Branding 101: Five Tips for Solopreneurs - Entrepreneur.com

04/20/2012

 
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Written by Carol Tice 

Strong branding is critical in our ad-cluttered world. After all, you want to ensure that you're the first provider in your niche that comes to customers' minds.

But what if your brand is, well, just you? How can you be memorable and stand out?

Never fear -- solopreneurs can have snappy branding, too. Here's a quick guide and some examples of one-person businesses that have great, memorable brands:

  1.  Make it visual. Simple branding is best, especially if you can make an association in people's minds that helps them remember you. Two of my local realtors are Ed Aro and Penny McLaughlin. You guessed it -- Ed's logo is an arrow, and Penny's is a one-cent piece with her face on it in profile instead of Lincoln. Penny has had so much success with her brand that she grew into a real-estate empire with eight brokers, a.k.a. "Penny's Team." Their trucks are often seen around town, with that familiar penny logo on the side.
     
  2. Be sure it's tweetable. Social media is increasingly important in coming up with your brand concept. Look what happened to Netflix when they didn't check if their chosen spinoff brand name, Qwikster, was available on Twitter. It turned out to be already taken by someone who wanted to post about their drug use. When you're choosing a brand name, consider how and whether it would work in social media.
     
  3. Have fun. Some of my favorite solopreneur brands have humorous or whimsical elements. For instance, a proofreader and writing-consultant friend of mine, Stefanie Flaxman, is the Revision Fairy -- check out her cool cartoon. And franchise expert Joel Libava is the Franchise King, down to posing with a red-velvet-and-gold crown (once again, great visual). What better way to instantly communicate that he's the top expert in his field?
     
  4. Make sure it fits. If the entrepreneurs I've cited above were uncomfortable with the brands they've created, their brands would flounder. You may be living with this brand for a long time, so don't go with a brand concept that embarrasses you. Customers will sense that, and you won't promote your brand as enthusiastically.
     
  5. Be consistent. Once you've come up with your branding, you want to use it everywhere. Get new business cards, magnet signs for your car, stationery and a new sign for your store. Don't leave any of your old, less-awesome branding lurking around to confuse people.

 

4 Ways to Rethink the Press Release - From Mashable.com

04/08/2012

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Jonathan Rick is a director at Levick Strategic Communications. He contributes to Levick’s Bulletproof Blog. Follow him @jrick.

Every year, for the last ten years, someone has proclaimed that the press release is dying. While the rumors of its demise are exaggerated, they are not totally unfounded. That’s because the press release is, in fact, being eclipsed by digital alternatives that are more flexible, more interesting, and more relevant.

In 2010, when Google made a major announcement not by press release but by blog post, we reached what seemed like a milestone. Five years earlier, a company of Google’s stature would have issued a statement on a newswire. Now, a Google executive was crafting a more thoughtful narrative that the company published on its official blog.

This shift in medium and message represents a new era in corporate communications. News now needs to be conveyed in an empathetic tone and delivered in a user-friendly format.

And Google isn’t the only company using this strategy. Dell breaks news on its blog all the time. When Netflix has something to say, it complements a traditional release with a first-person post. Southwest Airlines takes the prize for a blog that whips CNN-type announcements into HBO-like celebrations.

What’s so encouraging about this trend is that it isn’t exclusive to corporate behemoths. To the contrary, smaller companies can leverage blog-centric communications with great success. Here are four examples of those that do it well.

1. ZillowZillow, the real estate company, has a great blog where it bypasses the typical corporate press release. Instead, it opts for more conversational posts like: “Whether you’re driving around a neighborhood checking home values on your smartphone, using an iPad to draw a search around that dream neighborhood while waiting at the airport, or doing some serious house hunting on your computer at home, there are multiple ways to home search and shop with Zillow.”

Similarly, new hires are introduced by their respective manager in a first-person post.

The Lesson: Keep it human. Your stakeholders, and your customers, prefer it that way.

2. PatagoniaThose searching Patagonia’s website for a press release will look in vain. Instead, media folks are invited to join the Patagonia PR Facebook group. This group is dedicated to keeping journalists, writers, editors, and other media informed about Patagonia and its outdoor clothing products. While a social network isn’t technically a blog, it works. In fact, Patagonia also operates a robust blog.

The Lesson: Passion, even edginess, does not get in the way of your message. Passion actually shows personality, and that there’s a real person behind your press shop.

3. InnocentWhen the British smoothie-maker Innocent announced new juice blends earlier this year, it did so via press release and blog post. The difference between the two versions speaks volumes.

    Here’s the press release: “We’ve been so pleased with how popular the juice has been that we got back in to the kitchen and have made some delicious juice blends, which we think everyone will enjoy just as much.”

    Here’s the blog post: “You can choose from our delicious apple and raspberry recipe or totally tasty tropical (sorry), depending on whether you need to be transported to a dappled orchard or a desert island.”

The formatting differences between the two are even more glaring. The press release lacks any social sharing buttons. Its claim to fame: it’s downloadable as a PDF. The blog post features the colorful new bottles and video created for the occasion. There’s also a promise to reward the most interesting comments with a free case of the new blends.

The Lesson: Entertaining consumers is as important as informing them.

4. ServIntWhen ServInt, a web host, announced a new line of servers from their Flex brand, the press release followed the tried-and-trite formula. “ServInt, a pioneering provider of managed cloud hosting for enterprises worldwide, today introduced its new line of fully managed, dedicated servers under the Flex brand.”

Then things got interesting on their blog, ServInt Source, which ran three posts about Flex. First, ServInt’s sales director touted the servers’ “power and options.” A week later, its vice president of marketing connected the new machines to the company’s new brand identity. Finally, the COO placed these changes in the context of industry-wide developments.

What’s significant about this approach is how it turns a single announcement into multiple opportunities. With press releases this continuity is difficult. A blog, however, is perfect for ongoing updates.

The Lesson: Make it personal. Comments from soldiers in the trenches are more memorable than a few quotes from a chief executive.

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How to Secure Your Facebook Business Page

04/04/2012

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by Eric Geier
Do you manage a Facebook Page for your business or organization? If so, you're probably aware that many of the same security issues that plague personal profiles also apply to Pages. But what you may not know is that there are several additional security issues that you should be thinking about when managing a Facebook Page.

The top areas you should be thinking about include: Securing your Page, locking down your admin accounts, and securely managing apps, comments, posts, and abuse.

In this article, I’ll discuss each of these areas and give you some tips on keeping your company's Facebook presence as secure as possible.

Configure Your Page for Maximum Security

To review and manage your Page settings, you must first log in with your personal Facebook account. Once you're logged in, click the arrow in the upper right corner and select your page. Now you'll be using Facebook as your Page(rather than as yourself), and you'll be able to review and update your page settings and permissions, admin accounts, and featured settings. You can also access these settings by clicking the Edit Page button in the upper right when viewing your Facebook Page. You'll want to periodically review these settings, as Facebook often makes changes and additions in these areas.

On the Your Settings page, it's a good idea to enable the setting  labeled Always comment and post on your page as [Your Page Name], even when using Facebook as [Your Personal Name]. Doing so will help hide your personal Facebook account from your Page's visitors, which is a good idea in case your personal account gets hacked. On this page you'll also likely want to enable the email notifications so you can regularly keep tabs on postings and comments left by the public. If you have other people set up as Page admins, keep in mind these settings are unique to each admin. It's a good practice to make sure all admins are following a consistent policy with regard to these settings.

On the Manage Permissions page, pay close attention to the Posting Ability, Moderation Blocklist, and Profanity Blocklist settings.

On the Manage Admins page, make sure you keep the list of admins up-to-date and remove anyone who no longer needs access.

On the Featured page, it's a good idea to stay away from designating any of your admins as Featured Page Owners, because the act of exposing your admins' personal accounts could make your Page more vulnerable to hacking. Furthermore, your admins might inadvertently post content on their personal profiles that would not be appropriate for your Page visitors.

Protect Your Admin Accounts

Remember, admin access to your Page content and settings is managed via personal Facebook accounts. Any person that is set as an admin for your Page can login with his or her personal Facebook account credentials to manage the page. This means that if an admin's personal Facebook account becomes compromised, then the hacker automatically has admin access to the Page content and settings as well. (Unfortunately, admins can't mitigate this risk by creating multiple Facebook accounts: It is a violation of Facebook’s Statement of Rights and Responsibilities to maintain more than one personal account.)

To help keep their personal accounts secure, all Page admins should be familiar with and follow the tips and best practices listed on the Facebook security page and in the downloadable Facebook Security Guide. Some of the steps you can take to secure your personal account include: Making your profile and content private, and enabling SSL connections. You should also carefully review which apps have access to your account and disable all the ones you can live without.

Manage Apps, Comments, and Abuse

Facebook apps let you add custom functionality to your Facebook Page, which can help create a more compelling experience for your visitors. For example, you can use the Hosted iFrame app to add custom tabs to your Facebook Page.

But before you add a Facebook app to your Page, make sure to read the app reviews and carefully review the list of permissions requested by the app. Some apps may pose privacy risks while others may be completely malicious. Review your app list periodically and remove those you don't use.

If you allow posting by visitors (as specified in permissions), you can always remove posts and comments from your page that you deem inappropriate. Simply view your page, hover over the post or comment, and you’ll find a small icon for deleting it. If you accidently remove or hide a post, you may be able to recover it by clicking the Wall link on your Page and selecting Hidden Posts.

You can also remove or permanently ban troublemakers from your page. When removing a post or comment, you’ll be asked whether or not you want to just delete the content or delete and ban the user.

To help protect your business or brand, you should periodically search Facebook for any third-party pages or profiles about your organization. Users could create hate groups and imitation pages about your organization or brand for malicious reasons.

If you do find inappropriate content you can report it to Facebook. Even if you find a username of a page or personal profile that infringes your rights, you can report that as well.

Lastly, you might want to check Facebook’s official Privacy for Page Admins info. If you have specific questions regarding pages or their security, consider posting them on the Facebook Pages Forum. And it bears repeating that you'll want all page admins to follow good security practices when using their personal accounts as well, so be sure to check out the general Facebook Security page too.

Eric Geier is the founder of NoWiresSecurity, which helps businesses easily protect their Wi-Fi networks with the Enterprise mode of WPA/WPA2 security. He is also a freelance tech writer. Follow him on Twitter: @eric_geier.

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