People define Brand “Personality”

(photo taken at MarketingProf’s Digital Mixer – and yes, Amber will kill me for using this pic)

There is a term that I’ve been throwing around a lot lately – “becoming an unmasked brand”.   Basically, I’m referring to the process of putting real faces to the brands we know and love – the people that make up that real brand.  Like wearing a mask, for years brands have hidden behind an image that they’ve molded, painting on the expressions that are frozen for long periods of time, unable to react to the shifts in community happening on a daily basis.

It’s a known fact that people are attracted to faces of other people – we’re programmed that way.  It’s also well known that, when given a choice, people will generally work with people they like over people they don’t or don’t know as well.  Social media has also added something to these universal equations – the ability to crowd-source the process for uncovering the “real” in any situation.  Add this all up and you have a marketplace thirsting for their favorite brands to become “unmasked”.

So what are some of my favorite unmasked brands and more importantly who are the amazing people behind each of these “brand personalities”?

New Marketing Labs – passionate about social media, caring, responsive, helpful, witty, great sense of humor, leadership – Chris Brogan, Justin Levy & team

Wine Library TV – energy, passion, focus, you get what you see, would go out of its way to help someone, ardent Jets fan – Gary Vaynerchuk

Dell – leadership, great listener, community player, customer focused, accessible, team player, loves a great cowboy hat – Richard Binhammer, Lionel Menchaca, Sean McDonald, and the entire Dell outreach team.

Every Dot Connects – Friendly, caring, helpful, great Southern accent, wears a fantastic pink boa, big heart for charities – Connie Reece

The Viral Garden – Lending a hand, sharing, teacher, focused, great dry sense of humor – Mack Collier

Comcast – great sense of humor, workaholic , driven to help customers, hearty laugh, easy to hang around with, helpful, passionate – Frank Eliason and team

Embarq – a great listener, full of life, community supporter, lots of great smiles and a big hug, engaging – Zena Weist

Southwest Airlines – friendly, fun, lots of laughs and great sense of humor, great big hug, sharing, passionate about customers, cool ideas – Paula Berg

Blue Sky Factory – friendly, easy to hang with, focused on the customer, helpful, part of the community, great sense of humor – Greg Cangialosi

Convince & Convert – passionate, knowledgeable, high speed , ideas, quick wit, great sense of humor – Jason Baer

The Advance Guard – friendly, easy going, great photography, passionate about social media, great story teller, great laugh – CC Chapman

Harte Marketing & Communications – fun, great sense of humour, passionate about marketing, ideas, sharing, easy to get going – Beth Harte

Livingston Communications – Sharing, pulls no punches, great dry sense of humor, witty, great social media expertise, author – Geoff Livingston

Thornley Fallis – great planner, focused, wonderful storyteller, quick wit, sharing, community focused – Joe Thornley, Dave Fleet

MarketingProfs – funny, engaging, quick wit, passionate, knowledgeable, big fan of favorite authors & publishers – Ann Handley

Voce Communications – innovator, customer focused, giving back to the community, dry sense of humor, focused, easy to hang with – Josh Hallett and Mike Manuel

Shift Communications – also innovator, customer focused, giving back to the community, dry sense of humor, focused, easy to hang with – Todd Defren, Bob Collins, & Doug Haslam

And you know what I’ve discovered making this list?  I could go on adding to it for a long time.  I’m thinking of people like Donna Tocci, Pam Martin, Frank Martin, Bryan Person, Matt Dickman, Rohit Bhargava & John Bell, Bonin Bough, Adam Keats, Scott Monty, Ferg Devins, Marc Meyer, Chris Penn etc…  All of these people bring personality to the brands they represent and they do it well.

Who are your favorite unmasked brands?  Do you agree that brands need to “unmask” themselves?

February 18th, 2009 - Posted in social media | | 21 Comments

Newspapers don’t sell news to me

(Image credit – just.Luc via Flickr)

Well that’s not completely true.  Yes, I still scan my newspaper for local headlines, consuming a page typically in about 1-2 seconds per.  And occasionally I will stop on an article that is very relevant to me and read a little deeper.

What I’m getting at here?  Well, we live in a world where one can have any news delivered to a device of their choice, electronically and completely customized to their interests.  And I not only that but we can read unlimited amounts of our custom news if want to – the sky’s the limit.

So why then am I still paying $15 a month for a printed newspaper to be delivered to the end of my driveway – which, by the way, is quite inconvenient especially on cold, wintery days? Yes, that is correct – I’m paying money for news that’s 98% irrelevant, printed on paper I must take to a recycling facility, and delivered in a not-so-convenient manner.  Why on earth?

Here’s why.  My newspaper publisher is not selling me news – it’s selling me “15 minutes of me time.”  Yeah, like Haagen Dazs doesn’t sell ice cream and Philedelphia Cream Cheese doesn’t sell cream cheese.   When I pick up the paper and start reading it at the table eating a late dinner or when I browse through it in the leather chair on a Saturday morning everyone kinda knows to leave me in peace for awhile.  And if they forget and ask me to do something, well then I feel like I have an excuse for that 15 minutes and offer to do it right after.

Perhaps we should be calling them “mepapers.”

Anyone else have a similar view?

February 15th, 2009 - Posted in social media | | 4 Comments

Twitter – A Personalized “Birds of a Feather” Network

Twitter has a lot of great attributes however the one I love the best in the ability for every single person to build their own personalized “birds of a feather” network.  What am I talking about?  Well, Twitter has people from all walks of life, all ages, all types of careers, and all types of interests.  It is a mini version of the world mixture.  What I like about it is that by following people based on your own passions and business interests you basically build your own social network of like-minded people.  And chances are if you are focused on this type of approach and your Twitter bio reflects this then you will probably see the majority of these people you follow following you back.

Personally, my interests are centered around marketing, PR, WOM, advertising, enterprise software and community management.  Thus if you look at my 5600 followers and the people I follow the mix is mostly made of up people with these same interests.

Want a benefit from that approach?  Yesterday I tweeted three separate times asking if my followers were connected to me on Linkedin – and I gave my link there – http://www.linkedin.com/in/davidalston Actually I had never done this type of tweet before.  It was a bit of an experiment.

Now for some of you the thought of opening up your Linkedin connectivity so broadly would be a scary thing.

• What if I have nothing in common with those who want to connect?
• I don’t want to turn down any connections and be rude especially after asking this way.
• What if this opens up the floodgates forever and I can’t stop it?

All good points but here’s what happened.  Three tweets, each about 1-2 hours apart produced 50 Linkedin requests in total.  All of them were relevant to my interests, I didn’t even have to consider turning any down and with each tweet the requests came in for about 10-15 minutes and then stopped.  And the more wonderful effect was that I had a chance to speak with many new people in my “birds of a feather” network in a much deeper, richer way.

Have you built your own “birds of a feather” community on Twitter?  What other great benefits appear when you do this?

February 10th, 2009 - Posted in social media | | 3 Comments

A phone? An office? A meeting? Huh?

Ok is it just me or is “working” totally different than it was just 2 years ago.

What’s a phone?  The fact that my iPhone has a “phone application” amongst all of the other 50 apps probably says it all.  But seriously folks, who actually uses a phone anymore.  I just mentioned yesterday on UserFriendThinking, a BlogTalkRadio show with the Bizzuka guys, that I rarely use my phone on a typical business day.  In fact, I don’t even have a desk phone because the cell phone that I have rarely even gets a call.  So how do I communicate then?  Emails and lots of them (maybe 200-400 sent and received a day), tweets and DM’s, IM, Yams (on Yammer), text messages and posts/comments.  I expect it would take me 10 times the amount of time to do all of this on the phone.  Actually, probably closer to 100 times more.

(Image credit – manyfires via Flickr)

What’s an office?  What I’m referring to here is a typical cube or walled office with a door at the place that sends you a paycheck.  Firstly, I have neither at my “place of work”.  I also don’t typically “go to work” each day either.   I work where I happen to be and that can include home, a hotel room, an airport, a restaurant, my car or heck anywhere my iPhone works, on or off WIFI.  I create, collaborate, comment, and converse all electronically so really being tethered to a single location makes no sense to me.  In fact, I don’t generally even tell people daily where I am physically located anymore (so no more emails to coworkers saying I’m working from home) because I’m just as reachable regardless of where I am.  Heck, half a dozen of my iPhone apps share my GPS location anyway so if they really needed to know…

What’s a meeting?  I remember 20 years ago, when I started my first job, I spent hour after hour in walled rooms with a table and chairs discussing things and taking notes in “meetings”.  And all these appointments started and finished on the hour or half hour and expanded to fill in the time. I swear there were days when I would be in “meetings” all day long and it certainly didn’t feel all that productive.  Kinda depressing eh.  Today, I still have 1-2 meetings a week but often not in a room with a specified stop and start.  In fact, all of my exec colleagues and I at Radian6 share a big open space – we always have.  We are in a JIT (just-in-time) meeting environment.  Want a meeting?  Then ask for attention from the others for a minute or two (which can be difficult with all the distractions at times I admit) and discuss something, decide something, and go back to work implementing it.  Even when it comes to customer meetings 99.99% of these are done virtually using Gotomeeting/Readytalk etc..all via the web.

Personally now I can’t imagine doing it any other way.

So, has your “work” changed?

February 7th, 2009 - Posted in social media | | 4 Comments

Social media as the new alternative fuel

So, waiting in the dentist’s office this morning I caught a CBC Nature of Things show on the new hydrogen powered cars.  Then, when I cracked open my local paper’s business section I saw a great article on how BuildDirect has built its successful supplies business with social media at the core.  So a couple of synapses went off in the noggin’ and viola yet another analogy for y’all to chew on.

(image credit by heidiheidiheidi via Flickr)

I’m a big fan of social media as the primary alternate fuel to power a business.  Radian6 owes a lot to this fuel.  We have spent very little on traditional marketing fuel since the company began.  So, what are some of the attributes of this alternative business energy source that make it such a great choice.

Low Emissions – Yes, you just have to look at the amount of waste you’ll produce when using traditional marketing.  You burn through a lot in order to get maybe 1-3% engine response rate.  Social media is about directly building relationships with the community, avoiding the extra “eyeballs-to-interested” catalytic conversion with traditional marketing fuel, and producing much higher efficiencies.

Very high MPG – When your business has a remarkable product that resonates with its audience then it takes very little fuel to propel it forward.  It’s all about providing little boosts to get things going and to get up the hills.  Remarkably there will be times when you’ll think your vehicle is driving forward on its own.  And, amazingly, if you don’t have the perfect product the fuel will actually tell you what to tweak and improve on.  Try that with traditional marketing fuel.

Powerful & Responsive – Talk about 0 to 60 in seconds.  Social media fuel does not have a lot of additives between the cause and the effect.  Basically your vehicle connects directly with the community, with the right product & solid traction you can get immediate results and continue to accelerate.

Ah, but like hydrogen in today’s gasoline economy there are a few things you must overcome if you want the benefits.

Produce your own fuel – Yep, just like hydrogen there are very few stations you can pull into and get a fill up.  This of course will change over time as there are a number of agencies and specialty firms building reserves in this area of expertise.  Yes, social media fuel is not a commodity.  It takes an investment of time and people resources to produce the fuel that powers your business but, boy o boy, does that engine ever fly when it does.

Highly Explosive – This is the nastier side to the “Powerful” attribute above.  Yes, if you mishandle social media fuel or improperly use it it can blow up in your face.  Just remember, transport the fuel in “transparent” containers, use only “real ingredients” and constantly monitor for feedback.

So, are you ready to switch to the alternative?  Any other pros and cons of this new alternative fuel?

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February 7th, 2009 - Posted in analogy, social media, viral | | 2 Comments

Driving old school & ignoring the dashboard?

So I took my 2003 Civic Hybrid into the shop this morning because the indicators on the dashboard were lighting up like a Christmas tree.  It started with the DRL indicator, then came the SRS one, then Maintenance Required then yesterday, the engine light.  Ugh, this will no doubt mean money out of my pocket today.

But it got me thinking.  What if I just ignored the dashboard.  I mean, yes the indicators are on but the car sounds fine to me.  In the old days (yeah, when I drove a 1978 Delta 88 to university) there wasn’t a collage of sensors on the dashboard.  You just drove the car until, well, it broke down on the side of the road – and trust me I got more than my share of that back in “the old days”.  But today’s cars, especially hybrid versions, are fine-tuned machines with computer controls and lots of whirlygigs that make sure I brake to a stop faster, I don’t get as injured in a crash,  I get way better fuel mileage and so on.  Yes, I probably still could go it old school and drive like a cowboy of days gone by and ignore the dashboard, but at what cost?

What’s the cost of breaking down on the way to the airport and missing that flight to give a presentation on the other side of the country?  What’s the cost of an inefficient engine burning more expensive fuel?  What’s the cost of me flying through the windshield because my airbag system is turned off because of a malfunction or my ABS breaks are disengaged?  You get the picture.

So what’s the cost of a brand driving it “old school” in today’s high speed, quick to react, snowballing-crises-friendly,  twisty-turny social media world that we all live in today?  This isn’t the 1978 Delta 88 world of our youth.

What dashboard indicators should brands be paying more attention to today?

January 7th, 2009 - Posted in social media | | 8 Comments

The New ABC’s of Glengarry Glen Ross

Ok, everytime I watch this Youtube video of this classic Alec Baldwin scene from Glengarry Glen Ross it totally cracks me up.  It so epitomizes the old school view we have of how people sell.  It’s so, well, Herb Tarlic (remember WKRP).

In this scene Alec outlines the ABC’s as “Always Be Closing”.  If you’ve ever received an interuptive, annoying telemarketing call from someone who doesn’t listen to you saying “I DON’T WANT YOUR PRODUCT” then you know what the single focus on Alec’s ABC’s can feel like.

So what should it be.  Well, I started to think about how the new best practices of social media could be applied here.

How about:

• Always Be Conversing or
• Always Be Communicating
• Always Be Content-Creating
• Always Be Customer-focused
• Always Be Community-building

Any others you can think of that better describe what the ABC’s should be?

January 6th, 2009 - Posted in social media | | 9 Comments

Authors that are Accessible

In my many travels in the past year I’ve gotten to know a number of authors.  And thankfully they’ve all been a very accessible and friendly bunch.  Authors like Geoff Livingston, Brian Solis, Rohit Bhargava, Paul Gillin and others.  The majority of them are in the marketing, PR or social media fields so it’s apparent that they understand the value of positive word of mouth that comes about by being connected to their readers.

Case in point, Seth Godin always replies to any email I send him.  He always has and this has always impressed me.  Now generally it would be a two line response customized to the email topic that I shared with him but it is a response.  His latest book, Tribes, triggered a thought I wanted to share with him last night as I read along in the book.  I kicked off an email and by this morning I had a thoughtful response.

Same thing with author, Mark Hughes, of Buzzmarketing.  I enjoyed the book and related to a number of his principles and kicked off a quick email to him.  And this morning I had a nice email back from him.

What authors are you fans of and have they been as accessible?

January 5th, 2009 - Posted in social media | | 12 Comments

New Year’s Resolutions

So what are my new year’s resolutions?

1) Blog more.  Yes, guilty as charged in 2008.  But as Amber Naslund pointed out to me I don’t need to be writing a book each time I post.  It can be short and sweet.  And so they will be.  And don’t go looking for pictures with each post or lots of links because I’ve determined those are my mental blocks.  Once I start writing more then those will come back.

2) Read more.  And I’m off to a great start on that front.  I received Malcolm Gladwell’s new book, The Outliers, from my Dad for Christmas.  Great book and completed it over my vacation.  Then I got the bug and completed Buzzmarketing by Mark Hughes and am a third of the way through Seth Godin’s newest, Tribes.  Loving them all.  And I have a number of others lined up.

3) Work life balance.  This one is a common struggle for me.  This vacation break was great for me in that it reminded me of the pleasures of family I had been missing out on.  I know it’s going to be a tough one but I need to at least make it a goal.

So, what are your New Year’s Resolutions?

January 5th, 2009 - Posted in social media | | 0 Comments

Ok, I’ve been tagged…so here goes nothin’

Well, Scott Monty just tagged me to join the “7 things you may not know about me” meme thing morning – something that Aaron Strout started for many of us.  Now, normally it might have to take a backseat to the pile on my virtual desk but hey, this is my first day of vacation and I need an excuse not to shovel the driveway that’s currently under 3 foot snowdrifts.

So here goes nothin’

1)  I grew 10000 onions as a summer job.  Yup, I think I was 12 or 13 and wanted to make some money and living on a farm mention lots o land to utilize.  And they were live sets meaning it was  like planting blades of grass.  10000, 9999, 9998 to go…  And I think I made like $230 for the whole summer of planting, weeding, watering and harvesting.  Ah those were the days.

2) I have a secret fiddlehead patch.  Yah, most of you are saying, what’s a fiddlehead.  Well it’s a baby fern that grows on certain riverbanks in New Brunswick in the spring.  You pick them when they just sprout out of the ground and are all curled up (like the end of a fiddle or violin).  You steam them and eat them like asparagus.  Tasty.

3) I lived on my Commodore64 for an entire school year.  Most of you could probably deduct this from my interest in tech but yes, most of my grade 11 year was spent hacking on my C64, rewriting the interupts, changing up the operating system (you could write the ROM to RAM and do this), and writing programs in assembler and Basic.  What a geek.

4) I sang as a reindeer on the B side of a 45 – Ok, now that’s really dating me.  Yeah, not an MP3, or CD, or tape or 8 track, but a vinyl 45.  Yeah, my sisters and I did a lot of singing as kids and were asked to sing backup on Ray Olives’ Christmas single.  Well they liked the “kid” sound so much that they said we should just sing “Santa Whatcha Do to your Reindeer” without him on the B side.  My voice was changing and cracking up so I decided to sing the two reindeer bits.  Yeah, what does a reindeer sound like when it sings?  Well it sounds like me during puberty so let’s leave it at that.

5) I was the host of an improv comedy TV show – Ok, nothing you would have seen on the Comedy networks but it was fun, actually Funzai is more accurate.  It was a cross between the Iron Chef and Who’s Line and I was it’s whacky host.  We shot the season in 4 hot nights in the summer of ‘06 on a school stage.  Ran on local cable channel every day for a year.  Caaarazy!

6) I didn’t wear pants at my wedding – Ok, say what?  Yes, I got married in my kilt, with a knife in my sock and a hairy sporon holding my wallet.   My great grandfathers’ a MacPherson so I had a kilt made with the ancient MacPherson tartan.  It was a total  Scottish theme with Scottish Pine seedlings as the give aways (many are full grown trees now on the lawns of people who attended our wedding), to eating haggis if you wanted us to kiss, to the honeymoon in the Scottish Highlands.  Aiiiii laddy, it’s true.

7) I’m in big trouble now – yes while I delayed shoveling the driveway to write this my better half started to shovel the driveway instead.  Gulp, must go now and earn back points.  The doghouse would be extra cold outside tonight.

Now as for tagging 7 more people I’m going to cheat a bit and tag some folks that I’ve known for awhile and all New Brunswickers.

1)  Rob Mills

2) Marcel Lebrun

3) Chris Nadeau

4) Lisa Rousseau

5) Dan Martell

6) Adrianne Nadeau

7) Jeff Roach

December 22nd, 2008 - Posted in social media | | 6 Comments