My grandfather was a Mad Man – working in advertising and marketing from the 60s to the 80s for a series of companies. (He eventually wound up a Sr. VP of Marketing at Doskocil Foods moving armies of pepperoni.) I remember being a wee lass when he said “When times get tough for a company, marketing’s always the first thing they cut. It should be the last.”

His point was that, to many, marketing seems almost optional; it is intangible – not a product ingredient, nor a transportation method, nor a storefront. And even worse for the line item: it’s unmeasurable.

Well, it was until the Internet. Thanks to Google Analytics, we had the illusion we could measure our marketing efforts – and in some channels (PPC), this is still possible. And yet, what about the myriad touches made between consumer and product/service before the checkbook’s opened? The awareness. The affinity. The perceived value. The brand.

In a world with practically limitless purchase options, brand is everything.

Brand: The sum of insignificant* things

*Seemingly

To my mind, brand is about two things: expectation and experience.

Expectation

Virtual paper mache.
© 2013 Katie L. Fetting

Coca-cola delivers on an expectation every time a can is cracked. Drinkers expect it to taste and look a certain way. Imagine if you noticed (with no prior warning) the Coke was a chunky slime green just as you were taking your first gulp. My guess is most of us would assume there was something wrong with it and spit it out.

We feel secure when we buy a branded product. We trust that a McDonald’s French fry will taste the same in Omaha, NE as it does in Miami, FL – or even St. Petersburg, Russia.

Experience

The most successful brands also create an experience through continuity and attention to detail; like a good assistant, great brands anticipate. Whether it’s a bad user experience with a difficult to open package or the speed with which a page loads on-site, smart brands keep the consumer front and center, constantly asking themselves, what makes for an ideal customer experience?

The best brands imply there is a single source for this experience: them.

Why details matter

Brand managers are inevitably challenged by people within their organization who don’t understand why something as insignificant as using the wrong Pantone color matters. Why be so fascistic about fonts, typos, improper punctuation, and the like?

Really… Who’s going to notice?

Answer: Everyone. Whether consumers are conscious of them or not, details matter. They matter because they imply quality – care, consistency – and impute value. These are the cornerstones of brand.

How a business takes care of itself can’t help but effect how consumers think that business will take care of them. Good, consistent branding implies a good, consistent offering. The reverse is also true.

A few elements that may affect conscious or subconscious value judgments in consumers:

Typos

Cropped to protect the guilty – Image credit: entros

If this is the “reliability” of something they’re using to promote their business, do you want them printing your wedding invitations?

A dated, poorly performing website

If your website looks like it was created for dial-up, a customer may extrapolate that you’re providing a dated product or service. (Making your site fast and easy to navigate are also musts. In the oft-cited Amazon study, they found a 1% increase in revenue for every 100ms improvement in site speed. It pays to make things easy and functional.)

Lack of consistency in color, font, and logo

Without consistency, there is no brand. A brand’s entire raison d’etre is to establish trust and expectation. If you aren’t consistent, you underperform on the expectation, breaking the trust. In addition, inconsistency costs more – imagine if Coke started manufacturing blue cans… How many people’s eyes would skate right over them looking for the red? Or, worse, buy Pepsi by mistake?

Who gets this?

I’ll admit it: I have brand heroes. Companies who seem to perfectly synthesize promotion, product, and practice. Following are a few of my favorites:

Apple

Remember that stunning day you opened the box of your first iPhone? It was like unveiling of the Ark of the Covenant (though some haters will say the results were roughly the same).

Image courtesy of Wikimedia contributor HereToHelp

The instant you spy an Apple product, you KNOW it’s an Apple product, even if you haven’t seen the logo. Apple’s simplistic, perfectly designed and executed materials (be they products or promotion) allow them to charge a premium. And that’s what brand is all about.

High-end hotels

A few years ago, I spoke at the Austin Film Festival on screenwriting. I stayed at the Stephen F. Austin Intercontinental, and let me tell you – three days of stomach-twisting nerves were worth it the moment I entered my accommodations.

I believe the suite would have hugged me if it could: plush towels, high-end bath products, bed sheets I want to die in… Everything was top-of-the-line. And I FELT top-of-the-line.

What’s the ROI on that? Would I have stayed there without the insanely luxurious bathrobe?

Possibly. But without those seemingly insignificant details, I certainly wouldn’t be writing about the Stephen F. Austin now – or fantasizing about returning. If I go to Austin, Texas again, I WILL be staying there. If any of my friends go to Austin, I will tell them to stay there. And they may tell their friends.

Now how much is THAT worth?

Canlis

Oh, Canlis… It’s my life’s greatest ambition to afford to eat at you more than once a year.

I first saw Canlis on the Food Network (Top Chef!) and resolved to grab grub there. The view, the salad, the FILET. I knew it would be pricey, but…

I should have been able to write the meal off, because as a brand manager, it taught me a semester’s-worth about creating a capital-E experience for customers. From the moment one arrives at the valet to the moment that same valet brings your car around, you are (and feel) taken care of.

Sure, it’s expensive. And the prix fixe menu leaves no surprises – in the price at least. My partner and I were expecting three courses. We received six.

The moral? Good brands overdeliver.

They specialize in “oh, by the way, try this on us.” Of course, that brand has built EVERYTHING into the cost of its product. The illusion of a “bonus” – of added value – however, is imperative to guest happiness and retention.

Incidentally, Canlis “brands” everything, whether it’s their reception area or the chocolates they present you with as you leave. (“Oh, this is just something our chef whipped up today.”) This unity of brand – simple but gourmet, elegant but approachable – is spectacular.

Virgin America

Photo by Scott Mackenzie

To me, Virgin America’s increasing dominance in the American commercial airline field is due to one thing: pockets. Sure, they have innovative touchscreen ordering, and engaging safety presentations, and fancy black-clad attendants.

But I think the thing that separates them from everyone else is a small, seemingly insignificant detail: the additional mesh pocket.

Typically on a plane, you find a single, pleather pocket in front of you, filled with sticky Skymall magazines and loud credit card offerings. It’s dark, dank, and generally not the most hygienic square-inches onboard. Put your iPhone (callback!) in there and you may never see it again.

So what does Virgin America do? They provide ANOTHER pocket. A mesh pocket that sits in front of the other one. This mesh pocket is EMPTY, it’s clean, and you can see through it, so any personal items a passenger puts in there are visible.

This is a tiny thing. I’m sure some bean counter at Virgin Corporate was asking about the ROI on this mesh… But you know what? It helps me. It makes me believe Virgin is thoughtful. It makes me believe Virgin is cool. It makes me believe Virgin is BETTER. And I’m willing to pay a premium for that.

Yet again, that’s brand.

A few other examples:

Nordstrom

Have your realized even the RECEIPTS at Nordstrom are made of heavier paper? A seemingly trivial detail, fancier receipts push Nordstrom’s message that EVERYTHING there is just… better.

Honda

I’m not sure they’re the first manufacturer to include cup holders and expanding sunshields, but for me, these fine points established Honda as a thoughtful brand concerned with my comfort.

GoPro

Strict adherence to brand style, a brilliant pricing strategy (accessories are so affordable individually that you end up buying all of them), and a social community second to none, GoPro is a textbook example.

McMenamins

Another Pacific Northwest staple, the McMenamins empire covers hotels, restaurants, music venues, wine, spirits, beer and more. They have a very interesting brand because they’re committed to each of their various and varying properties having a singular identity.

So how can you be unique but familiar?

McMenamins strikes this balance with their whimsical logo: a beautiful, happy sun.

You’ll find this sun on wine corks, soap bars, on the side of buildings – but no matter where you see it, you think McMenamins.

Tiffany’s

They own a COLOR. Enough said.

Budweiser

And they own an animal. Unlike many animal-brand associations (Leo the Lion for MGM studios comes to mind), the Clydesdale isn’t dependent on where you see it, or in what context. A Clydesdale is Budweiser.

●●●●●

In conclusion (you knew I’d get here eventually), when the general store only carried one type of flour, brand wasn’t important. However, in today’s ecommerce-driven world – unless you want to compete solely on price – it’s all that separates you.

There will still be some, however, who ask: but what’s the ROI? “Show me how these inconsequential “details” – that you’re asking me to pay for – affect our bottom line.”

But brand doesn’t work that way. It’s about the total being greater than the sum of its parts; this is impossible to fully measure. With an incalculable ROI, marketing in general, and branding in particular, is often the first thing cut, when as Grandpa said, it should be the last.

The post Why Brand Managers Must Sweat the Small Stuff… and it’s ALL Small Stuff appeared first on Portent.

To many people’s minds, search engine optimization is on par with direct mail, telemarketing, and Katherine Heigl. (Well, maybe not Heigl-bad…)

As Brand Manager of Portent, one of my ongoing directives is to gather case studies of our good work. But unlike conventional agencies who regularly tout their big marketing wins, I often have a difficult time pushing case studies through the client approval process.  Why?

Because SEO is in the closet.

No one likes to admit they need it and no one likes to admit they pay people (us) to do it. There is a colossal misconception that if you optimize, you haven’t ‘earned’ your ranking. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

Site optimization is merely customer service at the FRONT end; the true benefactor of good SEO is not the client, but the consumer.

And companies who are good at it – or pay an agency like Portent to BE good at it – should brag, not brush their SEO prowess under the rug.

First, full disclosure: I’m not much of an SEO fanboy (or girl as the case is). I don’t go to SMXs or MOZs or search-anythings. I work at an Internet marketing agency and recognize the value of optimization, but my passions lie in content and strategy.

However the longer I’ve worked at Portent, the more I’ve noticed that search strategists often get painted with “snake oil”… and like that one time (at band camp) I choked a bully for my little brother, I am compelled to stand up for my title-tag, alt-text, H1-loving comrades.

Cross my heart and kiss my elbow, they’re not tricking anyone or ‘gaming’ anything.

They’re connecting a product or service to the person who is already searching for said product or service.  Good optimization values a potential consumer’s time, saving them from slogging through pages of irrelevant and inferior listings.

Once the visitor is onsite, good SEO guarantees the best possible user experience with efficient navigation, appropriately described offerings, and clear calls to action.

Again, good optimization is just plain old customer service (minus the 12 minute hold time).

Of course, optimization is not altruistic. We serve specific clients. (And guess what! They pay us!) But commerce and value are not mutually exclusive.

Even if you have the best widget on the planet, it only sells if people know about it – think tree falling in the forest and all that jazz.

Luckily, our clients ARE good at what they do. They deserve good rankings. And it’s our mandate to blast their messages efficiently into the universe so that everyone knows it.

The post SEO as Customer Service: Or Why Marketing’s Most ‘Shameful’ Secret Should Come Out of the Closet appeared first on Portent.

Transcript:

Sara:  Hi and welcome everyone to our next…or to this installment of the Portent Webinar Series.  My name is Sara.  I’ll be your moderator for today’s webinar, which is 7.5 Tips for Becoming a Brainstorming Genius with Katie Fetting, our Brand Manager at Portent.  We would love it if you would all join in.  There are a couple of ways you can do that.  You can ask your questions with gotowebinar’s questions window or you can tweet your questions using the hashtag portentu.  Um, that’s #portentu and just so you know in case you miss out on any of today’s webinar or want to review it later, don’t worry, um, you’ll receive a follow up email, which will contain a link to this recorded webinar, a slideshow linked to the presentation slides, and a Bit.ly link bundle that contains links to the resources that Katie’s referencing here.  So without further ado, please join me in welcoming Katie.

Katie: Hello and thank you for attending my webinar.  So obviously genius is a bit of a stretch, but uh, I’m going to try to live up to it.  Anyway, here are the links for the Bit.ly.  What we’d like to do obviously at the conclusion of this is after a few questions and answers I’d like to get an interactive brainstorm going so tweet in product topics, ideas you want ruminated on, suggestions for other people’s topics or ideas they want ruminated on.  This is an experiment but it may prove really fun and enlightening (she says hopefully).  But first things first, just who is this Katie Fetting anyway?  Well first of all it’s me but to give you a little background (with dubious fashion sense obviously), but my brainstorming began early when I was called upon to explain a variety of weird occurrences in my home, for example why there was a puffy Cheetos stuck in my brother’s nose or who was playing in the car, left it in neutral, and walked off?  True story, they found it in a ditch.  Anyway, back then the result of my brainstorming was referred to as lying but now I like to call it creativity and they pay me for it.

I was a journalist from my sophomore year of high school until I was about 23.  I worked for a syndicate of small newspapers in Chicago after college, which is most noteworthy because we had very few resources, meaning I had to be very resourceful, which included a lot of brainstorming.  Actually once one of our photographers forgot to take pictures at a local play and I was forced to quickly brainstorm to cover a page of blank space.  I wound up spearing my hand with ink to make a bloody handprint.  In my defense it was for a play called Crime of the Century, which looked really cool when scanned but now I can’t commit any crimes in Illinois.

Then I became a screenwriter and I wrote two amazingly derivative, sub-par movies.  On the other hand, Hollywood loves amazingly derivative, sub-par movies so you would’ve thought I’d be more successful.  I did however write some unique scripts, which I brainstormed on non-stop.  I’m hoping to see them produced and released in honor of my 90^th birthday.

And now, I’m the Brand Manager at Portent and a content dynamo.  Obviously one of those is an official title and the other one is slightly made-up.  I invite you to guess which.  But more than any of these things I am someone who has never given a webinar so if I stumble, if I fall, if I don’t take up the appropriate amount of time, please forgive me dear listeners.  Are you instilled with confidence?  Well then let us continue.

(My friend Josh made this odd bouncing man after two shots of bourbon and I’ve decided to leave it in.)

Notes on this webinar: first of all brainstorming is for everyone, not just content people and not just marketers.  Brainstorming is basically just problem solving.  If you think about it, MacGyver was an amazing brainstormer, constantly coming up with new and exciting ways to build bombs out of paperclips and gum and who knows what else.  I like to think of myself as MacGyver-esque though.  A few weeks ago at my mom’s house we were roasting some marshmallows and we didn’t actually have any spits so I basically sat there in our house imagining all the different things that could be spits and I finally came up with a hanger that I could straighten out, a wire hanger that I could straighten out and roast my marshmallow on, which worked pretty well.  So what does Joan Crawford know anyway?  But while MacGyver was a one-man brainstorm, I think brainstorming in groups usually presents better results.  A variety of viewpoints and ideas generally lead to the best outcome.

While brainstorming is for everyone, like I said, this presentation will focus on brainstorming for marketers, campaigns, blog posts, branding videos, speaking topics, well mostly because I’m a marketer and I’m guessing you are too.  But why this webinar?  Why are you really here?  Okay, so this is a slight exaggeration but I come from Hollywood remember, and so for every Inception there are a zillion Pirates of the Caribbean 17’s and Iron Man 43’s and every other type of man you can imagine.

For example Batman as an idea, as a character, is just Batman.  No matter how many times they remake it, he has the same alter-ego, he has the same tragic back story, the same skills; he’s basically the same core product.  Even the villains are often recycled so what’s the difference between Tim Burton’s films and Christopher Nolan’s?  The positioning of Batman.  Burton’s Batman is fairly upbeat and certainly less tortured, more in line with that ’60s television show and his alter-ego, Bruce Wayne, is downright nerdy.  This fits with Burton’s bright color pallet and gaudy gangsters, but Nolan’s Batman is damaged, dark, sorrowful.  His Bruce Wayne is a suave womanizer who seems to always know what to say, so his film is darker in tone and color and seems more rooted in reality – but it’s basically this same core product with a different interpretation and positioning.  So there are new ways to communicate a message even if the subject or product or service itself is familiar or even stale.  The art is in the telling, not in the subject of being told, what’s being told rather.

So to differentiate your product or service from your competitors you need to carve out a unique position in the market.  And how do you do that?  You need a brand.  And remember branding initially came from ranchers who had to separate their steer, basically their products, from others.  So what is Christopher Nolan’s unique positioning?  I think he thinks this is a complex, gritty take on Batman, you know, that both appeals to fans and film snobs.  And as people commented on at the time, he was trying to make something like The Godfather of superhero movies.  So your messaging needs to support this positioning.  The messaging that supports gritty Batman, he’s a character that’s tragically damaged and dwells in a world not unlike our own.  The horrors of his world are merely heightened versions of our own.  Content is then generated around that messaging and in this case the content is the film itself, the script, the art direction, the lighting, the cinematography, editing, music, you name it, and it’s basically the unified delivery of this new positioned Batman product.

But it all begins with brainstorming, trying to see something similar in a new light.  It should be noted in the case of the Batman narrative that Nolan didn’t actually do the positioning himself.  He basically based it, you know, largely off “The Dark Knight” Batman comic books, so he obviously had a lot of help.  So brainstorming is basically just one method of generating a fresh position or a message.

But so what?  Why would you want a fresh position or a message?  Remember when I said brainstorming was basically problem solving?  Well for marketers that problem is usually how do I separate myself from the pack?  How do I convince consumers that my widget is the best widget if all the widgets basically seem equal?  Well a fresh position or message is often the only way to differentiate yourself from your competition, which then, of course leads to greater visibility, likability, and consequently what we all care about, sales.

The characteristics of a good brainstormer: they’re open-minded, they’re willing to hear other people’s opinions and evolve their own, they’re creative, they can see things from fresh perspectives, they can develop connections other people can’t see, they’re educated and I don’t mean necessarily educated in the academic sense but they have a wide and broad background of experience to draw on, theirs or other people’s.  Um, they’re collaborative, they aren’t overly obsessed with putting their stamp on everything; this is the enemy of good brainstorming.  More on that to come.  Incidentally one of the reasons there are so many disjointed movies in Hollywood is everyone’s desire to put their stamp on it.

Secure, this goes along with open-minded and collaborative but they basically don’t see every amendment to their initial concept as an attack on their intelligence or talent.  And curious; curiosity may have killed the cat but it keeps us constantly evolving and striving for something new and better.  And the impression of new and better are two core necessities for brand positioning.

So what makes a bad brainstorm session?  Well avoid the following and hopefully you won’t have any: not verbalizing everything.  Yes, some of it may seem stupid or wacked out or downright unhelpful but it all is in the end.  You don’t know what will jog an idea loose from someone else and if you don’t try something you don’t get the failure out of the way.  Like our boy Tom Edison said, “I’ve not failed.  I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”

Two, dwelling in preconceived notions; you have to be open-minded.  Coming into a brainstorm with fixed opinions on what will or won’t work, that defeats the purpose entirely, which happens a lot in Hollywood.  People come in with a fixed idea of what they want, um, so much so, that they’re unable to consider other possibilities.  For example sometimes it’s just as easy to make your main character a woman and you might want to do this if say you have an actress interested in the part and you can’t get an actor.  But if you’re so entrenched in how you see the movie, like how you view the script, that, um, you can’t sort of be open to that opportunity, you basically don’t get your movie made.

Pulling rank; brainstorming has to be a democracy.  If only the top exec in the room can voice their opinion then no one else should be there.  We need to let everyone’s ideas breathe and then evaluate and categorize them later.  No one likes someone who hogs the conversation and talks over others, which is ironic right now given that I am having a one-way conversation.  On to the next one.

Don’t get caught up in the details.  Follow what people mean, not necessarily what people say.  Now isn’t the time to filter.  That comes later when you’re in a more analytical mindset.  So if someone gives a specific example like maybe saying a horse when you think it should be a dog, you know, just go with the spirit of what they’re saying, not necessarily the specific.

Number six, making someone feel dumb.  Don’t be intimidating.  Don’t inhibit your exchange of ideas by being overly critical or condescending.  Nobody likes to think that their idea was a bad one.

Blocking, this is somewhat like being down in the weeds and making someone feel dumb.  Blocking is when the other person just refuses to engage and puts up unnecessary roadblocks to the detriment of what you’re trying to accomplish.  Um, the term comes from comedy improv.  You know when you’re working with a partner, and ‘with’ is the key term, you need to feed off of each other.  There’s a concept called “yes and.”  When you’re finally with a partner and somebody starts with “remember last year when you were arrested” and your partner says something like “actually, I don’t remember that at all.  I don’t think you were arrested.”  That’s a block.  What your partner should’ve said is “yes I remember that, and…” they add something else that then you can feed off of.  So you don’t want to block people when they’re brainstorming.  You want to basically evolve their idea much like a comedy improv.

And seven point five, showing up too drunk or too sober and I don’t mean this literally.  Basically this is just about moderation.  Participate but don’t dominate.  Allow yourself to be flexible but don’t let it go too far off track and be ridiculous.

So I figure we should take a break now and so, I was going to tell a story, um, but as I was thinking up a story to tell here, I basically got blocked.  Every story I was brainstorming didn’t seem to really fit my topic.  I mean I could tell you about the time I forgot what Ketchup was or why my roommates in college put a roll of toilet paper outside their closet with the sign, “This is not a bathroom,” or the time I was pitching a movie to some executives and I could tell on page 2 of a 20-page pitch that they were bored and I had to keep going anyway, or the time I told Charlize Theron I didn’t write a script for her but if Nicole Kidman passed she’d be great, or the time I was hit by a car while sitting in a Chinese restaurant.  I could tell any of these stories but none seemed to fit… so that’s my story.  The point is sometimes self-referential works.  There’s almost always something you can write about even if it’s just writer’s block.

And now we’re back to our regularly scheduled programming.  Without further ado, the 7.5 Tips for Becoming a Brainstorming Genius and basically coming up with unique ways to approach content and deliver value to our clients.  Be self-critical.  Anticipate the criticisms of your brand and head them off.  You can use FAQs.  You can use complaints.  You can ask yourself “what is it people don’t like about your product or think they don’t like about it?  Is there a way to turn that into a positive?”  We have a client who is only accessible to Seattleites by ferry.  Many people find this annoying, they want to drive, it seems like a hassle, so we’ve crafted content around how fun ferries are, you know best board games to play on ferries, X reasons ferries are romantic, et cetera.  So answer questions and issues before they’re asked.

Two, think about your mom.  This is not my mom, by the way, Mom, if you’re listening.  Basically it can be your mom, your plumber, the weird guy standing in front of you at the Shell station.  What would appeal to these people?  My boss Ian Lurie says when he’s brainstorming he thinks about the last person he saw walking into work that day.  Well, Portent is located in Pioneer Square so that person could be just about anyone.  It might be a lawyer or a homeless fellow or a bail bondsmen or a sandwich engineer at Subway or, of course, some combination therein.  Generally I start with my target market and a goal relating to it and work backwards.  So say my target is working moms and my goal is social shares.  Um, what’s a hot button topic right now for a working mom?  Which channel should we push it through and on?  Is she more likely to be on Facebook or Pinterest, Twitter?  What do working moms look at?  Where can we find them?  I try to enter her mind.  If I were a working mom what would make me interested in X?  Craft your message around this.  Yes, it sounds basic but sometimes we forget to do it.  You become so buried in the message of your brand you forget what it’s like for the consumer.

Two point five, ask a little kid.  Little kids are great.  I mean just look at the AT&T campaign that they’re running right now.  I want a puppy brother.  I want to go to show and tell.  Kids ways of looking at things are so different you can’t help but be inspired by this out-of-the-box thinking.  I mentioned in my blog post how my seven-year old cousin said she wished she had a magnet in her back so she could sleep on the ceiling; amazing.  Kids love to be asked things and unlike adults will give you a straight answer.  For example me: do you like my haircut?  Kid: no.

Three, think about Tom Cruise.  Now use metaphors.  A great metaphor can make even the most tired topic seem fresh and can translate really heady topics into things that a consumer can understand.  So we had this client who wasn’t grasping a concept that our director of accounts was trying to explain.  She asked me how I would explain it to a lay person and the concept was this 70/20/10 theory on content strategy that gives basically an ideal ratio for creating different types of branded content.  The basic standard stuff that appeals to your existing consumer or customer, that would be like the 70 percent content, you know really safe.  It appeals to a lot of people. 20 percent should take that standard stuff but push the limit a bit, you know still be relevant to your audience but also reach out to others, have a solid point of view or challenge conventional wisdom.  Then 10 percent should be kind of revolutionary, explosive, and hopefully have the potential to go viral.  Something that’s outside of your comfort zone on occasions or maybe it just appeals to a different demographic altogether.  This is where your content and company grows.

So I looked for a metaphor that could possible explain this 70/20/10 idea, something that the average person could connect with and I came up with Tom Cruise because let’s face it: most of us have seen most of his movies and if we haven’t seen them, we still know what they’re about.  And he is a risk-taker on occasion but generally he sticks to his core competency, his core competency being sort of the cocky, lovable guy that by the end of the movie saves the day.  You know we’re talking Mission Impossible or, um, Top Gun, uh, I’m trying to think of another one…well Jack Reacher just came out.  He basically has like a very standard Tom Cruise style so that would be a 70 percent; his fans like him in that persona.  Reaching out to different fans but not getting too far outside the box he does things like, say, The Last Samurai or like Far and Away.  Far and Away particularly, he’s basically playing the same cocky, lovable dude, except that he is in a period film with an Irish accent.  So that’s taking his 70, still remaining true to the core of it but giving it a little spin.  But then sometimes he goes nuts and he does his 10 percent content and he does things like Les Grossman or Born on the Fourth of July or, um…what did he just do…Rock of Ages, and basically these are things that can fail epically like Eyes Wide Shut or they wind up getting you Oscar nominations like Born on the Fourth of July or Magnolia.  So basically I thought the average person could really latch onto that concept and understand how their brand’s content should be like his, that the 10 percent is going to be like a go big or go home and the rest of it is very regimented.

Anyway we turned it into an infographic for two reasons.  One, we couldn’t get the rights to the photos themselves, but two, we knew more people shared infographics and so what happened?  I pushed it out into the world and boom, Tom Cruise retweeted.  Sorry, this still just blows me away.  I had a Top Gun poster on my wall when I was eight and he retweeted this, if you notice, on Valentine’s Day, so it was pretty much just, you know, totally romantic for me and yes, I had lots of nice dreams afterwards.

Anyway, back to number four, research.  So whenever I’m jammed up for ideas I start surfing.  Ideas build on each other so staring at a blank Word document really doesn’t help anybody.  So browse new sites, bounce around Wikipedia, read your clients’ sites.  You never know where the inspiration is going to come from.  When I was a kid I had an Encarta CD rom, which just shows you how old I am.  Sarah looks like she has no idea what that is by the way.  I would get lost for hours clicking around.  It’s amazing how much you don’t know you don’t know until you look.  I mean how else would I know that Hitler wasn’t from Germany and Catherine the Great wasn’t from Russia?

Number five, you can use a tool.  There are plenty of tools out there to help writers get past the block, um, and in fact two of my coworkers, Isla McKetta and Rebecca Bridge, wrote a book of writing prompts for blocked novelists and poets that suggests things that I find amazing like eavesdropping on strangers for inspiration or using a piece of clothing to describe a character’s backstory.  And there’s no reason that marketing content folks can’t do the same.  At Portent we’ve created a Content Idea Generator that allows you to enter a keyword and creates a crazy title such as Why Webinars Should Be One of the Seven Deadly Sins.  A lot of them wind up being silly, um, like that one, but they can be great jumping off points and it’s pretty fun to boot.

Six, change your world.  Is this not the greatest stock art of all time?  There’s change, there’s a world; amazing.  Anyway there was an ad agency that used to covertly switch everyone’s desks every week or so to keep them from becoming too entrenched in one spot and mindset.  Other agencies have people sitting in canoes or conference room tables painted like basketball courts.  Why do they do this?  Well, because your environment does affect your creativity.  It affects the way you see the world.  To see things differently you need to change your perspective.  You need to go outside, breathe fresh air, go to a museum.  Live in all of your senses.  You’ll find your approach to your brand will be different; you’ll see it with fresh eyes.

When I was writing a scene for one of my scripts, um, yet another unproduced one, and I largely write thrillers by the way, I would try to match the space I wrote in to the scene I was writing.  For example I once had a fight sequence in a kitchen so I sat in my kitchen imagining all the ways I could do damage with various utensils.  I mean sure knives and frying pans are obvious but what would happen if you slammed some guy’s head with a wooden cutting board?  Anyway, my big finish included a can of Raid and a gas oven.  I’m not going to go into details.

Number seven, borrow.  Don’t steal people.  It’s really lame and usually illegal.  You need to make something your own.  I mean you wouldn’t steal the sugar from your neighbor.  You’d borrow it and make something better, maybe a cake or some cookies.  My movie Homecoming was supposed to be an homage to Fatal Attraction and Misery but it wound up coming off as more of a blatant rip-off because a lot of its unique features were cut in the editing.  At least that’s my story as the writer.  No one likes that.  Make sure to stamp and keep your personal spin on whatever it is that inspired you.  Picasso may have been an okay painter but I have to say he was wrong when he said, “Good artists copy.  Great artists steal.”  I think great artists transcend.  They make something new out of something that’s been old.

And two more, mostly two more because I’ve thought of them after my blog post went live.  Eight, choose a facilitator.  For example this guy, he looks way inspirational, but no, this is not a leader.  A leader would defeat the purpose of a democratic exchange of ideas.  But a person who can solicit opinions and draw people out, he can write on the board and keep things moving along, that’s a really great person to have in the room.

Nine, come in with ideas.  Sometimes it’s really hard to get the storm started.  If everyone comes in with a few ideas jotted down, it’ll be much easier to get the ball rolling.  Even the worst idea can spark some discourse that may turn into a great idea later.  In screenwriting it’s what they call the bad pitch or the bad version.  They’ll say like ‘so this is the bad pitch but there should be like this mean girl in the Civil War who just wants to get home but then a lot of stuff happens that prevents it’ and that bad pitch could be Gone With the Wind.  So basically come in with ideas that other people can feed off of and contribute to.

So there you have it, 7.5 ways or 9.5 ways or 9.5 ways plus 7.5 sins so 17 of whatever.  Um, thanks for coming.  I would love to start the brainstorm or answer some questions so Sara, do we have something exciting?

Sara: Let me look and see.  I don’t know that we’ve had a brainstorming request come through so we’ll ask –

Katie: Blerg people, blerg.

Sara: Yeah, we’ll start with some questions and then, um, if you’ve got a topic that you’d like to brainstorm about as a group here, um, or something that you’d like to throw out for Katie to give a go at then hit us on Twitter at #portentu or in the webcast, um, chat screen.  So, uh, we got a question from, um, Mike.  What is the best remedy for writer’s block?

Katie: Like I said I think a lot of it has to do with changing your environment.  Um, also I find when I want to start something I write the best and I write the fastest when I get sort of annoyed about something so I would suggest reading The Huffington Post, just something…look…I don’t think you should base your content on your competitors but you know look at their websites; see what they’re talking about.  I would also say look at trending topics on Google, see what your audience members are talking about on social media, um, and I think in that way you can probably generate a few good content ideas.  Um, you can also just engage somebody else.  Just say you’re kind of blocked and ask them for their opinion.  People love to give opinions.

Sara: And Aviva asked, “Are there any classic exercises like word association that you don’t think are effective for brainstorming?”

Katie: Um, I think most things are probably effective.  I think that’s kind of the point of brainstorming is you’re not going to put sort of a finite stop on anything.  Um, I think that there is a point where maybe you get too far off the path and you end up, um…there needs to be that person who draws you back in.  I mean it’s great to be creative but like anything else in life there’s kind of a limit.  You don’t want to go totally crazy on it.  Um, but yeah, I think word association could help.  I think you know pretty much anything that gets the creative juices flowing helps.

Sara: Great and then, um, Elizabeth asked, “For those of us who are resistant to the word ‘brainstorming’ is there something else you can call it?  Is there a way to sneak brainstorming in without raising those brainstorming red flags?”

Katie: Hmm, well I mean you could call it idea generation or collaborative thought or…let’s see, what else?

Sara: I like that you’re brainstorming right now.

Katie: Yeah, I am.  I’d say like uncovering the collective conscious or actually somebody in one of my blog post comments shared the word mind showers so if you don’t like brainstorming you could have a mind shower, which sounds a little dirty but I think it could work.

Sara: Uh, Kimberly on Twitter asked, “Are there any special tricks to long-distance brainstorming?”

Katie: Long-distance brainstorming…um, you know I think I find everything in the room is ultimately better, but yeah, you could use a WebX.  I think my problem with calls is generally people become inhibited just because they think they’re going to step on somebody else during the call so they end up not saying as many things as they would say and then by the time they speak often they’ve forgotten what they were going to say in the first place so I would say if you’re on a long-distance brainstorm and you’re on a call, make sure that you have a pad and paper so that you can write these things down while other people are talking, um, and each person can sort of draw out their own storm map, um, while they’re listening.

Sara: And then, um, Alexander on Twitter asked, “What do you think is an ideal group number of people for brainstorming?  How many people makes it too crowded and unproductive?”

Katie: Um, well sort of the real answer is probably that there isn’t a solid number but I understand the question because it’s kind of like establishing an age you can drive.  There are certainly people who are 14 who drive better than people who are 40 so I think it really depends on the person, um, and the people involved and sort of how they get along, but I would say just in terms of logistics I find the best brainstorms are about 4 to 5 people.  I think also people who are a little more shy aren’t likely to participate in a brainstorm with too many people.

Sara: So that dovetails into my question, which is what do you recommend for getting more introverted, more shy people, not that introverts are necessarily shy, but still just saying involved in brainstorming?

Katie: Um, I would you know welcome them to write things down.  Um, I spoke to someone who’s introverted and she says that actually pointing at them and saying ‘talk’ doesn’t work so, um, I think you can sort of look at their social cues and see who seems to want to jump in.  Um, just give them room to talk but don’t put them on the spot or intimidate them, um, because that’ll just backfire.

Sara: Cool and then, um, let’s hear a story.  What…Elizabeth asked, “What idea or creative campaign are you most proud of that came from a brainstorming session?”

Katie: We just had one recently, um, for one of our clients where one of our clients was telling us a story about something personal that was going on in his life and it sort of sparked something that made us think this guy would be sort of an ideal brand voice in addition to the actual brand.  Um, and then we got very excited about it because the best thing about a brainstorm of course is when your adrenaline kicks in and you start really just feeding off each other and we started coming up with all sorts of topics, what he could talk about, and there’s just a certain charisma to this guy that you know just gives you the idea that this is going to be really successful.  Um, we also had a client who I think it’s okay to say this, they sold various arousal oils so we were trying to brainstorm a way to make something that would go viral and it was during the political election, the last presidential election and so we brainstormed a lot of ways that we could potentially tie in the presidential election with this in terms of getting your base excited.  And so that was a very interesting mix of things but you know ideas out of left field can be amazing.

Sara: And then Josh asked, “What’s the best way out of an impasse like if you just can’t get started, if you’re just completely stalled?  What are some other tips for getting out of an absolute wall?”

Katie: Well that might be a borrowing case.  You know think about what inspires you and sort of saturate yourself in whatever that is.  Um, yeah, I mean that works.  I think some of the other tips would also work.  You know it’s very difficult when you really feel a block and a lot of the time it’s just you almost need to put it away for a little bit as well because you can approach it later and sometimes it just clicks into place.  When I was writing I used to do this thing that I called sleep thinking where I would just sort of try to go sleep while thinking about whatever my problem was I was having in the script.  Um, of course everyone told me I was just being lazy and going to sleep when I should be working but I think it was really helpful, um, because sometimes I would wake up and you also don’t know when the idea’s going to happen.  I had a problem in one of my scripts, um, where I was just…it was driving me insane for hours, it was you know basically while I was thinking about it I could not get anywhere.  When I stopped thinking about it and was just watching TV with my parents, suddenly the answer just came to me and it really was literally the light…well not literally, but it felt like the light bulb.  Um, so I think yeah, sometimes just putting it away for a while, especially if you’re doing it by yourself, is probably the best way to approach it and then come back to it with fresh eyes.

Sara: Super and then Mike asked, “How can you be creative in brainstorming with more traditional or conservative clients?”

Katie: Yeah, that’s difficult but then you, you know…there’s sort of a number of realities I think.  There’s what might sell their brand but then what they think sells their brand and then what they’re comfortable with and so there are a lot of things that sometimes aren’t necessarily the same thing, um, and I think that you need to sort of find out what makes that person, what entertains them, or makes them interested and then sort of build your concepts around that so that it’s easier later to sort of get them to, uh, to get on board with what you want to do.

Sara: Um, and we’ve only got one or two more questions here so if you’ve got a question go ahead and send it on the webinar chat or you can tweet it to us at #portentu.  Um, Marianne asked, “Is there such a thing as guided brainstorming?  Is there anything that you can do as a group leader to help kind of get people started when everyone’s just sitting in a room staring at each other?”

Katie: Um, I know some people do various, you know exercises.  I think sometimes getting people talking is just as easy as you know what did you do this weekend and just get them sort of engaging with each other.  Um, so don’t bring in sort of the topic until you feel everyone is comfortable and willing to talk so I would say something like that.  Um, otherwise people coming in with a few different ideas, I think whoever the facilitator is should probably come in with some questions that they can ask people, um, their opinions on things.  You can always if it’s a product, you know what are the words that come to mind with this product.  That reminds me of Mad Men actually.  I think they did that on an episode not that long ago where you know what is the essence of this.  I think it was margarine and they’re basically just sitting around free associating about margarine so I think there’s definitely that aspect as well.

Sara: Well I think that’s it for questions unless any pop up.

Katie: Cool.

Sara: Is there anything you’d like add in closing Katie?

Katie: No, thanks for listening to me talk.

Sara: Um, so that was fantastic and now don’t forget all of you out there that the resources that Katie referenced will be available via the Bit.ly link bundle, um, which I don’t know if it’s on the slide –

Katie: Let’s see…there we go.

Sara: Yes, there it is.  So hit that Bit.ly link bundle and, um, that is case sensitive so make sure you type it in the right case.  Um –

Katie: And it’s co, not com, which they point out there.

Sara: Be careful, portent.co.

Katie: Right, we couldn’t get the M.

Sara: If you have any more questions for Katie you can tweet them directly to her at @katielfetting.com…sorry, .com. @katielfetting and make sure that you add the hash tag #portentu.  Just a reminder, today’s webinar and the presentation slides and all the links will be coming your way in a follow up email.  Join us next month for our August webinar, which will be hosted by our, um, very own CEO, Ian Lurie.  Uh, he’ll be here at Portent on August 29^th and his presentation will be about Distance from Perfect: A Quality Drive Approach to SEO and Internet Marketing.  Details about that webinar can be found on our webinar tab on our Facebook page and that’s at Facebook.com/portent.marketing.  Thank you for joining us today and have a great day.

Katie: Goodbye.

[End of Audio]

The post 7.5 Tips for Becoming a Brainstorming Genius [VIDEO WEBINAR] appeared first on Portent.

For a highly visual medium, the Internet has been slow to attract marketers with a graphic bent.  Perhaps due to proliferation of search engine optimization, or web browsers originating as text-based applications, many of us have focused on the word, not the image, video, or application.

But words aren’t attracting the attention they used to.  There are just too many of them.  So as marketers, we need to look to new content methods for garnering attention, branding our message, and engaging meaningfully with our target audience.

At Portent, we like to make things, experiment, and philosophize.  And under the “make things” and “experiment” categories falls our newest effort, the Kitten Moodinator – an app that allows a user to answer a simple question which leads to a “predictive mood.”  In turn, this predictive mood appears as a very cute kitten picture:

The idea originated from my ex-mother-in-law’s frequent Facebook “mood” posts.  “Anne is 70% happy today,” “Anne is 30% happy today.”  I thought, what better way to communicate a mood – be it good or bad – than with an amazingly adorable kitten?

But ultimately, the Internet is full of kittens.  Why would we invest time and energy into something that we’re not making any cash off of?  …Which leads to another question: why does anyone invest in content at all?  It’s not measurable like PPC or quantifiable like CRO – it doesn’t have SEO’s trackability.

In fact, unless you charge for it, there is no direct correlation between content and revenue at all.

And yet, it’s what makes your business successful.  People buy what they know about.  People buy what they like.  And unless you’re prepared to go door-to-door hocking your wares, that means content.

So I gathered our internal teams – content, design, development, social and paid search – and we set out to make something fun.  It wasn’t the worst work on earth, that’s for sure.  We chose Facebook for its sharability, hoping (of course) for virality.

But, as Portent’s president says, “so what?”  So the Moodinator goes viral – what does that achieve?

Our internal goals for the Kitten Moodinator are three-fold:

1. Attention

Most messages on today’s Internet are the equivalent of yelling in Lambeau Field.  Whether selling steak knives or online marketing services, getting the attention of an audience is daunting at best, impossible at worst.  This is why words are often not enough – at least not on their own.

The competition loosens up a bit, however, as content shifts away from the written and more toward the visual.  Not only are fewer firms doing it, a user can more quickly and easily digest images.  And who can resist a catchy, cute kitten photo?

So before the Kitten Moodinator can accomplish the two goals below, it needs to capture audience interest.

2. Engagement

On some level, all content is ‘engaging,’ even if the audience is merely reading.  But the best kind of engagement involves a back-and-forth.  The user takes action.  There is a response to that initial action that invites them to take subsequent action.  These exchanges are the best way of building the engagement, and ultimately, the buy-in of your audience.

And once you have that, you’re able to establish your…

3. Brand

This is our greatest goal with the Moodinator – to likably convey our expertise in content creation and social media strategy while differentiating ourselves from the competition.

Along with basic product or service messaging, branding is the major goal of content – it’s where you separate and elevate yourself in the minds of your core audience.  It’s why, all things being equal, they choose your offering over your competition’s.

How we’ll (attempt to) measure success

What does success look like to us?  As noted above, there is no calculable monetary ROI for the Kitten Moodinator (absent some future client stating ‘the only reason I’m hiring you is the Kitten Moodinator’).

Consequently, the metrics we’ll be looking at to evaluate success are:

• Social referral traffic, reach, shares, and engagement
• Repeat interactions
• Page views on eigene-homepage-erstellen.net
• Links
• Press coverage and “buzz”
• Client reaction now and in the future
• An expanded knowledge base in-house, allowing us to better serve current and future clients

Will it work?  We think so, but time will tell.

And for now, as the great Jay-Z says, on to the next one, on to the next one.

Have you used the Kitten Moodinator?  If so, let us know in the comments. 

The post Portent’s Kitten Moodinator: When Content Isn’t Words appeared first on Portent.

Am I a brainstorming genius? Well, I came up with this post!

The World Wide Web has robbed the world of mystery.  Its epic reach into the far corners of the collective conscious has placed long odds against unleashing amazing new information – and with every blog post and product description, these odds get longer.  As a result, it is imperative to creatively impart information to differentiate your message, and consequently, your brand.

But just how do you do that?  If it were easy, everyone’s blogs would be as clever as Oscar Wilde, tidy as Ernest Hemingway, and lyrical as Gabriel Garcia Marquez.  And yet… they’re not.

The secret to making a splash in this brave new world is repackaging and refining existing ideas in a palatable, engaging way.  Consequently, brainstorming may be your best friend when it comes to molding an attractive delivery for your core message.

Below are 7.5 Tips for Becoming a Brainstorming Genius.  Use them with careless abandon.

1.     Be self-critical

Use this perspective to anticipate criticisms of your brand, and then write content that addresses them proactively.  FAQs are a great source of topics (as well as a portal into your more discerning customers’ heads).

It is important to note this is not being negative – but “going oppo” on your product or service will expose you to a fresh perspective, and hopefully, fresh content ideas.

2.     Think about your mom

Your mom, my mom, all moms… What does she like?  What turns her off?  What confuses her?  What would the average Joe think of your product?  What message would appeal to him?  Yes, this is Marketing 101, but, while it’s amazing to imagine, many marketers exist in their brand cocoon, convinced their perspective is The Perspective.

Ultimately, ‘thinking about your mom’ is content as user experience: Consider the audience when crafting the message.

2.5 Ask a little kid

How would he or she view your product?  My seven-year-old cousin once said to me she wished she could have a “magnet in her back so she could sleep on the ceiling.”  If your content is even half as creative, you shouldn’t have a problem attracting readers, and subsequently, customers.

3.     Think about Tom Cruise

Yes, he’s Maverick.  And Jerry Maguire.  And Rain Man (technically).  But he’s also a metaphor.  And what better to make a stale topic fresh than with an out-of-the-box, extended metaphor?  “7.5 Ways Sales Meetings are Worse than Giving Birth.”  “Why Dating is the Original Contact Sport.”

Metaphor is also a great technique for explaining complicated or heady concepts, processes, products, and services.

4.     Research everywhere and everything

Knowledge begets knowledge, so be curious!  Learn things!  Explore trending news topics, check the calendar for holidays, browse Wikipedia (or yank out that old Encarta CD-ROM – ha), see movies, listen to lectures (or Rihanna… or lectures ON Rihanna), make a trek to the site of Amanda Bynes’ latest crash…

The point is, you never know what’s going to inspire, but you need to open yourself up to being inspired.

5.     Use a tool

OK, really use one tool.  Our Content Idea Generator should get you off and brainstorming in no time flat.  Props to whoever posts the craziest headline in the comments.

6.     Change your world

Most of us don’t consider it, but environment affects inspiration.  Looking at the same four walls – the same wall art, computer desktop and agro co-workers – inhibits a free mind.

Ideas can be visceral, originating from all of the senses…   The smell of popcorn might inspire you to write about your brand’s favorite movies; feeling hot pavement on your feet might translate to “7.5 Places You Should Really Wear Reeboks.”

So remember: offices are stodgy.  Many of the best ideas come out of left field… wouldn’t it be a lot easier if you were already in left field?

7.     Borrow…

Steal, plunder, abscond with… then MAKE IT YOUR OWN.  No one likes a plagiarist.

Example: remember the Alamo.

OK.  You should always remember the Alamo… but also here are some specific examples (and free content ideas for my favorite rental car company!):

1. FAQ from the Alamo site – “Appeal a toll or citation”
   Potential post: “The Alamo Guide to Avoiding a Citation”
2. Your mom – “7.5 Most Comfortable Cars for a Cross-Country Trip”
3. Metaphor – “7.5 Reasons Alamo is Better than a Lion” – 1.) We rent cars.  Lions do not.  2.) Lions will eat you.  Alamo will not.  Etc.
4. Research – “Why Alamo Would Never Rent to Amanda Bynes”
5. A Content Idea Generator result – “A World without Rental Cars”
6. Environment – I can’t really give you a specific title, but I will say I’d be sitting in my car during the brainstorm – or – “Why You Should Brainstorm in Your Alamo Rental Car”
7. Borrow – Take THIS painting and have a graphic designer put some cars on the road, with a thought bubble above the main subject reading “$10 off weekend rentals!!!!”

I also gave a webinar on this topic; consider it the live, extended, slightly R-rated version:

The post 7.5 Tips for Becoming a Brainstorming Genius appeared first on Portent.

When he’s not streaking through the Danger Zone on an Impossible Mission, the world’s biggest movie star (yes, still arguably) veers Far and Away from his core competency, occasionally taking a mega-risk with his Eyes Wide Shut.

Corniness of that opening sentence aside, Tom Cruise makes for a compelling model of how to run a brand: while his trademark relates to an über-successful motion picture career – and yours (likely) doesn’t – there are many things a business can learn about reputation management and content strategy from him.

And just what is the “content strategy” of Tom Cruise’s career?  It’s fairly simple.  Mr. Cruise delivers to his core audience while attracting new fans with moderately risky creative choices, still keeping himself fresh for critics and colleagues with strategic, iconoclastic roles that challenge the core Cruise brand.

70-20-10

My boss Ian Lurie subscribes to a 70-20-10 approach to on-site content (a slight refining of Jonathan Mildenhall of Coca-Cola’s famous value and significance strategy).  I also subscribe to this philosophy for the following reasons:

1.)    It is a deliberate and thoughtful method of planning useful, entertaining and responsive branded material.

2.)    He’s my boss.

Just what is the 70-20-10?  Per Ian:

• 70% of our content should be solid, standard stuff: Basic how-tos and advice that’s very safe and is easily justified as supporting SEO and other efforts.
• 20% of our content should riff on the 70%, but take some chances. This is the content that expands on 70% content, but may flirt with controversy, or try appealing to a new audience, or otherwise be moderately risky. It may also take a bit more effort. It also offers a higher potential payoff.
• 10% of our content should be completely innovative: Things we’ve never done that, if they work, could become part of the 20 or 70%. 10% content often requires a lot of work or audience interaction. Or, it’s just risky. Most of the 10% will fail. You still have to do it. It’s really important, because without it, the entire strategy stagnates.

Graphically represented:

Tom Cruise’s 70-20-10

• 70% of his roles represent The Movie Star.  The Tom Cruise™ brand:  That cocky, loveable scoundrel who is exciting and risky, but inevitably on the side of right.  These Cruise personas – Maverick in “Top Gun,” Ethan Hunt in “Mission: Impossible” – often have tragic backstories that enable us to look past their initial conceit, waiting for a denouement which always proves the Cruise character to be heroic, self-sacrificing and truly good.
• 20% of his roles represent The Actor.  Tom is still Tom – generally looks like him, sounds like him, acts like him – but he’s taking a chance.  Maybe it’s a period film like “The Last Samurai,” or working in an unfamiliar genre like “Minority Report” or spending half the movie in a mask (“Vanilla Sky”).  Tom does these films both to challenge himself AND to increase his “brand reach” to various demographics who may find his 70% films cloying or predictable.
• 10% of his roles represent The Iconoclast.  Tom isn’t Tom.  In fact, Tom is trying to tear down Tom Cruise™.  Here’s where the “art” happens.  He takes big risks like ranting about his manhood in “Born on the Fourth of July,” or playing a misogynistic, manipulative motivational speaker in “Magnolia.”  Both of those films landed him Oscar nominations.  There is a HUGE upside to 10% content, but the downside is just as large.  This also is where you can fall on your face (see “Eyes Wide Shut” and “Rock of Ages”… on second thought, don’t).

Awesome infographic by Jess Walker.

I should care because…?

Like Tom Cruise, you must manage your brand identity through choices in content. The days of the “EAT HERE” ad campaign are no more.  There are too many alternatives.

Like it or not, everyone is now in the content business.  Involve and evolve… or dissolve.

But 10% content scares me…

Risk mitigation doesn’t mean you don’t TAKE risks… It means you manage them, deciding where to pull your punch, and where to hit ‘em with a massive uppercut.

I’m sure 10% content scares Tom Cruise, too… And do you what?  Those movies generally DON’T do as well… at least at the box office.  But what they do REALLY well is improve his brand – its reach, its durability and its reputation.

The role of Les Grossman in “Tropic Thunder” SAVED Tom Cruise after the notorious couch-jumping incident.  The performance made him accessible; it showed people he could laugh at himself.  Now they’re talking about developing a Les Grossman movie… and having tried and succeeded with that role, Les Grossman no longer represents 10% content for Mr. Cruise.

The most successful 10% content can (and should) be replicated, joining the 20, and sometimes even the 70 (for a good example of that, consider Tom Hanks… from comic goofball to two-time Oscar winner).

The takeaway

Unless you are happy with your business’ status quo (and OK with the risk that status may decline), you need to put out content that occasionally scares you.  Not foolishly, but strategically, deliberately, measurably.  The audience gets bored of the same old, same old.  Growth can be painful, but it’s worthwhile.

Let Tom Cruise be an example for your content strategy, or understand that you’ll never attain A-list status.  Instead, you and your business will be relegated to the direct-to-video shelf.

But, then again, maybe you like Jean Claude Van Damme.

The post Why Tom Cruise Should Be Your Content Strategist [Infographic] appeared first on Portent.

We all know that the Super Bowl is the Super Bowl of, well, Super Bowls.  It’s even MORE super for mega-brands with colossal marketing budgets, fancy Hollywood contacts and burping frogs.  But not everyone is a Coke… Or even a Pepsi.  Consequently, if you’re a mid-sized business looking to maximize your advertising dollars this Sunday, the place to spend that cash isn’t on TV, but online.

Say you’re Shasta.  Or Thrifty Car Rental.  Or Kettle Brand.  Sure you have an ad budget, but at $3.8 million per 30 second TV spot, those dollars are burned in a half-minute.

But social media is different.  There’s a lower financial barrier to entry and seemingly endless opportunities to improve your “bang for the buck.”  So rather than blow your budget on 30 seconds, small businesses and mid-sized concerns should stretch their Benjamins across Twitter and Facebook.

As Portent’s President Steve Gahler says, “You can’t own the Super Bowl, but you can own the space where everyone talks about the Super Bowl.”

Here’s how you, too, can put some points on the board during the biggest media marketing event of the year.

The Game Day audience

Last year, 111.3 million people watched the Super Bowl – the largest audience ever.

And according to NBC (last year’s broadcaster), 2.1 million people watched the game live online.  Yes, a much (much) smaller market, but potentially a more tech-savvy, higher-income one as well.  Add that number to the masses following the game on social media and you have a nice chunk of engaged fans to market to.

This year’s broadcaster CBS will be streaming live on their site, as will nfl.com.

TV ad costs

Up, up and away:

According to Forbes:  “Current reports plug [Super Bowl XLII’s] ad price at $3.8 million, up from the $3.5 million that companies paid for a spot at [last] year’s game, and that is just the cost of air time. Ad budgets for Super Bowl commercials can run as high as $5 million per 30-second spot.”

So, potentially $8.8 million for 30 seconds.  Yes, it’s the biggest media event in the world, but…

Super Bowl ads don’t work for everyone

According to NBC News:  “Most of the top 10 [Super Bowl] spenders are perennial also-rans. Yum! Brands, owner of KFC, Taco Bell and Pizza Hut, spent $67 million over the past 10 years. Meanwhile, McDonald’s, the indisputable market leader, spent less than half that amount and is not a top 10 spender. Similarly, E*Trade, well-known for the talking baby campaign, spent more than any other online brokerage firm, yet remains fourth in the industry.”

Most mid- to-small-size companies can’t afford to blow $9 million on a spot that doesn’t guarantee a great ROI.  And for all their hype, Super Bowl ads don’t.  For example, check out this graphic from nfl.com’s Football Freakonomics:

Social media and television: Partners in engagement

According to the latest Nielsen Social Media Report, “As of June 2012, more than 33 percent of Twitter users had actively tweeted about TV-related content. Some 44 percent of U.S. tablet owners and 38 percent of U.S. smartphone owners use their devices daily to access social media while watching television.”

And those numbers are an aggregation.  Super Bowl engagement is even higher.

But does social really convert?

Even the NFL is using social media to evaluate Super Bowl ads’ ROI.  The NFL’s Head of Sales Seth Winter says social media improves an ad’s TV value, allowing them to charge more.  So why not start with social if you can’t afford the TV kit and caboodle?

Where to spend your money: Twitter

In the final moments of last year’s game, Twitter interaction was averaging over 12,000 tweets per second.  PER SECOND.  And the grand total for Super Bowl related tweets?  13.7 million.

From Zander Lurie, SVP, Strategic Development at CBS:

They refer to it as a “second screen” experience: the audience watches conventional media while using new media to comment on / interact with it.  Take a look at this graphic by Nielsen:

And for social proof, do you know who’s monitoring Twitter on Super Bowl Sunday?  All of those enormous in-game advertisers… For real time feedback, they turn to the social media network.

(Interesting aside: With social media, you may not even lose an impression due to a pit stop: according to the Nielsen report, 32% of people use social networking in the bathroom.)

Option 1: Promoted Tweets

A tip from Twitter’s advertising department: “Leverage real-time intent: Run Promoted Tweets in search to target relevant [timely] terms that have trended in the past on Twitter and are likely to once again spark high levels of discussion.”

A Promoted Tweet looks like this:

And just in time to collect your Super Bowl dollars, Twitter made improvements to Promoted Tweets:  You can now target negative keywords.  Their example: “If you sell bacon, you can now keep your campaigns more than six degrees apart from Kevin Bacon by using ‘Kevin’ as a negative keyword.”

You can also target your promoted Tweets to geographic regions (a great advertising option for brick and mortar businesses), existing follower base and gender.

But the best thing about Promoted Tweets?  You only pay when people play.  From Twitter: “Promoted Tweets are priced on a Cost-per-Engagement (CPE) basis, so you only pay when someone retweets, replies to, clicks or favorites your Promoted Tweet.”  Pretty sweet deal for someone with a small ad budget.

Option 2: Sponsored hashtags

Also known as Promoted Trends, a sponsored hashtag will appear at the top of Twitter’s Trending Topics list at the left of a user’s feed.

Anecdotal evidence of their efficacy – at least for bigger brands – is positive.  For example, Coke used a promoted tweet during the 2010 World Cup and snatched 86 million impressions with a 6% engagement rate.

Today, the price tag of a 24-hour sponsored hashtag is around $120,000, though Twitter is expected to hike that cost for this year’s Bowl.  It’s a bargain at even twice or three times that figure, however, when you consider that your brand will stay in the spotlight for 24 hours (compared to a 30 second, $3.8 million TV spot).

Sponsored hashtags also appear on iPhones, Android mobile devices, Tweetdeck and Hootsuite, making them a good choice for folks tweeting in front of their flatscreens.

A caveat: As with any social or viral marketing campaign, you do not control the interaction.  It is important to consider that the hashtag, once created, takes on a life of its own.  Some of your feedback may be negative. For example, check out the Republican National Committee’s #AreYouBetterOff debacle.

And for those of you truly looking for a bargain, you can get ahead of the game and capitalize on tags that you KNOW will be trending; in 2013, #ManofSteel, #IronMan3 and #Hangover3 are all pretty safe bets.  You can also check out hashtag search engines like Tweet Archivist or Tweet Charts to see what people are talking about most.

Option 3: Promoted accounts

While a promoted account won’t necessarily be visible on everyone’s Twitter page, it allows for greater targeting of potential customers. Twitter’s algorithm recommends a user follow your account only if they fit a specific profile, resulting in less wasted coverage.

Like Promoted Tweets, you only pay for interaction – specifically when someone follows your account. You decide how much you want to spend per day or new follower, and you can geo-target.

Our in-house social media guru Doug Antkowiak also suggests: “Promoted accounts target people based on who the target account is already following.  If you want to be seen by a specific niche, you need to go follow those people first.  Followerwonk is a great place to start.”

Where to spend your money: Facebook

Are people really looking at their Facebook pages during the big game?

Allfacebook.com studied the wall posts of more than 1,400 brands during game time and found that engagement during the Super Bowl soared 60%.

Not unexpectedly, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg maintains advertising on Facebook is better than advertising on television.  More unexpectedly, she had this stat to back it up:  Facebook’s daily traffic is over three times greater than Super Bowl viewership.

Option 1: Facebook Ads

Facebook Ads allow you to select a page or piece of content you’d like to promote.

Facebook has greater targeting dexterity than Twitter, allowing you to select from a number of demographic categories, including location, age, gender and interests.  You set your campaign budget and are charged every time someone sees your ad or sponsored story.  Then choose whether you’d like to optimize for engagement, impressions or clicks.

If a mid-sized business elects to go with Facebook Ads, it may want to create some pieces of quality Super Bowl-centric content to promote on Game Day.  Craft the message for your target market and select the demographic filters that correspond.

Option 2: Facebook Apps

More expensive but great at brand building, Facebook apps allow you to more fully engage with a potential customer base, often via a contest, game or service.  It also enables an advertiser to control a corner of the social media juggernaut, increasing user engagement rates.

With highlights like automatic bookmarking, newsfeed stories and a notifications API, Facebook apps are front and center for engaging potential customers.  Once you reach 10 active users, your app will be automatically included in the Facebook search index.  Facebook Insights also allows you to accurately track user engagement and referral traffic.

In fact this year, Doritos is using a Facebook App to choose their network Super Bowl commercial as the latest incarnation of their popular “Crash the Super Bowl” promotion.

While posting your app to Facebook is free, building it can cost anywhere from $500 to tens of thousands of dollars.

Your Game Day playbook

1. Start with content.  Create something relevant to the Super Bowl, but not necessarily about football.  Think of your target market and generate a campaign that connects your product or service to the event in a way that engages them.  For a conventional media example, the Puppy Bowl entertains Animal Planet’s demographic (pet owners) with a silly, cute ‘game’ that is relevant enough to capitalize on the Super Bowl’s PR, but distant enough they can carve their own niche.
2. Capitalize on Twitter trends through promoted tweets and sponsored hashtags.  Also take advantage of some ‘free’ promotion with Tweets using hashtags that are certain to be popular.
3. Anything that is cost-per-whatever, consider using.  You’re only paying for people who have seen your Facebook ad/Promoted tweet/account/etc.  No wasted coverage.
4. As always, monitor and measure.  Improve.  You’ll have another shot next year.

The takeaway

“Playing your own game” is about forging a relationship with your customer base on your terms.  Small- to mid-sized businesses should grasp the opportunity to capitalize on a trending, water cooler topic like the Super Bowl, but they must do so strategically, for the right price, and be able to measure the result.

For anyone who’s not Coke (or even Pepsi), the smart money’s online.  There you’ll have time to build a brand identity… One that stands a chance against a talking gecko and some Clydesdales.

Ultimately, you can spend $3.8 million on 30 seconds of TV which may or may not catch fire… Or you can become part of the excited, week-long dialogue that surrounds the big game, engaging potential consumers on a topic they are already vested in.

Now it may be too late to implement a strategy for the Super Bowl – it IS on Sunday – but there’s still a little time to capitalize on the Female Super Bowl: the Oscars air on Sunday, Feb. 24.

Am I missing any other viable social media ad outlets for Super Bowl Sunday?  Should we bet on YouTube?  Pinterest? (Hint: not them.)  Let me know in the comments below.

The post Social Bowl XLVII: Why a Mid-Sized Firm or Small Business Must Play Its Own Game on Sunday appeared first on Portent.

Video and original music by Josh Patrice

We had a great time creating our frozen palace, which was further embellished with an amazing ice sculpture made by this swell guy.

The snowball fight itself got a little out of hand as the sun sank and the snow quickly turned to ice.  We hope everyone who was bruised, broken and otherwise injured quickly recovers.  It was for a good cause.

The post Portent: Kings of the (Snow) Castle appeared first on Portent.

So skip the multiplex this weekend and get the legit skinny on a day in the (Real) Life of Pi.

Graphic courtesy of Rebecca Bridge

6:45        Designer Anna is first in the office: “It’s dark because the lights aren’t on yet. And it’s quiet. And I can watch the sunrise at my desk.”

8:27        Associate Director of Content Jaelithe strolls in.  And this is what she was up to an hour before:

If it looks like she woke up at 6 am to organize a train-side breakfast complete with waffles, china and a card table, well, that’s exactly what she did.

9:37        Senior Copywriter Katie arrives (late) via this elevator…

…passes Office Manager Shauna…

…and enters the kitchen to find there is NO ICE IN THE ICE MACHINE.  Fail.

9:43        New employee alert.  All-company email announces the arrival of a Customer Development Associate.  In the words of Director of Sales Steven, “We are excited to have him on board so please be kind to him for at least the first few days.”

10:30     Staff meeting kicks off with Associate Director of Accounts Aviva announcing some new clients.  We can’t tell you who they are, but they’re awesome.

Account Strategist Alexander pronounces SEO Team Lead Josh’s performance in a client’s video on tooth decay “Oscar-winning.”

Meeting concludes with CCO Tracy trash-talking fantasy football to PPC Specialist Michael.  These guys really just moonlight at Portent.  We know where their hearts are.

11:35     CEO Ian leads a new client kick-off meeting emphasizing overall site triage while dropping knowledge on grommets, cholera, Doctor Who, the assassination of Benjamin Harrison and a variety of strangely relevant, yet way obscure, topics.

11:55     Off-Site SEO Strategist Nick receives this amazingly excellent rejection to his request for a link:

12:24     LUNCH. Thai, Indian, meatball sandwiches and one big bag of Doritos.  We’re obviously a multi-national.

12:37     Director of Search Marketing Elizabeth attempts to eat an entire Jimmy John’s Pickle.

12:41     She fails.

12:45     Social Media Team Lead Doug announces a new plan to increase Klout scores for individuals throughout the company. He explains how Klout scores aren’t actually that important, but since prospective clients always talk about Klout, our Klout scores should be very important to us.

12:59     Various factions draw eSwords over an upcoming webinar title.  No one is seriously hurt.

2:00        Portent U – Marianne tells all about iPhone and iPad app search and how it can be optimized for our clients’ proprietary applications.

She emphasizes creating a positive user experience with suggestions like “when you put the page on the site, you really want that page to articulate the benefits and features, because they may not get that when they go to the iTunes store.  You know if they’re like me, they’re just like install, install and let me get out of here.”

3:30        Portent President Steve sits down for a 1-on-1 with new Account Strategist Lisa to discuss the future of Portent, its philosophy and strategic goals.

3:36        This happens:

3:38        After submitting her list of demands (yes to couches in the nap room but Red Hots are verboten), Copywriter Isla spends a few minutes staring out the window.  Writers are writing even when they aren’t actively typing, and watching the ceaseless traffic on northbound 99 inspires a kick-ass intro for a piece of link bait about fishing.

4:05        Time to check in with Grievance Board updates:

4:23        Social media reporting gets interrupted when Doug asks those around him how they feel about the movie Caddyshack. Social Strategist Bryden replies, “It’s a classic.” Doug argues that it’s “wildly over-rated.” Somehow, the conversation transitions into Fletch and other old Chevy Chase movies… which somehow leads to video games from the 90s. The team goes back to work after agreeing that Oddjob is practically impossible to kill while playing multi-player in the Nintendo 64 version of GoldenEye.

5:00        Elizabeth finishes her gargantuan inventory of company efficiency and profitability.  She wishes she had the rest of that pickle.

6:37        SEO Developer Matthew heads home, closing down the office, concluding just another day in the (Real) Life of Pi.

 Additional reporting, eavesdropping, spying and the like by Doug Antkowiak and Isla McKetta.

The post The (Real) Life of Pi appeared first on Portent.

A bold ruler ascends—going by the name Google AuthorRank – and his reign will be a long one. Because, in the very near future, information will take a back seat to who supplies it.

We can no longer trust content – there’s just too much of it.  And many of “the facts” are flat-out wrong.  In an online environment, false information piles up, improving its credibility with every link, citation and reiteration, becoming exponentially more “trustworthy” despite an intrinsic lack of veracity.  It’s one big evidentiary “toilet bowl of death”*.

The danger in this climate is that repeating a lie makes it “true.”  Repetition = reinforcement = legitimacy.  And the situation only gets worse as the amount of information grows.

So, if we can’t trust the information itself, we will have to trust its source.  The sorter.  The filterer.  The “expert.”  Those we designate to vet our reality.  Thus, the evolution of Google AuthorRank.

Like Billy Joel says, “it’s a matter of trust”.

What is ‘Google AuthorRank’?

So just who is this new monarch?  Google AuthorRank is a system that allows the search engine to verify and rate sources of content by ascribing trust rankings to writers.

Rumored ranking factors include:

• The average PageRank of the author’s published content
• Engagement levels, both on the author’s Google+ page and the pages where the content lives
• The number of contacts in the author’s Google+ circles
• Authority across other G-trusted social media platforms (Twitter, LinkedIn)
• The author’s inclusion (or lack thereof) on marquee authority indicators like Wikipedia
• Posting frequency
• More, etc., and To Be Continued…

AuthorRank will help readers by allowing them to be more confident in the content they consume.  And if you are wondering if it’s worth it to the writers, check out the following example of its predecessor Google Authorship…

My amazing article in search results:

Yoast founder Joost de Valk’s amazing article in search results:

His listing is a lot more utilitarian from a branding perspective and, well… cooler.  Not only does the result direct readers to additional Joostian content, it includes his PICTURE.  (And since we writers are known for our matinee idol good looks, this is a definite plus.)

But I’m not alone: according to an August study, only 9% of tech blogs (TECH BLOGS!) have “fully implemented” Google Authorship.

How influential will Google AuthorRank be in SEO?

In 2011, Google’s Othar Hansson said the following:

“We hope to use [author] information and any information as a ranking signal at Google.  So in this case, we want to get information on credibility of authors from all kinds of sources and eventually use that in ranking.”

So I’m guessing pretty darn influential.

Potential issues

But you gotta take the good with the bad… And there’s certainly the potential for some bad:

• Google AuthorRank gives the search juggernaut even more influence and muscle.  Monopoly ain’t just a boardgame.
• AuthorRank is rather incestuous and self-serving: it requires connection to Google+, which assists the social media network in its endless quest to crush arch nemesis Facebook.
• Like all SEO, this preferential treatment can prove self-fulfilling.  Writers who have become informational cottage industries can potentially spew content that, regardless of quality or accuracy, immediately goes to the top of search results.  Better researched, but ultimately less authoritative material is trumped.
• Who watches the watchmen?  There must be a constant process of vetting and validating those who we trust – mitigating risk by absorbing a larger sample – but not too large a sample or all information loses perspective.

Our collective conscious continues to grow, but not all information is created equal.

It’s time to cybercircle the wagons around specific, legitimate, attributable human sources.

Consequently, in today’s world and moving forward, not only must you have content that matters, you must have writers who matter.

*™Ian Lurie.

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