/table, do they help each other?

3. Uncover hidden touch points, anytime someone interacts with your brand they’re building a perception. (word of mouth, customer service calls, invoicing, your furniture, shop locations, cars your staff drive, what it smells like in your store, twitter, facebook, shop fronts… to name a few)

4. And last but not least, ensure you’re clear about who you’re talking to, what’s important to them and how you intend to build your brand in their mind

PS First ask 10 customers what they want in life, what you mean to them and how you could improve you might learn something.

Here’s the key points from a good post over at extanz.com that summarises social media marketing in its simplest form…

Social Media Marketing… it doesn’t bite …really… it’s as respectful as you are… now rock on!

But before you start out, here are some basic ideas:

- Content is KING: the best content in your industry is worth gold.
- Numbers count: everyone understands that the more connected you are, the more relevant you are.
- Distribution: you OWN distribution of your content, there is no barrier between readers/prospects and your company – There is no editor in chief privileging your competitor story.
- It’s about being Human: We are gregarious by DNA. We like social contact and we’d rather buy stuff cos our friends told so and it is fixin’ our basic and not so basic needs.
- ‘It’s business, (stupid)’: If you doubt it, just look at the valuation of those puppies…. The so called Social Graph will soon have more power than any other sales force.
- Authenticity rules: Be true to your brand and your customer or you’ll go to hell.

Jeremiah Owyang from Forrester Research has created a ‘health check’ for your corporate blog.

He covers:
1. Writing style
How you write indicates how real you can truly be

2. Topics
What does the blog talk about? does it matter to marketing –or customers? 

3. Humility
Perhaps one of the most important attributes, how human and real is this blog, or is it giving lip service? 

4. Linking behaviour
Links are the currency of the blogosphere, it indicates you respect someone else’s opinion so much that you’re willing to send them away from you. 

5. Customer inclusion
Do corporate blogs allow their customers to partake? or are they only second class citizens 

6. Dialog
Allowing for feedback can instill more trust 

7. Comment moderation
Blogs that allow for disagreeing comments are more real –and interesting. 

8. Frequency
While more isn’t always better, having a steady rhythm of content is important 

Full article here: http://www.web-strategist.com/blog/2008/12/10/health-check-how-trusted-is-your-corporate-blog/

There’s a reference to this story by CIO magazine about Corporate Bloggers AKA “CLOGGERS”
http://www.thestandard.com/news/2008/12/11/corporate-blogging-revolution-cancelled

I’m going to collate a list of random blogs and their top performing posts, to identify patterns and tips for myself and you.

Which posts perform well on your site, from both page views and comments…?

Email me, or post your pages here, and we’ll see if we can’t figure it out!