Guest Speaker: Mike Wagner
1. Blogging is a free sample of your brand.
2. Your creativity and unique point of view must be evident in your blog.
3. Everyone’s blog contains implicit and sometimes explicit invitations that
become your brand’s promise.
4. Empathy is what makes blogs useful, without it your blog brand is
useless.
5. Blogs are for the “pro-am” spirit of our times; do you have a “pro-am”
brand?
Thank you, Mike!
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Visit Mike’s blog, Own Your Own Brand, to catch a regular update on how to keep your brand on the right path. –ME “Liz” Strauss
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Let’s open the Q&A . . .
I’ll go first. Mike, what is the key to owning your own brand?
During the Virtual Conference today, you can take $100 off registration to SOBCon 07.
One key to owning your brand is courage. It is easier to copy and shrink from being different. Branding is for the brave!
Hi Mike!
Sometimes being different is more than difficult . . . sometimes it’s wrong. How do you know when you’ve done that?
Being different for difference sake is just being strange, weird, odd or self-centered.
A brand’s difference is balanced by its relevance.
You’ve crossed the line when your audience, readers or clients can’t find the value in what you are saying or offeirng.
I would add that I understand the temptation to be sensational just to break through the noise in our over-communicated marketplace. But “usefulness” is still the test of a brand’s authentic message.
So here’s a good one. What would call the brand of Successful-Blog?
Mike, if our brand is from our unique point of view, is it something that we should make a point to consciously put together, or is it better to let it flow out of our personality?
Liz, I think your blog displays a very intentional desire to build relationships utilizing your ability to generate creative means of doing that.
Today’s event is a great example of this brand difference and relevance in a beautiful balance of the two.
Hi Mike,
can you explain the term “pro-am” to me? Iôm not a native speaker so sorry for such a question.
What would interest me enormously is how you would see a brand like Supercool School! Is it authentic and brave for you or do you guyz think itôs a dumb-ass name ( I know itôs a self-centered question but I canôt resist 😉 )?
http://www.steliefti.com
Chris – great question. My answer is “yes”.
Some of us write or talk ourselves clear about what it is that forms our unique point of view.
Others use reflection to arrive at an intentional point of view.
And of course there are blends of both.
😆 My questions never seem to have easy answers. 🙂
I guess like many non-marketing folks I have trouble putting my finger on my own “brand”. My approach so far has been to just be myself. But I wonder if some more intentionality might be wise.
Steli – I borrow the term “pro-am” from the writings of Charles Leadbeater of the UK.
He writes about the emerging world of people who love (amour) their subject area and yet are serious and demanding (professional) all at the same time.
I think many bloggers exemplify this spirit!
You could Google “pro-am” and find a nice entry in Wikipedia.
Chris – the best questions are the ones that have no easy answers.
Your strength seems to be a willingness to act on what is real to you.
That’s great, don’t lose that.
The refinement of your brand likely will come the more you seek to communicate your unique offering to others.
There is magic in the doing!
Steli, Supercool School sounds interesting. That’s a good start. But brands are not limited to names. What you fill the name with, that is, what your brand does and demonstrates will make the name meaningful or not.
A name like Starbucks didn’t mean much until those folks filled that name with significance by the way they acted and did “coffee shop”.
Brand is something you demonstrate, not something you explain.
You’re a student of the classics. How has that helped you in your marketing career. Especially with branding?
Roger – learning Greek and Hebrew taught me English. That in itself was invaluable.
Plus, I had to learn how to move from an ancient language and mindset to contemporary idiom and mindset.
Crossing the bridge from one point of view to another is what marketing is often about.
That requires respect for how language is being used and empathy for those trying to understand one’s message.
🙂 I like your point of view ( probably because I share it)! Thank you for the explanation of pro-am…learned again something new. I will google it later! Bye folks! Lizz, it was a great event – lots of good stuff! Much power to all of you! Iôm out!
What’s been your biggest marketing (or branding) mistake? What did you learn from the experience?
Great to meet you Steli!!!
My biggest branding mistake came when I sought to imitate others.
When I was a pastor I was tempted to try and sound like preachers and teachers I admired. That was a mistake.
I also made this same mistake trying to imitate churches I admired.
‘Better sameness” won’t result in an authentic brand or a satisfying experience for you. At least, it didn’t for me.
I wrote a post last summer about Johnny Cash and how he “covered” a Nine Inch Nails song called “Hurt”.
That’s an example of refusing “better sameness” and imitation by allowing one’s unique vision and perspective color how you work.
Most business models are “oovers” of other business models.
You aren’t the first to have a coffee shop for example.
But you can do it your way with your fingerprints clearly on your coffee shop brand.
Opps – meant to type “covers” but you know what I mean.
Are there any products you refuse to do marketing on?
That’s a good question Roger.
There are products that don’t buid up society that I would not want to represent.
And that is the quick answer.
But I think there is more in that question than the obivious; will have to think more about it.
There are clients that don’t really want to have a brand. Who are OK with being a commodity. Or who are simply “knock offs” of an authentic brand.
Those are products and clients I wouldn’t want.
Mike, I missed your session, but I wanted to peek in. I relate to what you say about difference and courage. I sense you know that at the deepest level and often it comes with struggle.
You’ve got some great tips here. Thanks for a great session.
Thanks for the thoughtful ideas Mike, Your notion of empathy in all blogs intrigues me. I’d love to hear more.