The Engaging Brand

Have you an emotional photo album?

Social media allows you to enhance the customer experience, it allows you to show your personality, explore your passion of your cause, service or product....it can stimulate emotion.

I say that 'it can' because I still feel that too often we can all be caught up in conveying a message rather than an emotion, a passion....I think we can sometimes create the experience and in so doing create that 'emotional photo' for customers to share...but

"Do we have or even think about creating an emotional photo album?"

If you think about a holiday, a photo may capture a moment...but an album creates a memory of the whole experience. When you are marketing, selling, serving, asking for money, prospecting, finalising a sale, delivering etc....

Do we see them all as a chance of creating that photo album?

Do we see each tweet, each update, each blog as part of that photo album?

The reason why I ask is that our customers do, each interaction is part of the brand album.....if we don't see it that way, then we are missing a trick.

Show 293 - Winning Body Language

Show 293 of The Engaging Brand leadership and marketing podcast is ready just for you. To subscribe or listen on your PC now - both for free, you don't need to download anything - all explained at the end of the post.

I speaking with Mark Bowden an expert on body language whose "techniques are used now by international corporate executives, G8 political leaders and Oscar winning performers across the globe" joins me to discuss Winning Body Language.  We talk about

• The importance of body language
• Do we over analyze body language?
• Is body language advice neutralizing human beings and human emotions?
• How we communicate with ALL our senses
• How do you balance being busy with communicating correctly?
• The power of vocabulary
• How vocabulary can help YOU and how you can improve your vocabulary
• Is body language important online with social media?
• How body language can improve your own thinking?

Don't forget to subscribe to the show in iTunes or on the Blubrry site.

If you have feedback for me on the show or topics that you would like me to cover then e-mail me at anna@theengagingbrand.com or join me on twitter.

How you can listen to the Engaging Brand

1) You can listen on your PC now without downloading any software just click hear to listen to the latest marketing podcast

2) You can subscribe to the show via iTunes or

3) If you use a different podcatcher then you can subscribe using the following  http://www.podcasternews.com/feeds/enbr.xml

Can you return the favour?

I was speaking with John Jantsch of Duct Tape Marketing fame this week and at the end of the conversation about referrals, I was hit by the fact that 'refer' is a palindrome. I know I have a sad little brain, I know....

But what hit me was that refer is the same both ways....it is a two way word for a two way action.

Refer....is about a two way trust system. I trust that you won't let my friend down when I refer them to you, you trust that if you don't then they and I may continue to spread the word.

Refer also works both ways in business. Too many people forget to thank the referrer...too many people may remember a quick throw away monetary award but how many give a personal recognition for the referral? How many take the time to think can I return the favour...can I make it two way myself?

Maybe I thought refer was a palindrome for a reason....

Show 292 - Inside the mind of an adventurer

Show 292 of The Engaging Brand leadership and marketing podcast is ready just for you. To subscribe or listen on your PC now - both for free, you don't need to download anything - all explained at the end of the post.

I am delighted to be speaking to my friend Roz Savage today, ahead of her 3rd and final leg of rowing the pacific ocean.....wow! We talk about

• How social media can help an adventurer who is being criticized!
• Do we take technology for granted and underplaying the advantages
• The decision making of a lone adventurer
• Is decision making and changing ones mind more difficult when there are no people around you
• When you are rowing an ocean do you learn to live without human 'love' or crave it more?
• What is Eco Heroes?
• The preference of peer pressure over a telling approach in marketing
• How the eco message should not be affected by the recession.
• News on the third leg of the pacific row....

Here are links to our original interviews Facing the Fear Part 1 and Facing the Fear Part 2

Don't forget to subscribe to the show in iTunes or on the Blubrry site.

If you have feedback for me on the show or topics that you would like me to cover then e-mail me at anna@theengagingbrand.com or join me on twitter.

How you can listen to the Engaging Brand

1) You can listen on your PC now without downloading any software just click hear to listen to the latest marketing podcast

2) You can subscribe to the show via iTunes or

3) If you use a different podcatcher then you can subscribe using the following  http://www.podcasternews.com/feeds/enbr.xml

Are you the real thing?

How often do businesses give out a press release about their product or service....and it is a pure information sheet. It is a real bug bear of mine because companies and brands forget people don't talk about what YOU want them to talk about....they talk about what they want to talk about..that is...

• Stories
• Experiences

When you promote, when you want to encourage brand engagement...don't concentrate on the dry facts....concentrate on the story behind the product, behind the innovation. I always think of coke....I know it is the 'real thing' with a highly prized recipe which I have come to imagine, is being looked after by one man in a white coat locked away in a room at the back of factory somewhere!!

When you want to talk about your product.....forget it. Sit down, think of the stories around the product or service....create the myths, create the brand story, create the reasons why people should spend their money with you....create the reason why you different...

Create what I call the brand aura...and personalise the brand. That way you give people something they want to talk about, rather than what you want to tell them.

Show 291 - The World of Celebrity and Branding

Show 291 of The Engaging Brand leadership and marketing podcast is ready just for you. To subscribe or listen on your PC now - both for free, you don't need to download anything - all explained at the end of the post.

Today I discuss the world of celebrity - in relation to branding - with Jordan McAuley who has written about Celebrity Leverage and ho founded contactanycelebrity.com.

We discuss

• How is celebrity defined today?
• With the increase in minor celebrities, has this devalued the worth of celebrities?
• Is the new style of celebrity riskier for brands to use?
• How to choose the right celebrity for your brand
• How to get the attention of a celebrity
• How you can be the next business celebrity!
• The use of You Tube in personal branding

Don't forget to subscribe to the show in iTunes or on the Blubrry site.

If you have feedback for me on the show or topics that you would like me to cover then e-mail me at anna@theengagingbrand.com or join me on twitter.

How you can listen to the Engaging Brand

1) You can listen on your PC now without downloading any software just click hear to listen to the latest marketing podcast

2) You can subscribe to the show via iTunes or

3) If you use a different podcatcher then you can subscribe using the following  http://www.podcasternews.com/feeds/enbr.xml

Hasn't communication always been two way??

Social media has supposedly radically shifted the business world...mmmmm....moving the telling and selling one way model to a two way conversation...mmmmm. The advertising and marketing approach may have changed a little but has business?

The question I always ask when people say this is new or that they will have to change their business culture is.... hasn't business or at least good businesses always been two way?

1. Loyalty between leaders and team members comes from two way respect
2. Loyalty between brands and customers comes from two way respect
3. Business has always been about a two way exchange of products/services for money
4. Business is run by people who must communicate to get things done....communication needs an equal emphasis on listening and talking. Otherwise it is a transfer of information not effective communication

Two way communication has always been at the heart of great businesses...social media does change the need, it just provides an enabling tool for that to happen on a global rather than a local stage.