Integrated Branding Blog | Movéo

Your brand + local search

Integrated branding requires delivering a consistent message across all marketing channels. An incomplete local listing (think Google Maps, Yelp, Yahoo Local, Yellow Pages, etc.) not only decreases your visibility in search results, but it sends a less than satisfactory message to users about your brand. And sometimes the listings are inaccurate.

I can speak from experience. One of my clients - through no fault of their own - had an incorrect address in infoUSA's database. It so happens that infoUSA supplies data to many Online players, so the incorrect address was listed all over the Internet. After a friendly chat with infoUSA, we were able to correct the problem, which in turn updated the listings of everyone they supply data to.

Users expect to see complete and accurate listings when they are searching. If any information is missing, they may not be able to contact you. And even if they find another way, you've provided a difficult user experience for them. To combat this, make sure to check your listings in all major directories. If you don't have a listing, create one. If you do, make sure the listing is complete and consistent with the format of other listings.

This can be a tedious task as you'll likely have to create an account on each Site, but is well worth the time. Here is a list of local directories to get started: http://www.localseoguide.com/how-to-update-your-internet-yellow-pages-listings-for-free/

Brand Transparency in a Social Media Age

Internet access provides consumers with endless amounts of information at their fingertips. To put this in perspective, let's compare our process of collecting information today to that of 15 years ago. Imagine a grade school student in mid-90's. If this person needed information they would probably start out by asking their parents or another family member. If that proved insufficient, the next stop would an encyclopedia or perhaps a trip to local library.

Image courtesy of flaivoloka on stock.xchng

Now compare that to today. You want to know how to tie a knot, cancer research, book reviews, etc. - it's all a search and a click away. And since this information has become available, we have become much smarter consumers. We care more about what's in our food, what effect our actions have on the environment and so on. If a brand is unethical in any way, we are going to hear about it and hear about it fast. It's the new word-of-mouth and it's much more accessible and viral.

This is why brand transparency has become increasingly important. Brands can't hide behind walls and tell us who they are. We decide who they are by how they act and the quality of their product. Our purchasing decisions will be made with more information at hand. To succeed brands will have to be open and part of the discussion so that consumers are aware of the value their brand has on issues we care about.

We've always been social, we just have the technology now to easily connect with others on a massive scale. Word-of mouth has never traveled so fast. Brands need to remember that with every decision they make.

3 Simple Ways Non-profits Can Promote a Cause Through Social Media

1. Tweet. Find people who are interested in your topic by searching conversations on search.twitter.com. Reach out by following them and sending them a personalized message. You'll be surprised by how many follow back or find you by searching through conversations. Once you've built a following. Share your important announcements and hopefully some of your followers will Retweet it to their followers.

Just make sure that you're not only tweeting about yourself. Converse with your followers by answering or asking questions that pertain to them. Be active within your online community.

2. Create a Facebook page. Add your cause to Facebook and Causes.com and share your story. Make sure to let your Twitter followers and others that you have a Facebook page.

3. Rich media. Create videos and upload them to YouTube. Take pictures and add them to Flickr. Not only are these sites search engines in their own right, but can easily integrate with other social media platforms. You might embed a video or slideshow on your homepage or provide links as references in a tweet or Facebook post. Content is critical when it comes to social media, so never stop creating it or sharing it.

Once you've mastered these tactics, you can look into some additional ways to get involved. Make sure others can easily share your content with the click of a button, no matter where it is located. You might even contact a popular blog or social media guru and ask them for an interview concerning your cause. Getting visibility on a site like Mashable or Digg can turn a campaign viral in the blink of an eye.

Building From the Inside Out

Many brand-building efforts begin with development of the strategy and then proceed directly to an external launch. The most important step is ignored — communicating the essence and relevance of the brand among all internal stakeholders — making it the fabric of the organization.

The most successful organizations understand that if employees are aligned with the brand strategy, including the brand promise, they will deliver a consistent expression of the brand to its customers.

Powerhouse brands such as Mayo Clinic and GE are prime examples. Each has dedicated itself to helping its employees understand the power of the brand and have reaped the benefits of a consistent brand expression delivered at every touch point.

Building a brand-based culture is not about creating short-term “buzz.” It is about developing a genuine and ongoing commitment.  To create a brand-centric environment, you have to ensure that employees are living the brand consistently on a daily basis.

Developing a vibrant brand-based culture requires the organization team members to go through three stages:

1. Merely being aware of the brand and what it stands for (“Hearing It”)
2. Understand their role in delivering against the brand promise (“Believing it”)
3. Becoming passionate advocates for the brand (“Living It”)

If the employees are not living this brand every day, it will fundamentally impede the growth and success of the organization. In fact, studies have shown that up to 86% of employees who interface with customers, are communicating inaccurate or incomplete vital information.

How well aligned is your organization with your brand?

Hosting videos on your Site vs. YouTube

Many marketers are already aware of the benefit of using video in B2B marketing. But once you’ve decided on this strategy, you still have to decide where you’d like to host the videos - your own Web site or YouTube. There are pros and cons to each, which I explain below.

The benefits of hosting videos on your site are that the user will be spending time on your domain and that links to the video will empower your domain and not YouTube.com. When a user is on your site, you have the added benefit of promoting your brand. YouTube does allow you to customize your channel, but control is limited.

Some companies may not have the time, bandwidth or resources, however, to implement videos on their site. There is a level of programming involved and you will have to embed some type of video player. If the technical issues are too much of an obstacle, you might strongly consider the YouTube route.

Creating a YouTube Channel and uploading videos is very simple and can be accomplished in a matter of minutes. You can also optimize your videos by giving them appropriate titles and tagging each one with related keywords.

It’s important to remember that YouTube is currently the second biggest search engine in the U.S. as far as volume of searches. Using YouTube allows your videos to be found by users who are searching within YouTube.com, as well as those who are using Google or Bing.

B2B Customer Loyalty

Brand loyalty is often associated with B2C companies, although it can be argued that customer retention is just as important (if not more) in the B2B realm.

In the past, we've discussed some of the differences between B2B and B2C in the buying cycle. More often than not, a B2B purchase is much more involved because of technical aspects of the product, higher price and multiple people involved in the decision process. Consider this and that the market for B2B products and services are smaller and you see that retaining customers is a critical component in B2B marketing.

We've recently conducted two studies on this topic. Read the results in our latest article, The Million Dollar Question: How Loyal are Your Customers?

B2B Videos for Search are More Important than Ever

Image courtesy of Search Engine Land

As search engines and social media continue to evolve, it has become more important than ever for B2B companies to use videos for search.

What does this have to do with search engines?
In today’s world, which is heavily influenced by social media, search engines return results that include Web pages, blogs, products, images, videos, maps, local businesses and more. It’s called social, universal or blended search. Because of this, it’s important for companies to create content in these ways so that they might have more visibility. Not every form of content is appropriate for every company, however, so it’s important to find which are relevant.

Why is video generally a good option for content for B2B companies?
This one’s pretty simple, if you think about it. In many cases a B2B purchase can be very technical and research intensive. Videos make it easier to explain content and give the user a break from having to read an extremely long document. In addition, it gives the B2B company a chance to show their product in action. This does not in any way mean that written content shouldn’t be available as well, just that having the extra option can make the process much easier for you and a potential client.

So, whether you create a YouTube channel or host the videos on your existing site, make sure to consider this option if you are a B2B company. Not only do you give the user what they want, but your videos have a chance to increase your brand visibility in search results.

A brand roundtable discussion for Amazon Basics

Image courtesy of FastCompany

Our branding guru, Kevin Randall, recently assembled a roundtable of branding experts to share thoughts on Amazon's newest venture - Amazon Basics. Kevin's colleagues included professors from Stanford, Harvard, MIT and Northwestern, along with strategists from Interbrand. The full list is below:

Jennifer Aaker - Professor of Marketing at Stanford's Graduate School of Business

David Martin - President of Interbrand New York

John Quelch - Professor of Marketing at Harvard Business School

Mark Ritson - Associate Professor of Marketing at MIT Sloan School of Management

Scott Davis - Senior Partner at Prophet

Alex Goldfayn - Technology Tailor

Tim Calkins - Professor of Marketing at the Kellogg School of Management

Jez Frampton - Group CEO of Interbrand

Martin Straw - former President of Interbrand

Scott Miller - Chairman Zyman/Core Strategy Group

Eric Joachimsthaler - CEO Vivaldi Partners

Get details about the group's thoughts by reading Kevin's article on Fast Company.

3 social media marketing tools that track your brand

As a company, it's important to know what others are saying about your brand. Thankfully, there are tools to help us keep track of what is being said and who is saying it. Here are three tools to help discover these online conversations:

socialmention
This site allows you to create alerts, just like Google Alerts. You'll receive e-mails of the latest mentions of your company on blogs, bookmarks, comments, images, events, news, videos, audio and Q&A.

TweetDeck
Download TweetDeck and you can keep track and organize conversation on Twitter and Facebook that involve your brand. You can also save searches and see who is replying to your Tweets. Best of all, it's all in one window that you can customize.

Keotag
Search for tags that mention your brand (or any keyword). It's simple to use - just type in the keyword you'd like to search and then click on the engine you'd like to search through. There are a number of engines available including Technorati, del.icio.us, MSN, Digg, Reddit, Yahoo! and YouTube.

Know of any others? Feel free to mention them in the comments.

What’s everyone Tweeting about?

If you don’t believe Twitter has any marketing value, get this. You can use Twitter as a research tool even if you don’t have a Twitter page. Would you like an example? I thought so.

Let’s take one of our friends - Stericycle. This company offers an array of product recall services. If they want to know what the Twitter community is tweeting about in regards to the keyword ‘recalls,’ they can go to search.twitter.com and find out. See for yourself: recall-related Tweets.

The search results mentioned above show all the Tweets that mention the word ‘recalls.’ Savvy companies have used this to see who’s talking about their brand and counter it with positive PR messaging. Companies with a Twitter account can reply directly to the user and try to resolve issues, thank them for being a patron, or whatever makes sense. There are endless creative ways to use Twitter. I suggest you start by searching to see what the community has to say about your company. This is similar to Google Alerts, which we’ve mentioned in a previous post, but it only involves people on Twitter.

How have you used Twitter for your company?