Is your brand going up in the air

Managing your brand as it takes off into the skies (or clouds as it is today!), is impossible. You may however, put structures in place to manage your brand as much as one can possibly manage it.

Very few conversations on marketing occur without someone mentioning Facebook.

"Facebook me", "Did you see that on Facebook", "Is that on Facebook", "Are you on Facebook". It really has overtaken the world of marketing discussion.

Facebook is great and has a place in many companies marketing strategies, but there are other social media platforms that are less "social" and more "business". Like Linkedin. The value Linkedin provides for businesses is incredible. You just need to know how to use it and everyday, you will most probably learn something new.

When Marketing Eye writes a blog of late, we post it to Linkedin. We select to 'share it with groups' and hand pick groups that the blog would be most relevant to. Immediately, you can see a huge spike in the results and ultimately the inquiry rate goes up.

Having a brand management strategy is place is pivotal to leveraging your brand in the market.

According to Brenda Porter-Rockwell's article in Inc Magazine, "Your brand is your mark of distinction. It set's you apart from your competitors." Too right it is!

Keeping your brand intact and managing it through the jungle of marketing touchpoints out there in today's environment is impossible, but there are ways to minimize your risk.

For 2 consecutive days I wrote controversial blogs. The first 'What women can do to make their man more successful' and the second, 'What men can do to make their woman more successful'. It certainly was topical with tens of thousands of people reading the blogs and many of whom had opinions good and bad. It was a talking point in the morning tea room as much as it was on Facebook which seemed to be the number one medium in which both of these blogs were distributed.

Notably, it taught me a couple of things about the Marketing Eye brand.

As marketing consultants, we need to position ourselves in a way that resonates with our target audience. Marketing Eye has always been a thought leader and in every area of our business, we have pioneered small business marketing in a way that no other company has been able to do. We keep innovating and invest heavily in research and development and foster idea generation. The open forum we provide to our staff and clients to share ideas and pick ones that have the highest probability of working, then running with it, has a huge uptake.

These particular blogs were outside our normal opinion pieces but were meant to start conversations all over the world. What is a man's role in helping a woman be more successful? Do they sit back and watch, or is there something that they can be doing to foster growth and success?

And women. Have our roles changed so much that we have lost sight of the big picture? Or is this opinion too 1950's? Surprisingly, more women resonated with the article that basically said that they should be there to support their husbands or partners if they want them to be successful - then men. A few men thought that this is not the role of a woman. In fact, they believe women should do as they please, as and when they want to. Interesting. Who would have thought?

Marketing Eye's brand went up into the clouds and had people talking. Some thought our brand reached new heights and certainly hit the inboxes and Facebook pages of people that it may never have reached. Others thought that Marketing Eye was old fashioned in its opinion, that was of course until they read the next day's blog about how a man can help make their woman more successful. Taking out the rubbish is a start, but it is way more than just that.

As a company and as a marketing consultancy firm, we need to always be a thought leader. Ahead of the game.

How we do this is another thing. Sometimes we get it right and sometimes we don't. The last two blogs served a purpose. They got people reading our blogs that may never have read them. They had people thinking about what was written and forming an opinion. Importantly, the blogs got the brand name and identity out there, in the market, and shared for the world to see. It will be interesting to see where these two blogs end up and how the brand is perceived from this point forward.

Onwards and upwards, I say.