10 Questions Brands Should Never Stop Asking Themselves

I really like this reminder by Marc Kramer, via Forbes: 10 questions that brands should never stop asking themselves – regardless of how “old” or established they are. Keeping these questions in mind ensures that the brand remains aware and agile in responding to the rapid, continual changes of the marketplace.

How To Measure Social Media ROI (via Mashable)

Following from my previous post, here is another great article via Mashable on how to go about measuring Social Media ROI. Enough Social Media BS!!!

Businessweek’s Bootstrapping a Start Up Resources

Businessweek has a great, comprehensive (17 pages and counting!?) list of resources to help entrepreneurs bootstrap their business start up. Click here for the list.

I’ll try to scour through it and see what gems I can dig up for those of us interesting in branding, marketing and communications for budding businesses. Check back in!

Here are a few to start with:

• 50 Bootstrap Marketing ideas for startups
• The Bootstrapped Marketing « Bootstrapper Handbook for Startups
• Marketing for Less: Cost Efficient Marketing Tactics in Tough Times
• Take Great Care in Establishing your Brand Identity
• Bootstrappers Bible

Chris Brogan on Taking Blogging/Social Media to the Next Level

Chris Brogan shares some 8 great insights here on how to leverage social media (in this context, he was talking about blogging):

5 Reasons Why Company Social Media Initiatives Fail

Via Social Media Today, here are five insights gleaned from the Inbound Marketing Summit on why companies fail in their social media initiatives:

1. They can’t talk about anything broader than their own products
2. They listen to customers but don’t take any action
3. They aren’t calibrated internally with the technology
4. They’re not framing risk accurately
5. Their internal culture isn’t aligned for social media success

Full article and insights here.

7+1 Free Or Cheap Effective Ways To Promote Your Brand Online

This is a really great resource by Dumb Little Man: 7 Free or Cheap Ways to Effectively Promote Your Business Online. I especially enjoy the fact that it provides brand and business owners tips on “where to start” as well as links to helpful resources. I’ll certainly be coming back to this resource again and again!

I highly recommend checking out all the great insights and tips on how to leverage:

6 Tips To A Better Business Blog

Here are 6 helpful tips to having a better business blog, “6 Tips for Customizing Your Small Business Blog” via Mashable:

1. Install some top blog plugins
   Concentrate on the kinds of plugins that focus on search engine optimization (SEO), making the blog load faster, and making it easy for others to share blog posts via email, Twitter (Twitter), and other social networks.
2. Integrate social media links and buttons
   Don’t be afraid to integrate Facebook (Facebook) and Twitter on a business blog. It’s a standard practice and will help drive new visitors to your blog. Social media buttons make it easy for customers to tweet out your work, while adding links to the company’s Twitter and YouTube (YouTube) accounts will help bolster their numbers and improve their ranking in search.
3. Focus on simple designs, not bells and whistles
   The focus of a blog should be on the content, not on widgets or sidebars or flashy designs. It’s better to have a very simple design template than a complex one if you want to convert readers into customers.
4. Do show effort in the design, though
   A corporate blog is also a chance to show off a human element of the company and to be creative. Just using the standard template is usually lazy and most readers will know it. Don’t be afraid to experiment.
5. Have your blog on your own web domain
   Most companies have their blogs at blog.companyurl.com. It’s generally considered unprofessional for a company to have a blog hosted on WordPress.com or Typepad (TypePad).com, so always have your blog somewhere on your company’s website.
6. Don’t hide your “about” information
   Assume that your average reader has never heard about your company. If you have that in mind, you want to be sure they can quickly find out more about you. Either have a paragraph at the top or on the side describing the company, or make the “About” page very prominent.

Business Leveraging Explained

I got this via email, which I normally dislike – but thought it would make a great illustration one day:

Here is the story of a father…

Father: I want you to marry a girl of my choice
Son: ‘I will choose my own bride!’
Father: ‘But the girl is Bill Gates’ daughter.’
Son: ‘Well, in that case… OK’

Next Father approaches Bill Gates.

Father: ‘I have a husband for your daughter.’
Bill Gates: ‘But my daughter is too young to marry!’
Father: ‘But this young man is a vice-president of the World Bank.’
Bill Gates: ‘Ah, in that case… OK’

Finally Father goes to see the president of the World Bank.

Father: ‘I have a young man to be recommended as a vice-president.’
President: ‘But I already have more vice- presidents than I need!’
Father: ‘But this young man is Bill Gates’s son-in-law.’
President: ‘Ah, in that case…OK’