Change of Venue

I have started hosting my own website and all of my blogging will be over there now...  please visit

ShoelessTim.com

to keep up with my posts.

Branding

With TWTR launching their IPO yesterday lets discuss branding...

While it may seem cheap to mock my own creative failings, I do have a business that I want to develop and products that I want to sell.

The most interesting part of creating something is how to build what we now call a brand.

An interesting term because branding, usually by means of charring, comes from livestock.  The act of marking [by branding] livestock with fire-heated marks to identify ownership has origins in ancient times, with use dating back to the ancient Egyptians. Among the ancient Romans, the symbols used for brands were sometimes chosen as part of a magic spell aimed at protecting animals from harm.

So over the years branding has transitioned to other types of goods. The brand being a name, a logo, a slogan, and/or a design scheme, which becomes associated with a product or service. A good product with superior branding is something customers can identify with. The key is the ability to build a relationship with your consumer and drive that repeat and subliminal business.

A good example of superior branding is Kleenex. People by default in the United States of America ask for kleenex when they need a facial tissue. We are so deeply ingrained with the idea that we blow our nose with Kleenex that their brand is an almost subliminal choice.

The synonymous use of brands vs. products is from fantastic marketing.  Good marketing and good branding is the result of understanding people and how they think. If you can successfully build an image that becomes a long lasting and irreplaceable part of a cultures psyche, then you can establish product dominance. Some things are so iconic that they simply don't need marketing. For example,  Post-It Brand notes.  What to I need to say about these?

I want to create a great design for my company and myself, but how do you compete with multi-million dollar design firms?  How do you make a way for yourself in an industry that is saturated with brilliant marketing.?

#TWTR

Todays IPO is huge, possibly larger than the facebook IPO.  At least for @Twitter who is launching in to a new market. Already possibly the fasted social media venu,e twitter draws real relevance across Klout and much of the SMM sphere.

The big deal of the day their IPO lead off at 0830 EST this morning and hopes are high for a better start than the other social media giant.

Update: With in hours of the stocks opening at $25 there has been a huge growth to numbers as high as $49.73. Keep watching to see what happens. Updates to follow.

The Social Media Toolkit

If you have Facebook, you probably have other social media outlets which means if you want to hit all of your info-sphere then you have to copy post to each of your outlets. Some outlets will post to other sites for you like:

• Foursquare is good because it will post out to Facebook and Twitter.
• Instagram will Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, email, Foursquare and Tumblr.
• Amazon will also link up to your Facebook and Twitter, but the process is complicated.

 This is time consuming and irritating as well as pointless. BECAUSE NOW, there is IFTTT.  The process could not be easier. You build a recipe:

with your social media outlets to feed each other with content. With 70+ connected Channels you can tie together your google drive with your twitter and have a spreadsheet of all your tweets. or have your iPhone Camera dump picture straight to Facebook when you take a picture. the possibilites are in the thousands now, and growing daily.

Pintrest...

I have to say, Pintrest is probably my least favorite social media venue. Mainly because there is not a lot of controls, the content is spotty, and its repetitive.

The problem with its content is this. Its user built and driven. Whats wrong with that, Tim, you might ask. because it is an outlet that is predominantly used by women (ok so thats unfair), in reality theres not a lot of attention to detail. If I were to put up a link of a rain barrel like this:

I would make sure like I have here to link the crediting source and to have some kind of a comment for this item...

However the problem that I have is that some of the time when i click on a link it I get this:

Where there is no link or amplifying information. Realistically its a large visual search tool but instead of drawing information into it people are posting things which to me seems to be the reason for its spotty information.