Brand seems to be the hot term right now with every agency claiming to be experts on the subject. When you start a conversation with someone one the topic of brand, invariably their minds and speak jumps to logos, taglines and promotion. Thoughts immediately go to the tactical side of things. This is true for not only for people and organizations thinking about their brand, but also with the majority of agencies seeking to do some “brand” work.

So, in the spirit of clarity, here are six important things to remember about brand and brand development:

1. A brand is a claim of distinction supported by evidence… by proof. Anyone can make claims. Proving your distinction is another thing all together.
2. Brand is essential to building, sustaining and growing a successful organization. It is your most valuable asset. Look at Coca Cola. Over time the people in the organization come and go. Physical assets change and move on. But Coca Cola could never loose the brand identity and positioning that drives the company and its sustained profitability. Their brand represents over 60% of their company’s value.
3. Brand is as much of an internal thing as it is an external. It is about operationalizing your brand distinction throughout the entire organization. It is about aligning your company’s business model with its brand strategy and building a brand driven culture.
4. Managing your distinction through every critical interaction and touchpoint that your customers and stakeholders have with your brand is critical. These touchpoints must be controlled based upon what your brand promise stands for. You sure don’t want them managing themselves.
5. Brand development comes first, before branding. This is the critical difference. Brand development is the strategic development of your compelling distinction backed by evidence. Branding is the tactical promotion and communication of that distinction.
6. Brand development is a CEO/President/Owner thing. It must be top-down driven. Branding becomes primarily a marketing initiative.

So, if you are facing some brand issues and initiatives. Remember to first focus on brand development before you go skipping down the branding yellow brick road.

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Want to hear more about how to develop your brand? Let’s start a conversation here, or you can contact me directly.

Top Ten again? As my friends “up nort” would say: ya you bettcha!

These lists in themselves may not look like much, but with 18-34 year olds spending 4.3 times more on social media vs. TV radio, newspapers, magazines and books combined, you may want to think about how you’re reaching those you’re trying to influence.

Today it’s about YouTube, #4 Largest Site on the Internet

1. The very first video upload on YouTube was on April 23rd, 2005
2. About 14 months after the launch, more than 65,000 videos were being uploaded every day.
3. People are watching 2 billion videos a day on YouTube and uploading hundreds of thousands of videos daily.
4. Every minute, 24 hours of video is uploaded to YouTube.
5. American users account for about 70% of Youtube users.
6. Over half of it’s users are under 20 years old.
7. Fifty-one percent of our users go to YouTube weekly or more often.
8. 52 percent of 18-34 year-olds share videos often with friends and colleagues.
9. Users are evenly divided between males and females, and spanning all geographies.
10. You would need to live for a thousand years to watch all the videos currently on YouTube.
11. (Bonus!) 77% of users coming to youtube come intending to watch one video but end up watching several.

With adults spending 15+ hours a week on the internet, Youtube has become huge in it’s influence on our culture.

Remember, social media is much more about listening than talking at people. (Too preachy?)

Can you put with confidence the word “only” into your organization’s one line elevator speech – that critical sentence (or two) that communicates the – why you versus the other guys?

Are you able to back up that “only” promise of uniqueness with real evidence when put to the test?

Your company’s critical brand distinction is underpinned by the validity of your unique and competitive distinctions – your “onlys” if you will. Without them you run the risk of falling into commodity hell, constantly battling price wars and of never being able to truly own your competitive category.

And, owning your competitive category is a huge advantage in your race for sustained profitable growth.

Are you perceiving that you have already identified your unique value propositions (UVPs)? Maybe you are taking your mission and/or vision statements as your written promises of distinction. When one injects the word “only” into the company’s promise statements and when the organization recognizes that its claim(s) must be provable, then often times these mission and vision statements don’t pass the unique and the prove it litmus tests. Unearthing your organization’s distinction then becomes a much tougher proposition.

Taking a closer and candid look, you will most likely find that others in your competitive field are claiming the same or similar value propositions as you are, whether it be superior quality, the best service, or a friendly/caring staff. You are then confronted with the reality that your targeted audiences could be seeing and hearing sameness rather than uniqueness. You are also confronted with the realization that you will now have to take your brand development work to a deeper and more comprehensive level in order to unearth your true distinction backed by evidence.

Want to hear more about how to uncover your brand distinction? Let’s start a conversation here, or you can contact me directly.

I thought I would give just a quick snapshot of some interesting facts you might not know about this fast growing social media phenomenon.

1. Currently about 110 million users of Twitter’s services.

2. Twitter gets more than 300,000 new users every day.

3.  75%  of Twitter’s users use third-party apps for access not it’s web platform.

4. Twitter receives 180 million unique visits each month.

5. There are more than 600 million searches on Twitter every day.

6. Twitter started as a simple SMS-text service.

7. Over 60% of Twitter use is outside the U.S.

8. There are more than 50,000 third-party apps for Twitter.

9. The Library of Congress has access to all tweets on Twitter as a donation by Twitter for research and preservation.

10. Twitter is accessed by more than a third of users via their mobile phone.

Do you tweet?

I am sure by now you have seen the recent announcement that Facebook has reached 500 million users worldwide, 150 million stateside. According to Facebook’s CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, the mission of this social media powerhouse is to help make the world more open and connected. They are certainly on their way.

We pulled together a few more gems that will impress you:

• Those 18 – 34 spend 4.3 times more time on social media vs. TV, radio, newspapers, magazines & books COMBINED.
• 34% of women 18 – 34 check Facebook FIRST THING in the a.m.

The Neilsen Company found that Americans are spending nearly a quarter of their time online on social networking sites – this is a 43% increase from just a year ago. To put this in perspective, the closest competitor was online games at 10.2%. E-mail trailed behind at only 8.3% and it is losing steam. Obviously the social networking trend is continuing upward.

So how do you use this for your business? We have a couple thoughts:

#1 – get engaged with Facebook.
Create a profile page for your company and update it at least 3 times a week. Add a link to Facebook on your e-mail signature and politely suggest that your clients, friends and family all “like” your page. Your posts can be commentary on topics such as industry trends, shout outs to employees who do a great job, and customer success stories.

Learn a little more about Facebook advertising. It is an effective, affordable tool to target very specific audiences. It is amazing how much you can drill down. Plus, you can monitor and track the success of your campaign on a daily basis. You really have nothing to lose.

#2 – join LinkedIn.

There are professional groups that you can join in addition to starting your own network of connections. Not only can you learn more about social media, you can learn more about your industry while sharing your own expertise.

#3 – do a little investigating.

Benchmarking is a great way to judge the landscape. What is your competition doing online? Do they have a Facebook or Twitter account? Also, talk to those in the know – twenty-somethings – and don’t be afraid to ask questions. Reverse mentoring is a great thing when it comes to the latest in technology.

#4 – okay, you knew this one was coming. Contact Catalyst!
We are here to help clients build their knowledge and their business through social media. Whether you are looking for baby steps or a full-fledged digital campaign, we would love to be a resource for you.