Best of Brand Marketing Distilled – 09/30/2011

Best of Brand Marketing Distilled is our weekly distillation of the best of brand marketing and business intelligence. We hope the ideas and articles are fuel for your organization’s planning and success.

This week we offer four different pieces on social media: how social media can boost productivity, the value of real fans (vs. the fans of freebies), a short list of recent Facebook changes, and key considerations before embarking on a social media plan.

• Increase Your Company’s Productivity With Social Media

HBR looks at how Unisys is using social media to create a knowledge-sharing environment and summarizes 8 key elements to use social media within your business.  There is real value to be gained. The piece notes that “[k]nowledge workers spend anywhere from 15%-35% of each day just searching for the right information”.

• Why Fans Un-friend Your Brand on Facebook

Advertising Age has reported results of a Facebook fan survey. In the piece, the author points out that many brands boosted their fan numbers by offering free stuff to new fans.  Unfortunately, these fans were often not brand devotee, but simply fans of free stuff.  As a result, when the free stuff stopped, the “fans” disappeared.   The value of real social media fans remains high as customers trust recommendations from their friends.  However, to build a real relationship with consumers takes more than a one time giveaway, it requires the brand to be interesting, interested in and respectful of its customers and to develop the right rhythm for customer engagement.

• How Facebook’s Facelift Affects Your Business

Mikal Belicove provides a short list of the latest round of Facebook changes and posits how they may affect your business or brand, including:
(i) Comments on Pages can be made by any Facebook member, whether they “Like” the Page or not;
(ii) Status update character limit increasing to 5,000 from 420; and
(iii) The ability to export per post metrics for your Page.

• Increase your Sales efforts by implementing a Social Media plan

@VApartners blog piece consolidates important considerations when starting or managing any social media plan or strategy from the book How to Make Money with Social Media, including:
(i) Ensure you have the resources to both start and keep up your social media efforts;
(ii) Focus on using your expertise as a thought leader and to educate your audience; and
(iii) Measure both the quantity and quality of your social media efforts.

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This Week’s Top Distility Rebranding Branding Content

• Globe and Mail Features Toronto Branding Agency Distility

Distility was featured in a business strategy article in the Globe and Mail, Canada’s National Newspaper, on Thursday September 22, 2011, on the importance of differentiating your business.