A recent Financial Times article (PDF Version) examined the perils of a tarnished brand. After reading the article, we thought it might be interesting to examine the broader issues and implications from a marketer’s perspective, with Jeff Esposito coming from the point of view of a corporate communications guy working for a global brand (Vistaprint), and Keith examining this issue from the perspective of a PR agency exec who works with SMBs, global brands and everything in between.

Keith Trivitt: Jeff, what is your opinion on the current state of corporate branding?

Jeff Esposito: A brand is a living and breathing symbol of a company. It goes beyond a logo, catchy tagline or jingle—it is what a company means to its constituents. In the age we grew up in [the past 30 years], a lot of what we knew about particular brands was based on the media and advertising. Fast forward 20-some-odd-years, and one-dimensional messaging does not exist anymore. We’ve entered an up-to-the-minute news cycle now, so perception is reality. It may sound cliché, but companies really need to be listening and monitoring what is being said about them. When blogs came onto the scene, there was not a lot of emphasis on their importance; however, a negative post or Tweet can really cause some negativity around a brand. In a nutshell, brands need to speak to their customers, both literally and figuratively.

KT: Your point about corporate branding going beyond just a logo or a catchy jingle is spot-on. So often, the public—and often, even business executives—thinks of branding as this one-off project you do early in a company’s growth cycle to try to catch people’s attention. Branding is often viewed as a quick fix. But as I tell clients, branding, marketing and communications should be seen as long-term solutions to what are often long-term problems for many businesses: staying top-of-mind for your key audiences. And like you say, Jeff, with the advent and mass adoption of social media, if you’re not actively monitoring brand sentiment and even trying to persuade brand sentiment through various digital PR means, you’re not really engaging in active 21^st-century branding.

Branding has changed beyond just having a cool logo and a great jingle. It’s now an all-encompassing marketing strategy that requires tremendous time, resources and attention to ensure positive constituent sentiment is not lost, and a company has the capacity to acquire new brand advocates.

KT: As a whole, do you feel some of the recent corporate branding downfalls (BP; Google’s U.S. & EU regulatory issues and privacy concerns; Apple’s insensitivity to consumer concerns) are largely out of marketer’s and communication pro’s hands, or are they indicative of a shift to much larger branding issues marketers will have to face in years to come?

JE: Brands are now facing the same pressure that politicians have over the past few years. The constant news cycle is vicious and unforgiving. Like many industries now, branding is in a state of evolution. Change is not easy and isn’t an overnight sensation. With social networks, companies have to cede some control and engage with their customers. For large brands, it’s a matter of getting back to the basics. I recently read a great book on branding called BrandSimple that is worth checking out if you are interested in branding.

KT: Change is certainly not easy, particularly when you look at the perspective of us, as marketers, talking about branding and marketing with a business owner. We have a pretty good idea of what we think a company should do to improve its branding and position within a specific market sector, but for that business owner we’re counseling, it’s an entirely different picture. They may have invested 25 years in their business, engaging in largely the same marketing practices every year. Trying to tell them they need to now actively monitor their brand online and/or cede some control to the public doesn’t always go over well.

Which is a possible explanation for some recent corporate branding issues. Not so much in that BP, Google or others were stuck in their ways with marketing and branding (to an extent, they were), but each company had executives who though they knew better than the marketing, PR and branding experts on their staffs, and yet, they really didn’t, and they are now paying the price in terms of negative brand perceptions.

JE: Branding is something that is not just for companies anymore. Everyone’s online footprint can influence how they are seen in a field or get you turned away for a job.

KT: The power of personal branding has been on my mind lately (even though I hate that term). I’m beginning to think that, over time, corporate America will become more entrepreneurial for a variety of reasons. Social media will continue to give each of us a powerful public voice and platform to expound on our expertise, insight and dreams. This empowerment will suddenly force companies to learn new ways to handle a larger population of employees who are more willing to speak their minds in public, ask big questions and start to explore bigger issues. This, in my opinion, will eventually lead to entrepreneurial mindsets within corporate employees, where they view themselves as employees of the company, but also as individual entrepreneurs exploring innovative ways to improve some facet of the company by using social media, cloud computing and other social resources to find new ideas. This has the potential to create brilliant ideas for companies, but also huge legal issues; something to watch out for.

JE: I love the way that the Internet has really changed the way people get their name out there. While Twitter chats, Facebook, LinkedIn, and blogs are great mediums for sharing your opinions, they also offer a window into your personal life. So share with caution. Companies can see everything about them and also what their employees are saying. When job hunting, employers search for what you are posting online. So before posting something remember who can see it. Once published things can be seen by anyone with computer access, just something to keep in mind, and Google yourself every once and a while to see what’s out there on you.

KT: The Financial Times article referenced at the beginning of this post noted that, “Corporate communications, such as advertising, play a relatively minor role in this process. It is what the company does, not what it says, that reinforces the brand in the minds of customers.”

Do you agree with this statement, as it broadly appears to make the assertion that PR and communications have little—if any effect—on brand affinity?

JE: While I would agree that our society has become numb to advertising to an extent and actions speak louder than words, there is still a personal connection to brands. I also would not call advertising part of corporate communications. Advertising can be used to reinforce messaging but is something that is not traditionally trusted. Using an ad, not a person, to communicate messaging in crisis communications can go over horribly. Toyota’s response to the recall by way of a commercial is one example that comes to mind. However, they have done a great job reinforcing safety in recent weeks as the immediate media buzz has dies down.

KT: Something I found particularly interesting about that comment by the FT writers (Morgen Witzel and Ravi Mattu) was the comment that came directly after it referencing the fact that Apple’s PR team runs very theatrical product events, but it’s the terrific products that keep consumers coming back. I agree with that—to a point. Even brands that were once viewed as highly in consumers’ minds as Apple currently is (The Gap and The New York Times come to mind) have seen brand affinity somewhat tarnished over the years as they have either over-expanded into to many markets (The Gap) or seen certain market pressures cause the mystique of their industry begin to tarnish the brand (NYT). That’s where I think great brand messaging, combined with a company’s actions, is the best strategy to engender long-lasting brand affinity and brand reputation. Mere actions alone sometimes aren’t enough, as The Gap appeared to be one of the world’s most prosperous brands 10 years ago because it was expanding so rapidly, but underneath that was a lack of effective communications to address market and consumer concerns about the brand.

I’ve been giving this some considerable thought over the past few weeks. It always starts with a brief realization that despite the numerous marketing benefits of both platforms, each seems to be a bit overleveraged and oversaturated in terms of their true marketing benefits for small-business owners. In a world of 50 millions tweets per day and 100-plus million global users (only a fraction of whom are actually active), are we, as marketers, overemphasizing the benefits of Facebook and Twitter to the detriment of small businesses we represent?

I was reminded of this thought the other day by a comment from Eric Goldstein, CEO of the social commentary platform Almplify, when he randomly posed the question: “I wonder if we’ll look back on these days and realize there was a Facebook and Twitter bubble.”

Goldstein continued:

“I’m thinking of it from the user perspective. I can’t help but think that both Twitter and Facebook are services that started as ways for individuals to communicate with each other and now they are rapidly becoming platforms for marketers to reach customers. While this has thus far seemed to cause little friction, I wouldn’t be surprised if at some point, people look for other places to hang out. Not necessarily predicting they will, just saying I wouldn’t be surprised.”

From someone who runs a social network himself, that’s a pretty powerful question, as one commenter mused. But it also speaks volumes about the state of social marketing now that Facebook has nearly 500 million global users, Twitter’s seen as a savior for the cash- and time-strapped small business owner and some pundits are even calling for businesses to literally dump their company’s websites in favor of an all-Facebook and all-Twitter platform for their company.

All that begs the question: What happens if these platforms fail? Or, perhaps just as worse, what if they are subject to a massive virus attack?

Don’t laugh quite yet. Nothing truly lasts forever, and the digital age has already proven itself to be quite fleeting. If a small business wouldn’t put all of its marketing dollars and resources into a single offline strategy (say, direct mail), instead, opting to diversify its efforts with multiple offline marketing strategies and tools in case one doesn’t quite pan out, then why would it make sense to do so with your online and social marketing efforts?

It’s becoming fairly clear to those of us who work in the tech and and media industries that Facebook and Twitter are locked in a massive battle for the world’s social media and online advertising/marketing attention, and while Facebook has the upper-hand at the moment, who’s to say this competitive battle won’t leave both social networks on life support? And if that happens, do you really want to have all of your online/social marketing efforts tied to just those two platforms?

I’m certainly not saying Facebook or Twitter don’t have a place in a small business’ marketing plans. They absolutely do, as each offers tremendous resources and a vast audience to build a brand digitally, but at the end of the day, I would simply advise against thinking either can be a one-stop marketing shop for your brand. Truly great marketing, whether offline or online, requires a unique mix of several different channels tailored to your company’s individual audiences and business goals.

And that right mix may or may not need to include a sole reliance on Facebook and/or Twitter.

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• 8 September 2010 : Judgment Day: Clients vs. Media
• 8 September 2010 : The C-level/Value Debate
• 7 September 2010 : SM 102: Social Media for (UNC) Jocks
• 6 September 2010 : It’s Labor Day people….
• 3 September 2010 : Industry Debate: The Value of Community Managers

“Success is peace of mind, which is a direct result of self-satisfaction in knowing you made the effort to become the best of which you are capable.” – Coach John Wooden

John Wooden’s death over the weekend, at the age of 99, got me thinking about the man they called “The Wizard of Westwood.” As someone who spent the early years of his career working in sports marketing, I thought about Wooden’s NCAA-record 10 national championships while coaching the legendary UCLA Bruins of Lew Alcindor (Kareem Abdul Jabbar) and Bill Walton and many others. I also remembered the man’s great humility and sense of humor, as well as his uncanny ability to get the best out of his players without overtly trying to put his ego or his own highly-respected reputation ahead of the game, his team or his employer (UCLA).

Mostly, though, I thought about how Wooden was not only one of college athletics’ great marketers, but a remarkable visionary for many of us in the business world. What John Wooden taught us—whether we work in sports, business, technology or even banking—is that you don’t always have to be flashy at what you do, and you certainly don’t always have to try to one-up your competition, to get the right kind of attention. All it takes is a tremendous vision, sticking by that vision and ensuring you embody your business’ mission and objectives in everything you do.

Countless entrepreneurs know of Wooden’s vaunted “Pyramid of Success,” from which the quote at the opening of this post derives. It was what guided Wooden, his players and his many followers for decades, and it can reasonably be said has had a profound impact on the way many CEOs and entrepreneurs have guided their businesses. At least I hope.

In an era where the “next big thing” is lauded on tech companies who have yet to make a dime of profit, or during a time when a big-oil company’s CEO still finds it difficult to say, “I’m sorry,” and actually address the big issues at hand, much of what John Wooden taught the business world is that it’s OK to show your true self. And it’s OK to be humble. Because doing so show demonstrates that you have a much bigger picture in mind: the long-term sustainability of something great, versus the short-term benefits that can arise from grandstanding.

In essence, you’re not trying to become the “next big thing” in whatever industry you reside, but instead, you are aiming to be something great for many years to come. You’re building a pyramid of success for your business, and as we all know, pyramids can’t be built in days or even months on the back of a lot of industry hype. They take a tremendous amount of planning, execution and good luck to get accomplished.

Wooden had one other key lesson he taught his players (as chronicled in this excellent New York Times appreciation) that holds a lot of value from a business standpoint: he told his players not to focus too much on the competition, or on their flashy Los Angeles counterparts, the NBA’s Lakers, who made the game look snazzy, but did so without many of the fundamentals that led Wooden’s Bruins to seven-straight NCAA titles in the 1960s.

Marketing lesson from this: We all want to be the next Twitter, Facebook or Huffington Post, but we may offer a product or service that does just as much good to a smaller, but still very integral, audience. We should focus every ounce of our business and marketing efforts on servicing that audience, and not worry too much about what Joe down the street is building with his latest gadget/store/restaurant.

What are some life or business lessons you value from John Wooden?

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• 8 September 2010 : Judgment Day: Clients vs. Media
• 8 September 2010 : The C-level/Value Debate
• 7 September 2010 : SM 102: Social Media for (UNC) Jocks
• 6 September 2010 : It’s Labor Day people….
• 3 September 2010 : Industry Debate: The Value of Community Managers

Sure, it all makes sense. Social media takes time and time is money. So why not stretch your content when and where you can? It ensures continuity of messaging, keeps all of your communication platforms looking fresh and increases touchpoints with your target audience. But at what point does repurposing become synonymous with diluting? Can you post a new spin <gosh I hate that word> on the same news too many times?

In an age where we are taught that people like to receive information on their own terms, it seems logical that we would offer the same news on every platform possible. And that we would tweak the content to fit the medium. While I’m not saying this theory isn’t valid, it has some holes in it.

Spamming If I sign up for a spa’s e-blasts, receive their hard copy newsletter, read about them in my local newspaper and engage with them on Twitter, it would seem that I have an interest in their brand and news. But if I receive the same news item in each communications, let’s say it is an ad for a new line of nail polishes, at what point do I start to feel like I am being spammed? To that end, at what point do I become indifferent or resistant to the spa’s message?

Deleting If a brand consistently sends the same news across all communication platforms, when do people start deleting the content? If I know the e-blast is going to revisit the news I just read about on Twitter, why should I open the e-blast? If there is a pattern of no differentiation or added-value, people will begin deleting or trashing your communications before they even read them. This is wasting time and money.

As we continue to do more with less resources and stretch communication dollars further, we need to remember that regurgitating isn’t repurposing. Without something new and fresh sprinkled in with the mainstream news, repurposing can easily become synonymous with diluting. And diluted news, if distributed frequently enough, may become as valuable as issuing no news at all.

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• 8 September 2010 : Judgment Day: Clients vs. Media
• 8 September 2010 : The C-level/Value Debate
• 7 September 2010 : SM 102: Social Media for (UNC) Jocks
• 6 September 2010 : It’s Labor Day people….
• 3 September 2010 : Industry Debate: The Value of Community Managers

Now my husband just informed me that he bought a domain for our future son as a gift. My first reaction was “We don’t even have diapers yet.”  So, I sent out a tweet about his latest purchase, and got an immediate number of responses.  It seems he isn’t the only one preparing for our child’s SEO future.

Honestly, this would be the last thing I would even think about as I get ready for parenthood, but these days, should it be one of the first?

Whether you are a brand or individual, your online presence and identity is crucial. Everyone is rushing to register website addresses, Twitter and Facebook IDS, etc. There have been a number of times I’ve been working with brands, go to register a Twitter ID, only to find it has been taken already. Imagine what it will be like 15 years from now.

I predict that more and more social media savvy parents will pick out their child’s name, then head straight online to secure the domain name, Twitter handle and Facebook page.

Even if Twitter and/or Facebook slowly start to die down in popularity, it’s almost a sure thing that other social media sites and services will rise up. Basically, it’s a safe bet that social media isn’t going anywhere.

Setting up your unborn child with excellent SEO might not be the first thing that pops into your head, but based on my recent tweet, evidently more and more people are doing it.  Do we hold the future of our children’s online identity in our hands? Will the future of baby registries include personalized domain names and Twitter handles, along with cribs and diapers?

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• 8 September 2010 : Judgment Day: Clients vs. Media
• 8 September 2010 : The C-level/Value Debate
• 7 September 2010 : SM 102: Social Media for (UNC) Jocks
• 6 September 2010 : It’s Labor Day people….
• 3 September 2010 : Industry Debate: The Value of Community Managers

So what’s the big deal with Facebook messing up this week? Everytime Facebook makes one mistake the Internet blows up saying so much nonsense.  Ahhhh Privacy! I’ve been exposed, I have to run for the hills and bitch about it! People, it’s the Internet…as mentioned in previous posts nothing is private.

In case you are unfamiliar, Facebook dropped the ball a few days ago and had to close down “Facebook Chat” for a few hours so that they could clean up the mess. Simply put, people were able to see some chats that were being typed due to a malfunction. Waaaah, let’s cry about it. Big deal! I really enjoyed is when I turned on the news when I woke up. That’s breaking news these days? Everyone needs to calm down. Facebook was just making upgrades and made a boo boo.

As of 7 PM on Thursday night there were over 900 articles on the top of Google News talking about Facebook. Is this really such a big deal that it needs to be written about 900 times by 900 different people and be shown on 900 different web sites? No. Want to know what should be written about? The fact that everyone is so paranoid about privacy these days and just needs to chill out. Come on, the Democrats have control of the White House, which means the government’s hand is pretty much in any privacy you might have. You really think that Facebook privacy should be top of your mind?

*Please remember, as PRBC is a collaboration of contributors, these are my personal thoughts, so if you have an issue. Make a comment.*

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• 8 September 2010 : Judgment Day: Clients vs. Media
• 8 September 2010 : The C-level/Value Debate
• 7 September 2010 : SM 102: Social Media for (UNC) Jocks
• 6 September 2010 : It’s Labor Day people….
• 3 September 2010 : Industry Debate: The Value of Community Managers

When you have the opportunity to bait consumers to take their SM love for your company or brand and establish a real life relationship, you are golden. It seems elementary, but sampling is a great way to distinguish oneself from the competition and generate monetized ROI on your SM investment.

As someone who follows a number of bakeries on Twitter and is obsessed with cupcakes, I have found myself Googling bakery names to see if there were nearby locations when I have seen a good promotional offer in the bakery’s Twitter stream. Plus, their consistent updates throughout the day keep them top of mind. There have been days when I have left the office still thinking about the daily special that was tweeted hours before and wishing the bakery were nearby.

While this methodology makes great sense for culinary brands, and the Twitter account of Sprinkles demonstrates how it can be effectively executed, there are other types of businesses that could benefit from this approach to SM.

Let’s take a carwash for an example. If you live equidistant from two car washes of comparable quality and price, it would seem there is no significant advantage to supporting Carwash A or Carwash B. But if one or both of the carwashes is on Twitter or Facebook, there may be a way to sway your support. If Carwash A tweets that they are offering a free car vacuuming to customers who mention a discount code only given to their Twitter followers, they can (1) differentiate themselves from their competition, (2) attract customers who may have typically supported Customer B and (3) establish a real-life connection with their social media audience.

Although gratis and discounts are always great, even brands that aren’t willing to take this approach can still employ the sampling model. Perhaps your SM audience would enjoy a tour of your facility or benefit from a level of expertise that can only be offered in-person. The key is to give your audience an incentive to take their support for your brand from online to offline.

There are countless versions of nearly every business model on Facebook and Twitter. To that end, there is a wide range of companies within the same industry experiencing varied levels of SM success, and for many brands, the level of success correlates to the effectiveness of their sampling model.

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• 8 September 2010 : Judgment Day: Clients vs. Media
• 8 September 2010 : The C-level/Value Debate
• 7 September 2010 : SM 102: Social Media for (UNC) Jocks
• 6 September 2010 : It’s Labor Day people….
• 3 September 2010 : Industry Debate: The Value of Community Managers

Let me put this into a bit more perspective: Say you’re working on a pretty time sensitive client announcement that has a lot of moving parts (e.g. 2-3 parties involved with multiple executives/personalities and many different times zones), which requires you to be both confidential with how closely you hold the client announcement/information and also proactive enough so you obtain the desired outcome from the announcement with a little extra audience reaction thrown in from a good pre-announcement story or two. That’s going to A) require you to be on your toes and ready for anything; and B) Most likely require you to know exactly who you want to go to with this information, and more importantly, who will keep it quiet until everything is finalized.

“But,” you say, “you can’t do that! Companies no longer own their information or announcements, nor do they even own their own brand!”

Well . . . yes and no. Do they have total control over their brand like they did, say 20 years ago? Hell no. But is society at the point now where anybody—you, me, your neighbor—“owns” some piece of the brand in the virtual world? I’d still argue we’re not quite there and we will never be there. And I’d argue even more fervently that as communications and public relations professionals—the very consultants companies rightfully hire to help protect their brands and company reputations—we shouldn’t always be so quick to convince our clients it’s time to “give their brand up” to their Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc. audiences.

Because sometimes, the masses, even if they represent a company’s perfect vertical audience, don’t always get the story right, and if we’re so willing to freely give a major announcement away before it’s been fully fleshed out and signed, sealed and delivered, we—PR professionals—risk not only our reputations, but also those of our clients, and ultimately, the sustainability of their businesses.

Getting back to why it does still matter (some . . . some) who you know and how well you know them in the PR world; even with PR 2.0, which I consider myself a practitioner of, you still need to be sure you are certain a brand advocate is trustworthy enough to spread the correct news/announcement/messages to your company’s digital and social media audiences. After all, they (most likely) don’t have editors with a professional obligation to oversee the authenticity and accuracy of their work. (Let’s not get into the whole reporter versus blogger issue for now … different discussion for a different day.)

Ultimately, when push comes to shove in this business, and a client or your boss has asked you to spread the word about some big company news, it’s going to come down to who do you trust? Whether that’s a terrific industry blogger with a great, fervent following, or a mainstream reporter, we all have to make that decision based off our experience and how much risk we’re willing to take. But we shouldn’t be so quick to say we can always trust the brands’ fans and advocates. Would you trust your biggest personal news with your Twitter followers before it’s official?

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• 8 September 2010 : Judgment Day: Clients vs. Media
• 8 September 2010 : The C-level/Value Debate
• 7 September 2010 : SM 102: Social Media for (UNC) Jocks
• 6 September 2010 : It’s Labor Day people….
• 3 September 2010 : Industry Debate: The Value of Community Managers

Facebook Vs. Twitter. When I posted an update that I wouldn’t be around for forty days, friends insisted I give up Twitter instead. Of course these friends aren’t on Twitter. It’s easy folks. Facebook, IMO, ruins lives. The amount of drama that runs rampant through the walls (pun intended) of Facebook is ridiculous. I don’t need to see who’s marriage is now “complicated” or go through every photo of my current crush (you know you’ve done it). What about keeping in touch? The people who I want to keep in touch with know other means of doing so. My response forty days ago to my friends was: “FB is simply for creeping out people’s photos you haven’t seen in god knows how long. Twitter is for actually communicating with others. ”

Think about it. I realized I called people less because I didn’t need to ask them what was new in their lives. Facebook can tell me. However Twitter, on a daily basis, offers its community something that will benefit them. We read at least a dozen articles a day about our industry, news, or even something to make us laugh simply because our friend retweeted a link. Twitter allows our professional networks to grow ten fold. We’ve traveled the country to meet friends we never would have known if not for Twitter. In my opinion Twitter wins every time. Team Twitter.

Originally I fought tooth and nail against signing up for Twitter because at the time I didn’t see a need for it. I kept wondering, “Who is going to care what I have to say?”  Obviously I have changed my tune, and decided to just dive into the world of Twitter once I found my niche.  Still, I primarily use it solely for work.

Lately, however, my social media conundrum is with Foursquare. As a marketer, I know I should be using it; as a consumer, I just don’t care. I’ve heard a number of people wax poetic on the glory that is Foursquare – I mean my husband came home from SXSW with a Foursquare temporary tattoo, so you can only imagine our conversations.

Despite my numerous objections, Foursquare has been installed on my phone by my significant other; where it has sat untouched for the last two months. I just can’t muster up the excitement or curiosity to become a Foursquare user. Again as a marketer, I should technically get with the program, but I just don’t see the need for it in my daily life.

I mean why do I want people to know where I am at all hours of the day? The last thing I think about when I go to the grocery store is to pull out my phone, look for Pathmark, and check in.

Don’t get me wrong; I’m not arguing against the marketing potential of this geo location beast.  Believe me I realize there is a whole cult of Foursquare users out there, and I’m sure you are ready to tell me about all the great benefits below. That’s not my point.

I get what Foursquare does, why some people would enjoy it, and how marketers are starting to utilize it. Yet at the end of the day, I just don’t want to become a Foursquare consumer.  Here, I am merely using Foursquare as example. For you personally, your consumer vs. marketer challenge might be Facebook or Twitter.

For those of us that market through social media networks and platforms, is it a requirement that we also participate regularly as a user in all instances? Or, is it simply enough just to understand the overall potential, rather than become an active participator?

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• 8 September 2010 : Judgment Day: Clients vs. Media
• 8 September 2010 : The C-level/Value Debate
• 7 September 2010 : SM 102: Social Media for (UNC) Jocks
• 6 September 2010 : It’s Labor Day people….
• 3 September 2010 : Industry Debate: The Value of Community Managers