Your Digital Reputation – Where Personal Meets Professional

I recently read an article by PEW researchers on managing your online identity that got me thinking about what I share with the people in my online world. The article reported that, contrary to the conventional wisdom of Baby Boomers in business, young adults are most likely to customize what they share and who they share it with – meaning not only who they allow into their network but what types of content they have associated with their profile. As a user of several social networking sites, I use each of these to show various dimensions of my personality, both personally and professionally.

But the question that is on both the minds of people and the organizations they work for – where are the boundaries between personal and professional? How does the information shared define the person as an individual, as part of a greater community, or as part of the organization they work for or contribute to?

For starters, people generally choose one of following approaches when managing the information they publish online:

1. Carefree – Choosing to share in an uncensored/monitored way
2. Thoughtful – Choosing to share relevant or targeted information
3. Guarded – Choosing to withhold or remove information
4. Uninvolved – Choosing not to participate at all or very minimally

When considering the impact of these individual choices on an organization, this brings greater transparency and reality to word-of-mouth marketing. Because most users include a place of employment as part of their profile, another layer of complexity is added because the employee becomes a representative of the company brand. As online networking continues to emerge, organizations will chose to embrace the idea, avoid or maybe even forbid it all together because of the speed and reach of social media. A word of warning to employers: Eliminating this channel will not stop the conversation from taking place. People – employees and customers – will talk about your brand regardless.

Whatever your online approach in the social media world, or through any other channel, organizations should be encouraging positive, open communication about their brand altogether. To benchmark, Xerox made their Social Media Guidelines publically available on their corporate website. What I found most interesting about them is that they have several overarching principles to promote “responsible engagement.” They also go on to give a description of the various channels, and best practices to keep in mind when contributing to the conversations in each. “Emerging online collaboration platforms are changing the way companies work and engage with each other, customers and partners. Individual interactions represent a new model, not mass communications, but masses of communicators.”

Though social media may not fit neatly into one company policy, my overarching principle is to act online as if I would in person – and at work. Listen, learn, converse and be respectful. In this time of an “identity crisis” where the lines are blurred between work space, home or play through our online environments, NY Times author, Jeffrey Rosen, reminds us through his unique perspective that “we have the ability to control our identities and to preserve the option of reinventing ourselves.”

Versant Recognized for Health Care Communications

Versant has a history of excellence in health care communications. The Medingo Solo Demo Kit was awarded the 2010 Gold Aster award, honoring excellence in medical marketing. “With the product demo kit, brochures, PR and booth graphics, Medingo definitely made our mark. We couldn’t have done it without Versant’s constant diligence and communication, tremendous creative and PR team. It has been a joy to work with them and nice to have peace of mind knowing they will always get the job done.” Kim Stebbings, EVP Marketing & Sales, Medingo. See what else Kim says about working with Versant and more on our other award-winning work in health care.

Social Media - Back To The Basics

Social media is fun. Social media is effective. Social media is here to stay.

As businesses engage in social media, they run the risk of forgetting about the fundamentals of building relationships through effective marketing communications. Is there too much emphasis on message frequency and constant banter and not enough of a focus on the foundational building blocks that got us here?

Trust, customer relationships, emotion, listening, authenticity – these should be the pillars of an effective marketing communications initiative. These are the traits that create brand loyalty. As much as social media has transformed, and will continue to transform, the way we communicate, the fundamentals of marketing become even more important.

Pete Blackshaw, of Nielson Online Digital Strategic Services, further discusses the idea of basics in social media communication in his recent blog. Social media is one tool in the marketing communications toolbox. This tool only works if we develop it using deeper, more established marketing truths; not fleeting campaigns or one-trick ponies.

Use all of your tools but use them properly or risk putting together a structure destined to fall apart.

Your Brand Is What Your Customers Say It Is

It’s exciting to be part of a multimedia campaign that impacts both internal and external stakeholders. A campaign that is relevant and moves product. A campaign that is all about the customer. The recently launched campaign for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and JS Online is one of those campaigns. It is a partnership between our firm and our client organization featuring a promotion that is attracting new and past subscribers. Presented first at an all employee kick-off event, the campaign has created positive buzz and engagement throughout the organization. Launched to the public on February 12, initial results from target external audiences has been quite positive.

So Now You Know, but don’t take my word for it – hear it from our client Elizabeth Brenner.

Check out the entire campaign and learn more about the 5 for $5 promotion, "Now You Know."

Bye Bye Birdie? Not Anytime Soon for Twitter

Amidst all the chatter, people want to matter.

As a self-proclaimed social media "junkie," it's embarrassing to admit that, at one point, I thought Twitter was completely useless. When I first learned about Twitter, I thought it was merely an abbreviated version of the Facebook status update. I mean, who really cares what someone is having for dinner, how much they spent on a pair of shoes, or on what side of Jon vs. Kate they fall, right? Wrong. At least I was.

Being open minded enough to give Twitter a chance, I have learned that it is more than just a lame "what are you doing" update mechanism, but rather, a real-time, interactive sharing resource. I can honestly tell you that I have learned so much via Twitter and have actually befriended several of my "followers." On several occasions, I have even heard breaking news via Twitter. I've mastered the language of "tweople" (people), "tweeps" (peeps), "twamily" (family), etc. and I've found my fit in this space.

Twitter is here to stay – well, at least for now, and for as long as you can expect a social media tool to live. If, for some reason, Twitter is not around in the near future, it won’t be because it did not work or add value; it will be because something better came along – something with additional features or a better application built on what Twitter already started. So, my advice? Jump in and learn.

People and businesses are realizing the benefits of this real-time interactive network, and they're making the most of it. What's in it for you? Twitter provides the user with as much or as little as they desire. I, for example, have separate Twitter accounts for my professional life and my personal life. I follow different people for different reasons. Users elect to follow people with whom they want to interact, be entertained or share information. Users are able to "unfollow" people easily if their tweets are no longer relevant. It's that simple and that easy. It's also really engaging once you learn how to use it.

Beyond the social aspect, there are so many business opportunities provided by Twitter. I work for a marketing communications firm. Every day, we help companies navigate the world of social media. For businesses, Twitter provides yet another outlet to communicate messaging such as job opportunities, news, sales, products, services and more.

How do you matter among the chatter? You post timely and relevant content. You take the time to build a network of followers. You follow engaging people. You play in the space and learn as you go. As a personal user, I encourage you to give it a try. For businesses, I recommend learning how to maximize this opportunity. In either scenario, if you don't like it at first, stick with it. I promise you it has more to offer than you can possibly imagine.

Starting Down the Social Media Path

At Versant, our sense is that the tide has finally changed and more businesses now are recognizing the extent to which their competitors are already involved and gaining traction in social media. Considering the seemingly constant attention social media draws, it is not surprising that many businesses are worried about missing their opportunities to leverage social media before it is too crowded to make an impact.

Often the anxiety we sense from these organizations is rooted in the simple fact that their leadership and decision makers, on a personal level, have never actually participated in any social media channel (except for maybe LinkedIn). So without ever setting up a Facebook profile, how will they understand how a Facebook fan page works? Without ever setting up a Twitter account, how will they understand the etiquette of retweeting?

Now this is not a problem that needs to be purely solved before their businesses can become active in social media, but it does highlight the amount of learning that often needs to occur before many organizations are willing to invest the time to make their efforts worthwhile.

Given this, below are a couple resources that Versant recently created as part of our inSHORT Learning series that are related to helping organizations gain a better understanding of social media marketing:

Twitter as a Marketing Tool 

At its core, successful marketing is all about developing relationships, and Twitter is a simple tool to help expand and build those relationships. This episode of inSHORT Learning provides a review of Twitter and how it can be used as a marketing tool. 

Monitoring Your Brand Online

What are people saying about your brand online? How can you keep track of what your competitors are doing online? This episode of inSHORT Learning reviews a few online tools that are great starting points to help you monitor a brand’s online presence.

Feel free to leave a comment or connect with us on Twitter to share your learning experiences of marketing through social media.

- Korre Johnson

Your People Are Your Brand

We’ve all heard it a thousand times, but it’s something we can’t hear enough — employees are the most important part of an organization’s brand. They are the face, the voice and the living, breathing purveyors of a company’s message.

A company can spend millions of dollars on advertising to create top-of-mind awareness, build the world’s greatest Web site and promise to offer the best products known to man, but if the employees don’t deliver on the promise made in the advertising, the brand is doomed.

Here’s an example: I was recently at my now former favorite sub restaurant that I initially visited because of their very creative, high-quality advertising. They do a nice job of creating top-of-mind awareness and promoting a quality product. As I was ordering I noticed a fly on the bread. Now, I realize that the occasional fly is going to find their way in and land in a not-so-appetizing spot. No big deal, a fly can’t eat much anyway. What turned me off was the employee’s response to the fact that I had noticed the fly. When I asked if I could have new, non-fly infested bread, she gave me a frustrated look and said, “What’s the big deal. It’s just a fly?” True, it was just a fly, but the combination of the harmless insect and the not-so-harmless attitude made me instantly lose my appetite. I told her I wasn’t hungry anymore and walked away.

This one person has tainted my view of this very large corporation. If she only knew the power she had. Now, I take my hankering for subs to the friendlier place down the street.

Luckily for the consumer, for every negative experience there are usually several positive ones.

Another example comes from when I recently purchased a new car. The sales person was extremely helpful, not pushy and listened to my needs. I drove away from that dealership confident that I had made the right decision. Not only did this employee leave a positive impression of his dealership’s brand, he also effectively communicated the brand of the vehicle manufacturer. I now recommend this dealership to friends and colleagues and sing the praises of my new Mazda. It’s a job well done by a living, breathing purveyor of his company’s brand.

The moral of this blog is that employees are the most effective, essential communicators of your brand. Make sure your internal brand is as strong as your consumer brand and that employees understand and are aligned to both. Once you have that, you can incorporate them into your marketing campaigns. Put them on the radio, show their faces and bring your Web site to life with video testimonials that tell their compelling stories. Share the human side of your brand. Who better to deliver a message than someone who lives it and believes in it?

The Facility Brand as Advertising Medium

For years we have helped clients make a compelling visual impact within their facility – making an indelible first impression on customers and communicating the employer brand promise to employees and prospective employees. We’ve done this with strong visual design, strategic placement of photography, company awards, customer testimonials, and the company’s brand voice and mission. It is only recently that we’ve termed this facility branding.

Facility branding brings an organization’s mission, vision and values to life through the design and organization of physical space. It’s advertising the brand in a medium often overlooked. We’re learning through our own experience and our experience with clients that this helps employees provide positive customer experiences, assures customers that you are who you say you are, and makes the best possible impression when recruiting the top talent in your industry.

Using some “blue ocean” thinking, we’ve joined with one of our clients, an award-winning architectural firm, Plunkett Raysich Architects, to deliver the full complement of facility branding recommendations – the branding and communications component as well as the space design component. We’ve learned that it takes both areas of expertise to deliver an effective facility brand.

Organizational psychologist Dr. George Graham states that research supports the concept of improving the work environment as the first step that must occur before levels of employee motivation and passion can be raised. Facility branding can dramatically communicate the organization’s mission, vision and values, and convey that the organization cares.

Recently, we co-presented a workshop on facility branding with Plunkett Raysich, bringing our teams together to share our learning with some key members of the Milwaukee business community. It was exciting to bring facility branding to life for this highly respected group and a powerful experience for us working with one of our clients as an alliance partner.

Experiencing the Brand

I recently had the opportunity to tour the headquarters of my favorite ice cream producer - Ben and Jerry’s. This visit allowed me to realize my childhood dream of watching the birth and packaging of ice cream. It was beautiful. I took the factory tour, sampled some Cherry Garcia, visited the gift shop and walked through the flavor graveyard. As you can see from this picture, it was a lot of fun (I am Jerry on the right).

But what is it about Ben and Jerry’s that would motivate a grown man to pose for pictures like this? Simply put, their brand. If you know anything beyond their flavors of ice cream, you know about Ben and Jerry’s dedication to corporate, social and environmental responsibility. They’ve made this commitment the foundation of their brand.

This commitment is reinforced to consumers through their employees, signage, packaging, advertising, Web site, etc. And best of all, it is authentic. And that’s why it works. Although this company has a rather traditional product, they’ve been successful in building a truly unique brand. Ben and Jerry’s have turned their brand into something larger than just ice cream, something that makes you feel good with every bite.

- Korre Johnson