Have you ever enjoyed listening to someone even if a lot of what they we’re saying was over your head or out of you normal topic of interest? Garrison Keillor of Prairie Home Companion fame is not exactly, “Mr. Excitement” but boy do I love listening to him tell the stories of Lake Wobegon.

Passion doesn’t have to mean you are jumping up in down with excitement but your readers, listeners or viewers have to get a sense you love what you are talking about and it’s a significant part of your life. Your speaking style is an aspect of your “personal brand.”

Perhaps you remember the famous scene or series of scenes in the movie, Ferris Buller’s Day Off in which the main character and a couple of his friends play hookey from school.  During the course of the day we see their fellow students painfully enduring the most boring examples of teachers to the point many were asleep or in a “painful daze.”  I have to admit that if I had to sit through classes like that I would be tempted to cut class as well.  The teachers may have been passionate but it was hard to tell. The two teachers featured spoke in either a monotone voice or took a painfully long time to say what they had to say. To me it’s always obvious that someone loves what they do and what they are speaking about.  In your business do you get excited and have a style that let’s your listeners or prospects know you love the subject? On the other hand do you find yourself having to force yourself to take about something? Have you considered focusing more on those things that even you enjoy listening to yourself talk and could talk about all day? Have you considered dropping the things you do that you can’t even force yourself to be passionate about? or maybe finding and hiring an individual who is passionate about the subject?  Anyone?  Anyone?

Grassroots Innovation has a great post this morning about companies who don’t clearly communicate what they do. The gave the company SAP as a clear example. He also said,

“If you want to be innovative you have to have a product that solves a problem for a customer. Also, the customer should know this.”

Ok then, here are the ways we want to be innovative and the problems we solve as a company;

• We create web sites that are are user friendly for your customers
• We help you create compelling content so you will be noticed by people and search engines
• We take compelling and professional photos that showcase your products, personnel etc.
• We provide RSS tools so your content can be delivered when published to subscribers
• We produce professional business cards that enhance your brand and get you noticed in networking situation
• We get to know your company and help you have consistent branding across your different marketing pieces
• We research the latest trends, technologies, products and services that will help you succeed.
• We develop or convert an existing logo that can be used across you marketing pieces from business cards to billboards
• We develop media products customers can read and listen to anywhere, not just in front of a computer screen

The list could probably be expanded.  It looks like we do a “lot of stuff” but in reality a lot of them are intertwined and can be accomplished in the same work flow. We also have a mission statement that says we are, “Committed to creating, organizing and delivering compelling content” and a workflow outline that has the for principles of Develop, Organize, Secure and Share.

How can we communicate these better?  How can we help you communicate what your business does better?

I’m sure you are hearing us talk more and more about the great web tool know as blogging.  Blogging is not that new of a concept but it the past 2 or 3 years both blogging and podcasting has taken off  like wildfire because CMS and related software has become a lot easier to use, RSS is becoming more mainstream and people and companies are recognizing the blogging is a great way to gain better search engine results.  However I’m sure the question of, “How do I blog about my business?” is asked by a lot of people.  I admit that before I became a frequent blogger I didn’t “get it” either.  How come I didn’t get it?  For the most part I was only seeing blogging for what it was being used for as opposed to what it could potentially be. In the early days I only saw blogging as people posting an online diary or just any old thing on their minds but that’s just a mindset and for the most part with any new technology or methodology people will just play around or as I like to call it, “kick the tires” or take it for a test drive.

I personally think most businesses and organizations are “bloggable” but they are not sure of how to do it. My first suggestion is to get the word “blog” out of your head.  It’s a silly word that was invented and sort of took on a life of it’s own.  It’s nothing more than a way to post new content, sort it by date and give people a way to subscribe to it via RSS (You can technically have a blog without RSS but I would not recommend it as it defeats the purpose). My second suggestion is when you start to write a blog post think about how you would talk to others in business networking, public speaking or social situations.

Often people worry that they might post something they shouldn’t post.  Of course you shouldn’t post confidential information but in public setting you usually don’t reveal “big secrets” either.  Finally you have to ask yourself, “What are my readers and/or site visitors looking for?” Do you have clients or people who ask the same questions over and over? A FAQ section on a web site is nice but it’s amazing at how much extra detail you can go into when writing in a more conversational tone.  This particular post is an example of answering or addressing a question I have been asked multiple times.

A couple of other blogs to check out on this subject are, The Blog Challenge at businessandblogging.com   and today Micheal Martine made a post called, If You Can’t Blog It, Don’t Do It in which he mentions certain kinds of companies that shouldn’t blog.  I disagree with him to a point because he calls out certain companies considered, “evil” by himself and others but he has already received some comments that give the perspective that if those companies did blog, or rather had better and direct communication with the public the company would be understood better or even transformed.

I will say that blogging has helped our company focus better, learn from our readers/clients and in the process of writing we have learned more about our industry as we seek out sources and deeper information.  Is your company blogging? Are you confounded by what you should write? What roadblocks keep you from blogging?

As I bring this series to a close I need to make a point that I am not a full-time “branding expert.” We are, however, in the business of producing products and tools that allow your company to meet it’s branding, marketing and communication goals.

I believe that consistent and compelling branding is crucial to any business from the large multi-national corporation to the one person entrepreneurial venture. It’s  my desire to offer services and products that make this easy for our clients.

They’re people and companies out there that focus on nothing but branding and all of it’s aspects. Some of these people and/or companies have many years of experience when it comes to branding and it’s these experts that I turn to for reference and guidance when it comes to branding my own business as well as helping others with their branding and marketing needs.

The following is a list of books, blogs and podcasts I turn to and respect. You will notice that not all of them agree and some are passionately against one another but it’s great to seek out diverse viewpoints to develop the strategies that work for you.

Books -
Meatball Sundae - Is Your Marketing out of Sync?
Purple Cow - Transform Your Business by Being remarkable
Making Meaning - How companies Deliver Meaningful Customer Experiences
The Cult of Mac
Branding For Non-Profits
The Brand Called You
Stand Out! Branding Strategies for Business Professionals
Integrated Branding

Blogs -

The Brand Builder Blog
Brains of Fire Blog
Small Business Branding
Branding Strategy Insider
Brand Autopsy
The Branding Blog by Brand Identity Guru

Podcasts -

The Engaging Brand
Podcasts listed at Small Business Branding
Personal Branding Summit

Of course this is an incomplete list. It would be impossible to give a complete list but these are the ones I have experience with and know. If you would like to suggest other books, blogs, podcasts or other resources feel free to leave a comment.  I’d love to learn more as well as other people who read this blog.

Thank you so much for reading this series.  As you may have noticed I have already touched on the term, marketing in this series and that will be the focus of the next series.

According to the American Marketing Association, Integrated Marketing Communications is

A planning process designed to assure that all brand contacts received by a customer or prospect for a product, service, or organization are relevant to that person and consistent over time.

This is the work of SpinningSilk Multimedia. We provide services and products with consistent branding using web, print, audio, video and other communications. Our core customer bases are small businesses and organizations and in particular churches, agencies and other organizations in the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church* denomination. We have also done work with some fine local organizations in the Greenville, SC area. The for profit businesses that we have experiences with are construction contractor companies, business coaches and small business e-commerce stores.
Why is Integrated Marketing Communications so important to us and why should it be important to you? I don’t know about you but I hate having to run all over the place to get work done when it’s much better to have a central point of contact where you can be on the same page.

It’s incredibly easy to go the “free route” on so many things from restricted or ad supported free web services, do it yourself business cards or brochures,etc.  Some of these solutions are just fine for certain situations and I have nothing against someone printing their own business cards on an ink jet printer when they need an emergency run but for the long term you need to think long term and develop a relationship with a company experienced in the skills of communications, branding and marketing.

If a business or organization is serious about meeting long-term sales or donor goals, having a consistent brand and a central resource of experts is crucial. Can you do the work of Integrated Marketing yourself?  Maybe. Are you an expert in that area and how much time will it take away from what you are an expert in?  Marketing and sales don’t have to be overly expensive but you don’t want to do it on the cheap either. You’re business or organization needs a consistent branding program. Here is a checklist of things to consider and ask when seeking out and Integrated Marketing, graphic design, web design, print shop, etc.;

1. Does the company have graphic designers who know the difference between optimizing your images for the web and print?
2. Does the company know how to craft your content in such a way to make it compelling and search engine friendly?
3. Is it evident the company is paying attention to the latest trends in technology and marketing?
4. Even if the company is specializing on one aspect of marketing communications do they partner easy with other companies to get the work done?
5. Are they about showing themselves off or showing you off?
6. If you would like to do some things for yourself does the company give you the tools  like an easy web site content management system or files for printing short runs of business cards, etc?
7. Does the company practice what they preach? Do they have their own blog, professional business cards, etc?

Yes, I’m trying to “sell my companies services” in this post.  This post describes what we do as a business and we would love to meet with you to talk about your communication and branding needs.

*We didn’t design the web site for the main denomination web site. That one is done in-house but we have developed sites and helped with other issues for several of the denominations agencies.