Worlde: It Is Indeed All About Conversation

If you haven't seen the cool application Wordle, check it out.

Give it a link to your website, or plunk in some of your marketing or website copy and it will create a cool word cloud based on the content. Are the words showing up the ones you want?

I'm excited to note that The Brand Box is indeed all about conversation.

Brand Adversity? Meet It Head On.

The Tour de France has had it's share of scandal for the last few years. Doping allegations, disgraced champions, the absence of reigning champions, struggles about how to govern this flagship cycling competition. It's been a rough road for them, to be sure.

Versus, the cable sports network that covers the Tour, has taken matters into their own hands to try and motivate cycling and Tour lovers alike to Take Back The Tour. The TV spots are unapologetic and in-your-face. And they're effective for an evangelist like me that loves the sport, loves the race, and wants to see the world's greatest bike race regain its former glory.



So what's the lesson here to be learned?

Brand tarnishing happens to the best of the best. In today's market of interconnected and superconnected online networks, referral- and review-minded consumers, and customer-driven branding, it's inevitable that the negative will creep out amongst the positive. And whether it's a small smudge or a giant smear campaign, nothing can be gained by hiding amongst the trees and hoping it will all blow over. (Jusk ask fans and users of Twitter these days).

Engaging those that are talking to you and about you can do wonders for healing - even improving - a brand's reputation. Yes, it's scary sometimes and it can sting to take a few blows. But your credibility is heightened when you speak in your own voice and try your best to have a dialogue with those criticising you. Companies are populated by people and a human face is critical to meeting adversity with credibility.

And if you've been the unfortunate victim of bad apples spoiling your bushel like the Tour de France has, take back your brand by denouncing bad behavior and reaffirming your commitment to your company and your customers. Skip the corporate-y crisis press release and put out real, human responses by real people. Get out there and engage with your loyal evangelists, and rally them to the cause. Apologize for your mistakes. Commit to correcting them. Thank your community for caring enough to be angry.

After all, isn't your personal Tour de France worth defending?

Capturing an Idea Storm

I asked my favorite online universe the other day what tools they used for capturing all the ideas that come flooding at me every day - for my blog, for my business, for my clients. I don't want to miss an opportunity to capture something brilliant, even if I have to file it away for later. And if you're a Post-It junkie like me, you might need help reforming your ways.

I was just planning to check out a few tools for myself, but got to thinking that everyone - especially small business owners - needs great ways to capture the plethora of information they find on the web. So here's my list of a few great tools I've come across, thanks to these great recommendations.

Evernote - fresh out of beta, I'm liking this application for its clean interface, and it's handy "clip to Evernote" shortcut for a browser toolbar. Simply highlight the portion you want to capture on a web page, and click. You can set up multiple "notebooks" to categorize your page however your brain works, and you can use it on the web as well as download a desktop application. Free.

Google Notebook - Rumor has it that there are lots of GN evangelists, but they've got a little buggy thing going on with Firefox 3 right now so I'm waiting on that. But for those of you with other web browsers, this looks like it could be a super useful tool that functions a lot like Evernote above. Free.

PersonalBrain - This is a desktop application that allows you to collect your web pages, contacts, emails and files all in one place, and it offers a sort of "mind mapping" of your stuff to show you how they're all interrelated. A little bit schizophrenic for my taste, but it might be just the right tool for someone more free thinking. Free trial with full features that reverts to a more limited version after 30 days. Costs of upgraded versions are $149 and $249.

OneNote - Microsoft, of course, has their own product of this stripe. OneNote is a digital notebook that allows you to collect all your notes and information - text, pictures, audio and video - and it integrates a search function so you can find your stuff again easily. It integrates with the Office 2007 system, too. Free 60 day trial, or purchase for $99.

Instapaper - Basic but incredibly useful, Instapaper is a simple bookmarking tool. Just put the "read later" button in your browser toolbar, and click on it each time you find something interesting that you just don't have time to process right now. Then, come back to it later. Free.

Moleskine notebook - truly the high class tool for doing it "the old fashioned way" with pen and paper.

Of course, whatever tools you use, the most important part is to find a way to keep track of the waves of brilliance you find crossing your path. As a busy business owner, the best way to surefire marketing is to have great ideas and share them with others. So, have at!

Plurkshop #4: Fractured Conversations and How to Manage Them

The internet - and social media in particular - has opened up vast arenas for conversation and feedback that can easily take on lives of their own. For small businesses, this kind of organic conversation can be especially valuable.

For instance, a post on your blog or website might prompt someone else to blog about you and then others to comment or share that via FriendFeed or StumbleUpon or Twitter and make commentary of their own. How to keep track? Tonight, our Plurkshop on the social community Plurk discussed the challenges and benefits of that reality, and uncovered a few tools to help listen to what’s being said about you, your company, and your brand on the web.

Challenges we cited:

• Conversations about you – your brand, your blog, your company – are happening everywhere, including in places you haven’t looked.
• Fragmented conversations across the web and so many tools for sharing information can make it difficult to keep track of what people are saying about you and your brand.
• Dispersed commentary makes us worry that we’re missing important feedback and opportunities to engage in conversation with people who are talking about us.
• The more a conversation fragments, the more it can lose context and relevance to the original topic. Comments without context can be less valuable to those who read them.
• As a business owner/brand manager/blogger, you need to go where the conversation is and respond to it there, which can be taxing if you have several brands and/or a lot of content that sparks discussion.
• Participating in discussions online can be intimidating for some people. How can you make it easy and welcoming for them to do so?

Some of the main takeaways from tonight:

• The spirit of community conversation is more important than trying to control it. And controlling it is futile, anyway, so it’s best to embrace it. Listen and engage as best you can.
• Fractured and organic discussion encourages new points of view. Different perspectives add value to the conversation. Actively encourage others to take the conversation to their own communities and build upon it or take it in a new direction.
• The community should be able to use whatever tools are helpful to them to engage the conversation and comment. Readers want and will embrace content portability so they can take the discussion wherever they want. It’s our job as those creating the content to do our best to follow it.
• Commenting and engaging others on their “turf” feels more natural, and demonstrates listening flexibility. It also gives businesses and brands opportunities to engage people they might not have otherwise found.
• Traveling conversation can expose new audiences to your content/brand/blog.
• Search Engine Optimization: Fractured conversations are good for search engine optimization so long as they link back the original source. Links that other people create to your content are gold, especially to bloggers and brands.
• The evolution of this kind of conversation is demonstrating the very essence – and power – of social media.
• Not all internet users find their information in the same manner, so the more avenues and options for them to participate, the better.

Some recommended tools to check out for listening/monitoring:

Google Alerts - Get email updates about search results for the terms you choose, including blogs
Technorati - Comprehensive blog search
Co.mments - track conversations related to sites you specify
Friendfeed comments plugin for WordPress users
Serph - A search engine tracking what's being said online about your specific search terms
Addictomatic - a search engine that populates results from other sites and search engines.
Disqus - a comment system for your blog that claims to make comments more interactive and easier to manage
Radian6 - a more robust social media monitoring solution that requires some $$ investment
SiteMeter - free site counter and statistics tracker
ClickTracks - web analytics tools starting at about $50/month
Google Analytics - free web analytics tools
PageFlakes - you can create a customized page to aggregate your monitoring tools and sites
Statcounter - free hit counter and web stats tools
LiJit - a search widget for your blog that provides stats on your visitors and what they're looking for
NetNewsWire - a Mac OS RSS feed reader
NetVibes - a personal page aggregator, like PageFlakes

Here’s the link to the full Plurkshop conversation. Take this back to your community and discuss how you're listening to conversations, and what challenges and triumphs you're having. What’s your take on the nomadic nature of conversation in today's hyperconnected world?

Promotions That Make People Smile

I went to Summerfest in Milwaukee yesterday - a great summer music festival here in the Midwest. Checked into my hotel, and hit the corner to catch the $3 shuttle to the park, concert tickets in hand. Then the fun began!

First, I get on the bus and I'm greeted by a bubbly woman that says "Hi! I'm Jane from Jane and Kidd In The Morning on 99.1 FM, and we're buying your bus ride to Summerfest!" Nice surprise!

Then Kidd hands me a package of Twizzlers (seriously, has candy ever NOT made you smile?), and proceeds to ask where we're from, chit chat a bit. He was super friendly and engaged the whole bus full of people during the 10-15 minute ride through downtown.

Then, as we're getting closer to the park, Kidd speaks up and says "Hey folks, now's the time during the ride where we say hi, and hope you'll tune in to our broadcast on weekday mornings on 99.1. If you're not from the area, we've got streaming audio online! And as a special thanks for hanging out with us today, we're buying your admission to Summerfest!" Then he hands out free festival tickets ($15 a piece at the door) to everyone on the full bus.

So, I don't live in Milwaukee anymore, but the promotion certainly got my attention. Why? The folks doing it were fun and personable, they made it perfectly relevant to me (by being on the bus on my way to Summerfest and starting my day at the fest out on a happy note), and gave me something to talk about like I'm doing now.

The moral of this story is that you can successfully launch a great promotion for your company by making it fun and engaging for the people you're talking to, and giving something away that they're sure to talk about. Kudos to the 99.1 team for making their promo fun and memorable.

What promotions have turned you on instead of off? Which do you remember fondly and why? Do you remember the brands/companies they were associated with, or was it just gimmicky? Share with us in the comments!