Posts in October 2009
Excepting those living in caves and, perhaps, the cryogenically frozen, everyone knows the following Web 2.0 facts:
● Social networking is changing the face of the Internet.
● No site has done more to bring about this change than Facebook.
Smart banks are embracing Facebook as another channel not just for branding, but also in order to transform mere customers into rabid brand advocates.
A recent article in ABA Bank Marketing (“Showing Your Face on Facebook,” September 2009) magazine spelled out how any financial institution can put a best face forward on Facebook.
For banks, a “business page” is the most common way to make a social media debut. Every day more than 8 million Facebook users become business page fans. (A small beverage concern here in our hometown – Coca-Cola – has more than 3.3 million “fans.”)
As with all branding strategies, it’s important to have a strategy:
● Establish content/messaging issues before you start.
● Determine who page administrators will be, and from there commit to freshening your page often, if not daily. (Only Wonder Bread gets stale more quickly than Facebook fan page content.)
Here’s the best part. All of these “become-a-fan” decisions are transmitted across any user’s network. If a new fan is a recent college graduate with more than 1,000 friends – which can be common – your bank achieves some major digital word of mouth.
And CFOs have little to quibble about. After all, this is a low (no?)-cost way to reach a targeted (if not younger) demographic.
What are you waiting for? Create your business page! (And while you’re at it, become a Mindpower fan! We’ve always got something fun to say to our friends …)
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Posted by Jack Stenger on October 28, 2009 at 10:27 am
Filed under: Brain Candy for Wealth, Branding
Tags: bank marketing, Facebook, social networking
This Philadelphia Inquirer headline caught my eye this week: “Putting a price on Wharton’s prestige.” The story concerns a man who sued the University of Pennsylvania. Why? His graduate program, a joint effort of Penn’s engineering school and its Wharton School, gave him a management degree from the engineering school and a “certificate of completion” from Wharton. He wanted – and thought he was earning – the degree from Wharton, one of the top business schools in the country. He cried foul, and last week, a federal court awarded him nearly half a million dollars.
According to the article, Frank Reynolds, the business exec at the center of this, “said simply attending classes at the Wharton School had quickly proved its worth.” So, he got the education he wanted, but not the brand name he thought would come with it.
It seems to be, for him, a case of the packaging not being as good as what it contains. This happens all the time – heck, helping institutions better communicate who they are (so that their outside matches their inside) is what we do here at Mindpower.
We talk quite a bit, with our clients and among ourselves, about a brand being a promise. You have to be clear about what you’re promising, and then deliver it. And that promise, that brand has a value. In our consumer-driven society, some brands are “better” than others – the name on the label matters.
Was Reynolds right to sue because the name on his label wasn’t Wharton?
Does the name on the diploma matter more than the sum of the experiences you had earning it – the things you learned, the people you learned with and from?
What do you think? Is this a case of label-consciousness taken to the extreme, or just wanting to receive what you think you’re paying for?
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Posted by Kelly Rusk on October 19, 2009 at 8:35 am
Filed under: Brain Candy for Wisdom, Branding
Tags: Penn, Wharton
The vast majority of professionals worldwide are using social technologies for business purposes, according to an August 2009 survey by Mzinga and Babson Executive Education, but most are not measuring return on their investment.
Determining the success of your social media efforts can be a big investment in and of itself, but there are a few basic measures that cost next-to-nothing. Here are a few:
- Track the growth of your various social media channels
- Record your unique blog page views
- Count the number of Twitter followers
- Watch Facebook Fan Page interactions
- Track unique website visitors
- Analyze traffic generated by SEO, Facebook events, Twitter promotions, etc.
- Track leads and monitor leads by source (inbound web, email, trade shows, seminars, etc.)
Start there. While some of these measures won’t necessarily translate into a hard-core ROI or measure the business value generated, you’ll at least be doing something. You can’t manage what you don’t measure.
What measures are you using?
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Posted by Donna Bowling on October 8, 2009 at 4:11 pm
Filed under: Brain Candy for Health, Brain Candy for Wealth, Brain Candy for Wisdom, Ramblings
Tags: Measurement, ROI, social media
Your marketing investment should do at least one of four things:
- Create awareness of your brand and its offering(s)
- Change perceptions of your brand in ways that will encourage someone to choose your brand
- Give incentives for someone to “buy” more of what you’re offering or choose your offering more frequently
- Make your brand more available and more accessible
So, how are you doing?
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Posted by Donna Bowling on October 6, 2009 at 9:14 am
Filed under: Brain Candy for Health, Brain Candy for Wealth, Brain Candy for Wisdom, Branding
Tags: marketing investment
Please be kidding.
Don’t get me wrong. Throughout the whole MIke Vick controversy, I’ve ticked off plenty of people with my “he’s paid his debt to society, so let’s give him a chance — the same way we gave Teddy Kennedy a second chance after Chappaquidick.”
I’m not “all that” opposed to Mike being back in the NFL. But getting an endorsement deal? Are you kidding? One of the world’s biggest, most respected brands is re-signing Mike Vick?
Here’s one quote from the AP’s story about the re-signing. “It is quite evident that athletes that run afoul of the law are by no means relegated to obscurity when it comes to pitching products,” said David Carter, a professor of sports marketing at the University of Southern California. To Carter, Nike likely made a calculated business decision that the benefit of sales tied to Vick outweighed any potential public outrage.
Are you kidding? So this is about money, huh? Not brand values. Not what NIke stands for as a company. Not about the millions of kids who believe that the Nike brand is right up there with Jesus?
Vick’s primary agent, Joel Segal, confirmed the deal in a statement to Sports Business Daily: “Mike has had a great relationship with Nike and is excited to be part of the Nike team again. He has always been a fan of the brand and looks forward to the relationship,” Mr. Segal said. [Whatever! Mike. I suppose you ARE excited.]
Will Dick’s Sporting Goods cave next? Not too long ago, MyFoxPhilly ran an article announcing Dick’s wouldn’t be stocking or selling Vick’s No. 7 Eagle’s jersey. A spokesperson for the sporting goods retailer said the chain wouldn’t carry the Vick jerseys until it evaluated the reaction of Eagle fans.
I’m glad to say I bought a pair of Asics a week or so ago.
Am I wrong to be so disappointed?
P.S. Tiger, Roger, MJ, Serena — how does it feel to be on the same team?
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Posted by Donna Bowling on October 1, 2009 at 7:24 am
Filed under: Ramblings, What were they thinking?
Tags: Dick' Sporting Goods, Michael Vick, Nike
