Brand U by Wendy Marx by Wendy Marx
May 16, 2008
08:27 am | 0 recommendations | Be the first to comment
Thank you, Jeff Jarvis. Jeff Jarvis, as you remember, was the blogger who outed Dell for its egregious customer service, which he called “Dell Hell.”
Recently, I entered my own “Dell Hellish Dell” when I spent about five hours all told with their customer service reps trying to get my 1 ½ year-old PC to work. Escalating to supervisors, typically a helpful response, got me nowhere at first in Dell land. Even though I had purchased a $200 service agreement, I was told that “We don’t provide service, only parts.” And in Dell’s own version of “bittergate,” I was admonished for “bickering” about the service – or lack thereof. In desperation, I uttered the words “Jeff Jarvis” and mentioned that I would be blogging about my experience and doing whatever was necessary to get my problem resolved.
Suddenly, it was as if the heavens had opened up. I was told that I would get a call back and that someone would take charge and manage my problem. I got not just one but two call backs and was given a particular number to call back. I thought I was home free.
Well, not quite. Unfortunately, the call back number was not a direct line but a cue where after a hold time of 15 minutes, I gave up and hung up. I then called the regular Dell customer service number and got someone right away without waiting. Go figure. The rep was pleasant but after reviewing my file discovered that I was now a “special case” because I had complained to a supervisor. In Dell’s new twist on Catch 22, that meant he couldn’t handle my case even though he said he could help me and needed to transfer me. After 20 minutes of trying to transfer me, he said “no one was picking up” and then I told me to dial directly. So like a rat in maze, I called again. This time around I got a very nice man named Oliver in the Philippines. Oliver spent about an hour on the phone with me trying to diagnose my problem and then suggested we run a Windows repair on it. Since that took at least an hour to run, he promised to call me back. It was now about 11 pm ET.
I won’t bore you with all the gory details of what happened next only to say that by 12:30 am ET my system was still not working and I didn’t get the promised call back.
Next day, I called Dell again and reinvoked the name “Jeff Jarvis,” when they wanted to waste more of my time trouble shooting. This time around I was finally told a technician would come to my office armed with parts to try to fix my PC.
So, here I sit, Ms. Rat, awaiting Dell. Fingers crossed but breath not held, that someone shows up and doesn’t blow up my machine. And, if someone shows up, I will happily toast Jeff Jarvis. Do you have your own versions of “Dell Hellish Hell.” I’d love to hear from you.
Wendy Marx, PR and Personal Branding Specialist, Marx Communications, Inc.
tag technorati:
self-promotion,
careers,
public-relations,
personal-branding,
personal-brand,
branding
Jeff-Jarvis
Dell-hell
Dell
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May 9, 2008
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If you’re small, there’s no reason to think small.
That was the message for me from a terrific event I was privileged to attend last weekend in New York City. Some 20 PR professionals from around the world – hailing from as far away as Russia and Scotland -- convened for the first annual meeting of Public Relations Boutiques International (PRBI), an international network of small PR shops.
A testament to the creative force of a group, the event showcased how personal branding today has tremendous reach. Here we were, small shop owners with each of us having at most only a handful of employees, yet potentially we had the firepower of a far larger organization. Not only could we learn from and help one another – as we did – but suddenly there were the rumblings of multiple connections and synergies that could result in our promoting ourselves and our clients worldwide.
It’s easy of course to think small and narrow and market ourselves to our immediate colleagues and geographic regions. And, that, of course, makes sense. Proximity can be a powerful enabler of business. Yet, with the Internet, ingenuity and the combined wisdom of a like-minded crowd, there is no reason today to think small. What with a blog and social networking, it’s easy to befriend people throughout the world. That, however, is but the first step. The next one is to somehow harness all that talent in a way that advances your career and those in your network. How do you lasso in some of the talent so that it becomes a creative, one-for-all, all-for-one force? I’d love to hear how you are doing so.
Wendy Marx, Personal Branding and PR Specialist, Marx Communications
tag technorati:
self-promotion,
careers,
public-relations,
personal branding,
personal brand,
branding
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May 2, 2008
08:42 am | 0 recommendations | 2 comments
Change. It’s certainly been the mantra of the Democratic primary race but it also has an important place in personal branding.
Take my profession, public relations. Just as the Internet has dramatically rewritten – and shaken -- the newspaper business, it has changed public relations tactics and even strategy. Where once public relations focused on media relations, today a lot of public relations is focused on Google relations. Instead of putting all our energies into getting our clients on page one of a major publication, many of us are also focused on getting on page one of Google. Different skills and tactics are involved from the old days of simply pitching journalists.
Which is simply to say that the profession is evolving and so must its practioners. The same goes for personal branding. Standing still is equivalent to death.
Change today is the great force rumbling through so many professions and industries. David Brooks in today’s New York Times calls the incessant changes happening in industry a “skills revolution.”
“We’re moving into a more demanding cognitive age. In order to thrive, people are compelled to become better at absorbing, processing and combing information.”
Personal branders need to take a page from companies. The Times also today reports on the changes afoot at Kodak, which is trying to redefine itself in the digital, as opposed to film age. For Kodak, that means turning itself inside out, exiting businesses and entering new ones and changing the organizational structure and culture.
How are you evolving your personal brand so it stays relevant in this never static, cognitive age?
Wendy Marx, PR and Personal Branding Specialist, Marx Communications
tag technorati:
self-promotion,
careers,
public-relations,
personal branding,
personal brand,
branding
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April 25, 2008
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During the height of the Iraq war, you couldn’t turn on the TV or listen to the radio without hearing a military analyst make pronouncements about the war. What we didn’t know at the time was that many of these analysts were spouting talking points provided by the Pentagon.
The New York Times last Sunday reported on an extra cozy relationship between retired military officers and the Pentagon, who recruited the officers as shills for the administration’s wartime progress. The retired officers, who frequently had ties to military contractors, were often paid by the TV and cable networks to provide analysis of military issues. Meanwhile, the words they were uttering as their own were often warmed over talking points provided by the Pentagon.
The campaign, according to the Times, was the brainchild of a Pentagon PR person, and was a way to gain “information dominance” over military news. Unfortunately, the campaign didn’t simply try to get across the Bush administration’s point of view but also according to the Times, passed off as fact false or inflated information
According to one PR person, the Pentagon simply practiced good public relations by using the retired officers to spin the news.
As a fellow PR person and personal branding specialist, frankly, I find that point of view disturbing. The bottom line is that the retired officers’ hands often were dirty. They were helping fill the pockets of military contractors they worked for with their Pentagon access and TV pronouncements. And, the ultimate victims were the American people, who were fed false and biased information by seemingly independent spokespeople who were actually Pentagon shills.
There is a fine line in personal branding and public relations where promotion gives way to unethical distortion of the facts. To me, public relations and personal branding, advances a point of view. Certainly in doing so there is some bias. But the perceptions are supported by facts, not half truths gussied up as objective statements.
What the Pentagon did with the TV and other media’s unwitting help is bamboozle the American people. That’s neither good public relations or ethical behavior.
What do you think?
Wendy Marx, PR and Personal Branding Specialist, Marx Communications, Inc.
tag technorati:
self-promotion,
careers,
public-relations,
personal branding,
personal brand,
branding
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April 17, 2008
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How do you get 60 bloggers to create a huge buzz for a book none of them has read?
Just ask Rohit Bhargava, Internet marketing whiz and author of the just published Personality Not Included: Why Companies Lose Their Authenticity And How Great Brands Get it Back (McGraw-Hill, March 31, 2008). The book’s premise is that companies can no longer be faceless entities in today’s social media era.
Exhibit One in the importance of personality is Bhargava’s marketing of his book. Not simply content to do the usual book tour, Bhargava has marketed his book like a brand. Which, in his case, means “making it stand out and go viral.”
Bhargava, already an Internet personality with a top marketing blog, offered an irresistible challenge to the blogging community. Send him five questions; he’ll answer them all and the several thousand readers of his blog will select a winner. Within 48 hours, 60 bloggers talked up the contest and 55 submitted questions.
That was just for starters. Bhargava blogged about the contest and book launch on Twitter, created a Facebook group dedicated to the book…and just this week will launch The Personality Project.com, an initiative as ambitious-sounding as its name. It’s a group blog that over the year will feature 100 visionary marketers talking about -- you guessed it -- why personality matters in business. Among the bloggers will be the president of Kiva.org, the founder of Zappos.com and the founder of BuzzAgent.com.
While any author wants a favorable review, Bhargava went one better writing his own review of his book on Amazon. He modestly gave his book four stars leaving it up to readers to decide it if it merits another star. His review, really more of a brief introduction to the reader, again helps put a human face on the book and its creator.
Check out his website for his book, and you’ll see a site your average marketer could take a lesson from. It includes everything from an elevator pitch for the book…to the author’s original book proposal…to a rejected book cover. Bhargava, like all great personal branders, understand the importance of being transparent and authentic and creating a virtual identity.
In the 24/7 world, it’s not enough to forge an image offline; you also need to create an online persona that melds with your flesh and blood self.
All of which has been Bhargava’s operating principal since he launched his first personal website in the Internet dark ages of 1998 – before many realized what a branding machine the Internet could be. In 2005, he created the first social media bio (now online at http://www.aboutrohit.com/), and even registered socialmediabio.com.
Rohit’s advice for personal branders?
- “Don’t be afraid to use your personality. It’s the secret sauce that makes you or your product stand out.”
- “Thinking about your online identity as a brand means letting your many profiles online work together to deliver a better picture of who you are.”
- “Doing things online isn’t a substitute for actually participating in meetups and attending conferences in person. Face time still matters.”
Wendy Marx
Personal Branding and Corporate Marketing Specialist
Marx Communications
Rohit Bhargava
Rohit at FaceBook
Personality Not Included at Amazon.com
http://www.personalitynotincluded.com/
tag technorati: self-promotion, careers, public-relations, personal branding, personal brand, branding, Rohit Bhargava
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April 7, 2008
07:56 am | 0 recommendations | 4 comments
Thousands of ordinary folks are a little better known and successful today thanks to the extraordinary networking talents of one woman.
Meet the Pied Piper of the online world, Mari Smith, a veritable engine of personal branding and a relationship marketing whiz.
Not simply a land-based networker, Smith wields her magic on one of the largest platforms in the world, Facebook, home to 69 million active users and 250,000 new members joining every day. She’s also an active user of Twitter.
An evangelist for the powers of Facebook, Smith teaches a free introductory class about using Facebook for professional networking and business building. To date, more than 700 folks have taken her class. She also blogs about Facebook.
And, today is the official launch of her signature course, Facebook for Professionals: How to Use the #1 Social Network to Strategically Grow Your Business - A complete Multimedia System that includes a comprehensive ebook, how-to videos and interviews with some 30 successful Facebook members including popular web strategist and Sr Analyst at Forrester Research, Jeremiah Owyang, and creator of the Book Yourself Solid System, Michael Port.
For Smith, who is 41, Facebook is a personal branding megaphone, allowing you to broadcast your personal brand around the world by commenting on “friends’” walls, adding photos, sending personal messages, joining groups, pushing out blog feeds and providing frequent status updates.
“Far more than an online resume, Facebook shines a spotlight on you while radiating your work and life to hundreds of others who in turn introduce it to hundreds more -- and suddenly you have all these interwoven connections,” says Smith.
“Facebook provides the opportunity for me to talk to people at a higher level than I did before in such a wide range of industries, including seven-figure internet marketers, copywriters, authors, and speakers. One multi-millionaire internet marketer told me pointblank that if I’d tried to reach him any other way, we would not be having the conversation. All his calls and emails are filtered through several assistants.”
It’s also opened the door for her to connect with some of her favorite actors and musicians. Smith counts the actor Leonardo DiCaprio as a friend, along with Paul B. Allen III, the original lead singer of The Four Tops.
Smith’s Facebook activity has not only paid off in visibility but on the bottom line. Since she began using Facebook last July, she says her hourly consulting rate has increased by 50% and she anticipates that her 2008 revenues will be three times those of last year.
Don’t for a minute, however think that she’s chained to a desk, keyboard and office. An admirer of Tim Ferriss’ Four Hour Workweek, she and her husband, Ty, in July 2007 sold their California home, bought an RV and took to the open road. They haven’t looked back. She and Ty blog about their roadie life at befreegomobile.com. Smith dedicates three days a week for work and the rest of the time for travel. A night owl, she also catches up on work in the wee hours. Ty, a real estate investor, carves out a similar work-travel schedule.
“I’m blessed to be living my dream,” says Smith. “A friend says ‘I’m an overnight success 10 years in the making.’ It has taken a lot of work behind the scenes to put me where I am today.”
Smith offers this advice for those of us seeking to build a personal brand online:
• Register for a Facebook account and set up your personal Profile and business Page.
• Populate your Profile and Page with instructive information about you and your business.
• Join and actively participate in Groups that interest you.
• Strategically and regularly renew your Status Update.
• Share useful links related to your industry using the Posted Items application.
• Comment on your friends’ Walls, Notes , Posted Items, Photos and Videos.
• Write informational Notes and tag key Facebook friends.
• Write a blog and import your feed using Notes and/or one of the third party blog applications.
• And, most importantly, seek to build relationships by being your authentic self and by seeking to add value and uplift people’s spirits with no “agenda.” People will remember you and want to connect with you.
Wendy Marx, Personal Branding and PR Specialist, Marx Communications
tag technorati:
self-promotion,
careers,
public-relations,
personal branding,
personal brand,
branding
mari-smith
facebook
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April 7, 2008
07:55 am | 0 recommendations | 1 comment
Thousands of ordinary folks are a little better known and successful today thanks to the extraordinary networking talents of one woman.
Meet the Pied Piper of the online world, Mari Smith, a veritable engine of personal branding and a relationship marketing whiz.
Not simply a land-based networker, Smith wields her magic on one of the largest platforms in the world, Facebook, home to 69 million active users and 250,000 new members joining every day. She’s also an active user of Twitter.
An evangelist for the powers of Facebook, Smith teaches a free introductory class about using Facebook for professional networking and business building. To date, more than 700 folks have taken her class. She also blogs about Facebook.
And, today is the official launch of her signature course, Facebook for Professionals: How to Use the #1 Social Network to Strategically Grow Your Business - A complete Multimedia System that includes a comprehensive ebook, how-to videos and interviews with some 30 successful Facebook members including popular web strategist and Sr Analyst at Forrester Research, Jeremiah Owyang, and creator of the Book Yourself Solid System, Michael Port.
For Smith, who is 41, Facebook is a personal branding megaphone, allowing you to broadcast your personal brand around the world by commenting on “friends’” walls, adding photos, sending personal messages, joining groups, pushing out blog feeds and providing frequent status updates.
“Far more than an online resume, Facebook shines a spotlight on you while radiating your work and life to hundreds of others who in turn introduce it to hundreds more -- and suddenly you have all these interwoven connections,” says Smith.
“Facebook provides the opportunity for me to talk to people at a higher level than I did before in such a wide range of industries, including seven-figure internet marketers, copywriters, authors, and speakers. One multi-millionaire internet marketer told me pointblank that if I’d tried to reach him any other way, we would not be having the conversation. All his calls and emails are filtered through several assistants.”
It’s also opened the door for her to connect with some of her favorite actors and musicians. Smith counts the actor Leonardo DiCaprio as a friend, along with Paul B. Allen III, the original lead singer of The Four Tops.
Smith’s Facebook activity has not only paid off in visibility but on the bottom line. Since she began using Facebook last July, she says her hourly consulting rate has increased by 50% and she anticipates that her 2008 revenues will be three times those of last year.
Don’t for a minute, however think that she’s chained to a desk, keyboard and office. An admirer of Tim Ferriss’ Four Hour Workweek, she and her husband, Ty, in July 2007 sold their California home, bought an RV and took to the open road. They haven’t looked back. She and Ty blog about their roadie life at befreegomobile.com. Smith dedicates three days a week for work and the rest of the time for travel. A night owl, she also catches up on work in the wee hours. Ty, a real estate investor, carves out a similar work-travel schedule.
“I’m blessed to be living my dream,” says Smith. “A friend says ‘I’m an overnight success 10 years in the making.’ It has taken a lot of work behind the scenes to put me where I am today.”
Smith offers this advice for those of us seeking to build a personal brand online:
• Register for a Facebook account and set up your personal Profile and business Page.
• Populate your Profile and Page with instructive information about you and your business.
• Join and actively participate in Groups that interest you.
• Strategically and regularly renew your Status Update.
• Share useful links related to your industry using the Posted Items application.
• Comment on your friends’ Walls, Notes , Posted Items, Photos and Videos.
• Write informational Notes and tag key Facebook friends.
• Write a blog and import your feed using Notes and/or one of the third party blog applications.
• And, most importantly, seek to build relationships by being your authentic self and by seeking to add value and uplift people’s spirits with no “agenda.” People will remember you and want to connect with you.
<div class="tags">tag technorati:
<a href="http://technorati.com/tag/self-promotion" rel="tag">self-promotion</a>,
<a href="http://technorati.com/tag/careers" rel="tag">careers</a>,
<a href="http://technorati.com/tag/public-relations" rel="tag">public-relations</a>,
<a href="http://technorati.com/tag/personal branding" rel="tag">personal branding</a>,
<a href="http://technorati.com/tag/personal brand" rel="tag">personal brand</a>,
<a href="http://technorati.com/tag/branding" rel="tag">branding</a>
<a href="http://technorati.com/tag/mari-smith" rel="tag">mari-smith</a>
<a href="http://technorati.com/tag/facebook" rel="tag">facebook</a>
</div>
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March 28, 2008
07:45 am | 0 recommendations | Be the first to comment
Fast Company in its April issue has a terrific article by Ellen McGirt on "The Brand Called Obama" that is must reading for anyone in personal branding regardless of your political persuasion. The article talks about how Obama has created an open, inclusive brand that reflects his statement, “We are the change that we seek.”
While all candidates try to get the electorate involved and enthusiastic about their campaign, Obama more than any other candidate has used Web 2.0 tools to embolden and enable supporters to get involved. McGirt details:
"BarackObama.com features constant updates, videos, photos, ringtones, widgets, and events to give supporters a reason to come back to the site. On my barackobabma.com, the campaigns’s quasi-social network, Obamanicas can create their own blogs around platform issues, send policty recommendations directly to the campaign, set up their own mini fund-raising site, organize an event, even use a phone-bank widget to get call lists and scripts to tele-canvass from home.”
The Obama campaign has created an openness and trust online that politicians can spend years to obtain thanks to the site’s interactivity and feedback. The article goes on to explain that people feel they know who Obama is and feel trusted to share their views. In return they get constant feedback from the campaign and each other.
In contract, Hillary Clinton’s brand has focused more on herself and her experience and what she can do for others, rather than what everyone can do for each other. “Obama, through his inclusive Web site and, yes, his lofty rhetoric, reinforces the notion that everyone is included and that this movement is actually a conversation in which everyone is invited,” says John Quelch, senior associate dean at Harvard Business School and coauthor of Greater Good: How Good Marketing Makes for Better Deomocracy.
The Obama brand is a lesson in leadership and vision. His “Yes we can” slogan invites everyone to be part of the change. Ultimately, his brand is so effective since it engages rather than preaches. Obviously, none of us is running for president and most of us will never be political candidates. Yet, Obama’s ability to engage and tap in into the energy, wisdom and enthusiasm of the crowd is something that all of us should think about aspiring to in our personal brands. I know I am going to start thinking about ways that I can make my personal brand more inclusive and interactive. Job One is redoing my ancient website. What are you doing – or plan to do to make your brand resonate more with your target market? I’d love to hear from you.
tag technorati:
self-promotion,
careers,
public-relations,
personal branding,
personal brand,
barack-obama
branding
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January 31, 2008
09:36 am | 0 recommendations | 2 comments
Remember “Dell Hell.” That’s when Dell learned – or should have learned – the power of consumer anger. Blogger Jeff Jarvis reamed Dell for its shabby customer service and the story was amplified into a “blame Dell” crusade across the ‘Net.
Well, now it is a few years later and you would have thought the computer behemoth would have learned about the power of word of mouth and personal branding. I’m here to report that Dell has moved up one notch, but only a notch, and now qualifies for purgatory.
I recently had a significant problem with my Dell desktop (still under warranty) and warily called Dell customer service. After spending about 15 minutes between being on hold and providing information to a rep, I was told that Dell’s system was down. No one could help me until the system was back up and I should call back later. I have no clue why I wasn’t immediately told that the system was down.
Believing that system down or not, I was still entitled to help, I decided to exercise Consumer Rights Principle Number One: Seek out a higher authority -- and asked for a supervisor. The supervisor explained that Dell was actually being helpful by not helping me because the system’s being down meant that the company couldn’t confirm my identify. When I reminded him about Dell’s inglorious past and mentioned that I planned to blog about the company, he offered to have someone call me back as soon as the system was back up.
A rep in fact called me back within a half hour and proceeded to spend an hour on the phone with me without fixing my system. I don’t blame the rep but the fact that computer diagnostics by phone is sort of like witch doctoring. The rep usually doesn’t have a clue what the cause of the problem is and goes through the usually incantations. What I was left with was a choice between two evils: replace the hard drive or the operating system though for all I know neither is the problem. Any computer experts out there want to make a house call?
Meanwhile, all of this reinforces the need to realize that every customer’s opinion counts in building both a consumer and a personal brand.
Love to hear your thoughts and experiences?
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January 24, 2008
09:44 am | 0 recommendations | 1 comment
As a self-professed political junkie, this campaign season has been a bountiful cornucopia of riches not to mention a national stage for personal branding. Spending gobs of money on advertising and image building, the presidential candidates can tell us a lot about what to do --- and not do about branding ourselves. There’s a fascinating article in this week’s New Yorker by George Packer about the different visions for the country of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama: Clinton as executive, Obama as visionary. Ultimately, it’s a choice of leadership styles: hands-on vs. inspirational. Or in the candidates’ lingo, “experience” vs. “change.”
Like a tagline in a branding campaign, these descriptions of the candidates resonate deeply and become symbols of their personalities. Fairly or not, one official quoted in the article says about each,
“When I’m with her, I feel she wants to impress me. When I’m with him, I feel he wants to know what I have to offer him.”
Like it or not, perception and image are reality in a political campaign – and for that matter in our professional lives. In private life, Clinton’s personality is said to be very different from her “all business” public persona. Tellingly, a Simon & Shuster editor says about Clinton, :Clinton’s personality is refreshingly sharp and clear – but she can’t show it.”
Clinton despite all her years in public service is still something of an enigma. “In her personal life, she’s always seemed like she had something to hide,” the article quotes Dee Dee Myers, a former White House press secretary under Bill Clinton, saying of Hillary Clinton. On the other hand, Packer presents Obama as more comfortable with himself and consequently more open. He suggests that Hillary hasn’t quite connected her heart with her head in her public pronouncements.
As we work to brand ourselves, there’s an important lesson here in the importance of integrating our personal brands with our sense of self so we come across as authentic. Otherwise, there’s a disconnect in our presentation and our words remain cold facts that could be uttered by anyone.
How do we connect our passions with our beliefs and knowledge? I’d love to hear from you.
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