Media Fuse: Ignite Your Business

Getting Back to the Basics: Branding

Jackie-Adame — Thu, 31 Jan 2013 19:26:29 +0000

Branding isn’t one of those marketing tools we give much thought to outside of a logo and maybe some stationary. However one of the first places most of your prospective clients will go to check out is your website. No surprisingly it is also the number one place we see brand confusion.

“55% of all communication is non verbal.”

Why is brand consistency so important? Brand consistency utilizes the golden rule in marketing: Repetition! Repetition! Repetition! (Are you seeing a theme here?)

Repetition breeds familiarity, confidence and trust. Go beyond your logo and review your website for Brand consistency by asking yourself these questions:

- Does the logo match my printed and in office materials?

- Do the colors in my logo match my office decor and is that represented on the website design?

- Is there consistency in the font (text type)?

- Do all my online channels (social media, review sites) match the brand of my website?

Make your brand a winner by keeping a consistent look and feel across all your channels of communication from in office to the web to social. At the end of the day consistency wins!

SXSW Day 3 – Events are Now Platforms with Loic Le Meur of LeWeb

Jackie-Adame — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 15:27:05 +0000

Loic Le Muer, Founder/CEO of LeWeb and Brian Duggan, Founder of Building Alliances, will discuss best practices of using the online tools available to improve the event experience.

- Jackie-Adame

Everyone if filing in ready to go this morning. Robert Scoble just walked in – fun!

Tech Live Blog

Media Fuse — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 22:19:26 +0000

- Jackie-Adame

Outsourcing reviews: Exec, taskrabbit, zaarly, uber for driving.

- Jackie-Adame

Digging iPad Today on Twit. How did I ever miss you?

- Jackie-Adame

girl speaker says that she uses these local service base platforms like Task Rabbit & Uber which have replaced Craigslist for her.

- Media Fuse

Next up is the app Zaarly http://www.zaarly.com/

- Jackie-Adame

Market place for goods and services. All local.

- Media Fuse

It is an outsourcing app taking advantage of the downsizing of skilled workers.

- Jackie-Adame

You post a task you need accomplished & someone bids to perform your task & you are matched with a Task rabbit to get it done.

- Media Fuse

They have recently launched in San Antonio, TX.

- Jackie-Adame

TaskRabbit is being reviewed. www.taskrabbit.com

- Media Fuse

TWIT is chatting about TaskRabbit

- Jackie-Adame

Oooh iPad fun coming up on Twit

Pinterest Bookmark for iPad

Jackie-Adame — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 21:22:24 +0000

I’ve recently been checking into the whole Pinterest interest. Being a visual person initially drew me to this platform and it looked just plain fun which is the determining factor in all I do.

The challenge was that most of my reading, and interest perusing are done on my iPad from my blog reader app (I use Blogshelf) which does not provide an integrated option to pin. But hey, there’s a Pinterest app for that – the free kind!

It is an app for the iPhone and not for the iPad but I went with it. The Pinterest app has 5 main options to keep up with your account.

Following – Check your stream of pins from those you are connected with or following.
Explore - Check out other users streams by category (Architecture, Art, Education etc.)
Camera icon – Pin an image from your device’s photo library or snap a new pic to use.
Activity – View your account activities and notifications.
Profile - Get a quick shot of your profile, boards, pins, likes, following and followers.

In the Pinterest app, under the profile tab, an Account button appears above your profile picture.
Selecting the Account button allows you to logout, give feedback and finally install the Pinterest’s Pin It bookmarklet so you can add pins on the go.

When you select the Install Bookmarklet you are taken to a mobile web page of instructions that leads through the process of adding the bookmark to your mobile device’s Safari browser and then editing the bookmarked URL with some code.

I, of course, did not follow instructions for installing on my iPad. On the iPad I installed the Pinterest app but then took a look at the instructions and glazed over. Instead I went to my fellow iPad users to see what they learned when adding the Pin It bookmarklet.

There seemed to be quite a bit of frustration when following the instructions failed. I found a recommendation on an Apple Community discussion with the least amount of steps for installing so thanks to Soaper I was ready to Pin It in no time.

Step 1 – Add the Pin It Bookmark to your iMac or Macbook Safari browser
Step 2 – Sync iPad with iMac or Macbook (make sure to enable the bookmark sync)
Step 3 – Pin Away!

Those are my sort of instructions, short and sweet.
Of course it’s a no-go if you don’t have the Safari browser but really, why the heck wouldn’t you?

I went back and decided to do the 1,2,3’s of installing Pin It for my iPhone to see if the process created a different experience when pinning.

It worked the same and once installed both bookmarking methods opened up the Pinterest app on the device to add the pin into your account with options to select the appropriate board and give a snappy description too.

Bonus for my Blogshelf app since it gives the option to view any post or article in Safari so I can Pin It from my reader!

How has your Pinterest journey been so far?

We’re still newbies and our boards are in the infant stage but we’d love to connect with you to see what Pinterests you.

Jackie

Jennifer

What’s in a Name?

Media Fuse — Mon, 23 May 2011 07:53:42 +0000

One of the areas many of our clients struggle with is in the area of defining their brand, their vision and their (God forbid) mission statement. We have all heard talk about memes, tag lines and slogans. Hey, remember the word motto?

A rose by any other name would smell just as sweet, right? Wrong. At least when it comes to your company’s name.

As a business owner you should fret about getting this right. Your brand doesn’t consist of just your name, it is how you do business, itʼs that sweet rosy smell. We have all been through and read our share of Branding 101 topics. MediaFuse was born from the merging of two companies: Brewing Media and Marketing Fuse.

As with any new company we spend long hard hours tackling the big questions:

What are we going to do exactly?

How do we get that across in our branding?

What is the unique selling proposition we can offer our clients?

What is the fast land animal?

We used the significance of our name to represent what we do for business. A fusion of online and offline media for your business to increase awareness, market your service or product and expand your brand. At the end of the day we want to be the solution to the following questions:

Do people know who I am?

How can I tell them about my product or service?

What can I do to expand my brand and grow?

Our background stems from from the traditional, guerilla, grassroots and social marketing. Modern marketing practices dictate a consistent and seamless voice between your online and offline messaging or you will get lost in the shuffle. Today I present you with Branding 140…..no….Branding 3.0…wait….Brand YOU!

The more that things change, the more they remain the same

A company brand should illicit feelings of confidence, quality, awareness, with easy to understand and jargon-free vision statements. Please, for the love of God, leave out the jargon. Jargon has itʼs place when you are talking in a peer to peer setting. However, for the average customer jargon is a barrier to them doing business with you.

Now that we all have our heads raised high with big encouraging check marks by each of the above we can rest in the fact that we have tamed the branding beast. Before you move on, let’s not forget to pull in today’s heavy weight, social media. Social media has itʼs own flavor to add when it comes to branding .

Has social media taken branding to another level (ie, Have you gone plaid?)

Companies like Twitter, Facebook, Gowalla and Living Social to name a few. We know we are missing a golden keyword opportunity by not using Groupon or Yelp as well.

(They are somewhat reminiscent of the after-school bully) Most of these have cool sounding names which sometimes do not give us one clue as to what they do. They have created such a brand awareness that their name is synonymous with their services even if it does sound like something your 4 year old would say.

Social Media Platforms have brought the jargon back

Earlier we mentioned that your name or vision statement should be free of buzzword lingo or jargon. Companies like Ping, Mashable, Digg, Delicious, Facebook, Twitter, Qik , Ustream and the App Store have actually become the jargon of today. We have to scourer the web to make sure we didn’t miss the new up and coming before we head out to any of my geek meetings. I need to be sure to keep up with the geek speak.

Just yesterday we were being pitched a company that seems like it’s taking the social coupon concept and marrying it with the ole MLM. The first thought that came to mind was, “Sounds interesting, does it have a cool name?” Turns out it did not. It was called Consumer blah blah…it was jargon. It use to be name dropping, now, it’s social media name dropping.

In todayʼs world brevity is key

It’s time to reevaluate company branding and give it the high concept makeover, thanks writers digest. We live in the 140 character world. Learn it. Live it. Love it. The old elevator speech has been replaced by tags. Introduce yourself at any geek/tech meeting and 3-5 tags that describe who you are and what your company does are expected. Drag it out any further and people mentally check out.

What is beautiful about social mediaʼs effect on branding is that it has taken up those hard to swallow, broccoli type mission statements and given it to us how we like, chopped finely and smothered in cheese. If I can’t tell what you do and how I can use it within the first 2-4 minutes, I’ve checked out.

Taking the time to smell the roses

Time, my friend is my most valuable possession. You cannot create it, earn any more of it or store it for winter. When time is spent it is gone, never to return. I want to know that your company grasps this concept too. That you know how to spend my time wisely. Are you are making your customers spend their valuable time just figuring out if they can do business with you? If so, then shame on you. You have not spent your time wisely by making your companyʼs products or services easy to digest.

So our question to you is, “Have you shifted your branding to meet the call of the 140 character tag driven world?”

Special bonus to the first person who can find the hidden movie line, tell us what actor said it and what movie it was from….go!

I Am Woman Hear Me Roar: Women and Technology

Jackie-Adame — Mon, 23 May 2011 06:55:44 +0000

The stats are in and the women are on top. According to Nielsen data, women are pulling ahead in many technology medias. It’s no mystery we love to socialize. We spend more time on social sites then men do, we text and talk on our mobile devices on average more then men do. Women are 3 times more likely to share personal stories and recommendations with friends.

Your company can attract these highly coveted, buying powerhouses by appealing to their wants and needs. I like my technology like I like my coffee; smokin’ hot, fresh, fully caffeinated and enough to share.

This techno savvy female niche wants its technology just the same, social and relevant to their lifestyle.

They are embracing the tools at a higher rate than men are and are often the family gate keepers to customer loyalty. Make sure your company is giving them the technological attention they crave.

Yes, you say, how do we do that? As much as I love to hear myself talk, I absolutely thrive on masterminding with genius individuals like you. So let’s get the ball rolling, and heck, I’ll even start:

- Create a Like Us on Facebook plug in that offers an immediate in store discount if they Like You while checking out. Of course it will also auto share with their friends so they can feel all warm and fuzzy about getting a great deal & rubbing their friends face in it…um I mean socializing about it.

Baton pass to you!

Read the research data from Nielsen.com