What's Your Brand Story?

What's Your Brand Story?

I am totally convinced the best marketing today is rooted in the ability to deliver a compelling brand story. 

Current research reveals the best brand stories show - not tell - you understand your customer and their needs. You demonstrate relevance and genuine authenticity. Most of all, you deliver fresh, engaging and creative concepts that make an emotional connection with your customer. An uber-brand that quickly comes to mind is NIKE. I don't know about you but I think they are amazing storytellers! 

FACEBOOK recently implemented TIMELINE which is probably the biggest change to their platform to date and guess what .... it's all about users creating and sharing their stories.  Think about some of the most popular social media platforms....Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, PInterest...these tools are all designed to deliver a story.

Just the other day, I stumbled upon an interesting website www.publicwords.com I thought it was such a find that I really wanted to share it with all of you.   

This a resource rich website - video, podcasts, newsletters, photography and so forth. At the core is helping people tell their stories.

Remember - If you don't tell your story - someone else will!

Until next time,

Cathye Ross Amos

The Friday Focus - Facebook is King...for Now

When it comes to social media, the first thing that comes to mind for most is a given: Facebook. And rightly so!

Social media strategist firm Hasai has recently come out with this nifty infographic that essentially breaks the social media world down, from site memberships to number of employees to the leading competitors for today’s top names, and Facebook currently occupies the social media kingdom’s throne.

Facebook has 850 million members across the globe and over 3,000 employees! The powerhouse up-and-coming social network Pinterest has only 10.4 million registered users and a staff of 37. Yes, 37. And despite Thursday’s trending Twitter topic “RIP Facebook,” the social media giant Facebook brings in $3.7 billion in revenue compared to Twitter’s $522 million.

Just last summer the media was buzzing about what seemed to be the “next big thing” in social media and what would become Facebook’s leading competitor: Google+. But only months after its unveiling, even Google’s social networking site seemed to fade into social media oblivion.

Now, Facebook isn’t exactly in the same arena as the other sites featured in the infographic.  For instance, Pinterest has very little to do with reconnecting with family or friends. And you don’t post status updates telling the world all about your latest dog-walking experience or your disdain for that jerk who cut you off on the highway (both of which I’m sure everyone finds extremely riveting).

Some sites are much more niche, like how Spotify and Foursquare deal specifically with music and local deals (respectively), unlike Facebook with its photo/video sharing, event planning, location tagging, gaming and chat capabilities.

On another note, other sites that could prove relatively decent competitors such as Club Penguin, Disney’s social network for kids, might be next on Facebook’s chopping block. Club Penguin actually has more members than Pinterest, Spotify and Foursquare combined! But be forewarned, Disney: Facebook’s partnership with Zynga, the social network game development company best known for FarmVille and Words with Friends, could easily prove fatal, drawing the younger demographic currently boosting Club Penguin’s membership toward the ever-increasingly popular Facebook. 

Plus, if Facebook goes through with its attempt to throw out its current age 13+ account requirement, the combination of Zynga’s vast array of gaming options could be a literal game changer, wiping Club Penguin off the map.

And don’t think Facebook doesn’t know how important Zynga is to its membership—the gaming developer accounted for a whopping 19% of the social network’s revenue and received the majority of Facebook’s $1.4 billion payout to app developers in 2011. Even with the launch of Zynga.com, new games are still being debuted on Facebook instead (under an agreement set to expire in May 2015).

So there you have it, yet another article detailing Facebook’s perfection of the social media world. But with the growing skepticism surrounding Facebook’s recent stock market debut, we’ll have to keep our eyes peeled to see if the network can keep its crown.

Until next time!

MARA JOFFE

Blogger

Sources:

http://marketday.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/05/16/11719029-zynga-is-one-of-facebooks-most-important-friends?lite

http://www.theverge.com/2012/3/6/2848094/facebook-app-developers-zynga-1-4-billion

http://mashable.com/2012/06/01/social-media-ranking/

The Friday Focus - Bursting the Privacy Bubble

In a generation where even our children and pets have a Facebook or Twitter account, many critics are expressing concern over how much damage social media is doing to privacy.


Social media has no doubt taken the world by storm, and even I have posted the occasional picture of a cute baby cousin or—might I brag—adorable pet fish.

But moving away from the pet aspect of it all, there seems to be a pretty big controversy brewing over the ethics associated with flaunting our family photos for literally the globe to see.

Sites like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and now 23snaps (Check out this article on 23snaps to learn more.)—a site geared specifically toward sharing your children’s photos, videos, and other information—make controlling children, whether they be infants or teens, and their privacy as simple as clicking a mouse.

I mean, who’s 6-month-old is going to object to having their chubby-cheeked face plastered all over the Internet?  And who’s 5-year-old is going to have any idea that mommy posted that video of him skinny-dipping in the kiddy pool to YouTube?

The kids may not be crying foul (yet), but the argument at hand is that because of this “Facebook parenting” style, these children have already lost control of how the world views them—and how they view the world.  It isn’t just their privacy that’s been thrown out the window; their first impressions have already been made by their well-intentioned parents, and these youngsters are quickly taught that advertising their likenesses and information all across the Web is the norm.

Now to be fair, this could easily become commonplace in this day and age—if it hasn’t already.  After all, the social media explosion has come in the midst of a generation known for its “helicopter parenting,” where kids are kept on leashes and the comedy “Bubble Boy” is ultimately brought to life—and then some.

With some parents at the helm of their children’s academic, career, and even social lives, who’s to say mom and dad are out of line for innocently adding an album to Facebook that chronicles their child’s everyday life?

Regardless, the next 10-20 years will give us a better idea of just how detrimental social media has been to our children’s privacy and overall sense of self.  Needless to say, I’ll be thinking twice before I post ANYTHING online again!

MARA JOFFE

Blogger