This post is part of a larger series on the important role Influencer Outreach plays in Modern Branding. For the introduction to the series, please go here.

Are you finally getting the hang of this whole Influencer Outreach thing? You’ve identified potential Influencers on the web scene? You’ve checked their Klout Score™? You’re confident they’re spreading messages of significance? You’ve cross-referenced them with other, similar brands?

What is that last element, then, that will make them perfect for you? The last step in assuring they’re the voice you want spreading your word? The answer is finding Influencers empathetic enough to your brand that they feel emotionally compelled to promote it––or what is commonly called Tribe Building in modern ad speak.

1. Figure Out What Makes You “You”

Every brand should strive for a Unique Value Proposition, or more directly, provide something intrinsically different than anything that currently exists. And coincidentally, it’s that which sets you apart that draws others in. Being able to clearly define and articulate what makes you one-of-a-kind will drastically improve your internal and external communication, and allow you to easily disseminate your ideas to others, Influencers included.

Remember: The easier your brand is to emotionally digest, the stronger your tribe’s responsiveness will be.

Moreover, recognizing how and where your brand can align with people’s lives on a deeper level (than say, sellers and buyers) will help you discover Influencers inspired to tell your brand story. They’ll back what you do because you’ll have tapped into something beyond pithy wordplay or compulsion driven imagery. Finding a truly great Influencer means you may be able to organically stimulate their personal investment and passion.

2. Align Yourself with Strong Leaders

Defining what sets you apart may be easy, but it’s also important to know whom you should align yourself with. When searching for your ideal Influencer, listen closely to the language they use. Are they regurgitating someone else’s spiel on their blog, Twitter, and Facebook profile, or are they passionately sending their own message? Thinking their own thoughts? Sharing their own ideas? A great Influencer is both a free thinker and a brand advocate.

Finding a person who shares your message in a way that is authentic to them and their audience will give you and your brand immediate credibility, and it will empower your Influencer in a very intrinsic way. Having liberty over the message will embolden them! It will move them! It’s those –– the Influencers who are inspired by your values, who promote your growth –– who become the essential members of your tribe. And like any other tribe, this collective unit’s goal is to ultimately help the group prosper as a whole. It’s cyber-symbiotic: You win, they win. They win, you win.

These members will do their part in finding more people to bring into the fold. Like a chain reaction, those invested members will go out of their way to initiate more people into the tribe, until you have a thriving, talking, sharing community actively engaged in your little (but quickly growing) brand.

3. Add that Person(al) Touch

More than anything, Tribe Building is common sense. The more emotionally devoted a person is to your brand, the more likely they are to evangelize it on your behalf. Think of all the times a friend has championed a restaurant, movie, or band they loved; and their unsolicited recommendations probably held more sway over you than any advertising that could have been manufactured! Having a group of Influencers that resonates with that same fervor and affinity for your brand will help create interest in what you’re doing and motivate others to check you out as well. They will spread your story like wildfire because they will feel enthused by your vision.

Photo Courtesy of Stonyfield Yogurt®.

The deliciously clever yogurt company Stonyfield implored this tactic in their 2010 Barnstorming Tour promotion. The campaign targeted specific food and health Influencers to spread the word of Stonyfield’s organic yogurts by inviting them to visit the actual farms where their ingredients are grown. On top of the “mud on your boots” experience, the yogurt company gave $5k to the charity of choice for the finalists.

This simple call-to-action encouraged sharing the message, and tapped into the allure of meeting folks who actually grow what people eat––it was a logical carrot to entice their audience. The campaign built a strong community in which people could personally interact with one another, which strengthened their attachment to the brand. As word spread, potential participants poured in. Check out this blogger’s genuine gusto for the opportunity.

By going the extra mile and finding bloggers who were truly enthusiastic about organic farming, Stonyfield created a small army of Influencers tied to the success of the brand. Ostensibly, the yogurt company had built a tribe.

All right. Let’s recap! When Tribe Building, it’s crucial to:

• Find Influencers who you think would share an emotional bond to your brand. Having them form the base of your tribe will guarantee you’ll be supported by members who will work to see your ideas flourish.
• Identify your brand’s Unique Value Proposition and convey that definitively to would-be Influencers. They’ll appreciate that you’re trying to do something different, and are much more likely to board your train if they know you have a game plan that sets you and your brand apart from the crowd.
• Empower your tribe to spread your message as they see fit. If you’ve done your homework and found great Influencers, then their natural tone will lend credibility to what you’re doing. No micromanaging! The more their voice becomes infused with your messaging, the stronger connection other people will have to your brand as it gets passed along.

Ultimately, Tribe Building works because it involves community. It’s people talking to other people. One of the most important aspects of any marketing tool is to remember you’re always dealing with other humans––the same sentiments and appeals you respond to will ring true to them. Sure, the mediums have changed, but the message has not. Despite everything existing online or in the digital clouds, be cordial, be polite, and treat others with respect, and they’ll reciprocate that to your brand.

Finding and empowering the right Influencers will build you a tribe that will be digitally social, human, and unstoppable. Big-budget ad spends can’t buy that kind of cache, but some well placed investment in professional tribe building can. So spend less, do more, and start building your tribe.

Content Specialist

This post is part of a larger series on the important role Influencer Outreach plays in Modern Branding. For the introduction to the series, please go here.

The quality of what people are saying (and what their disciples say) matters when it comes to finding the right Influencer for your brand­­. And being loud is not the same as being an Influencer! Remember that person in school who talked constantly, yet said nothing of value? In the world of digital doers vs. digital sayers, you want people who walk the walk––avoid those who have their message received as gossip and target those whose message is taken as gospel.

Where Do Large Brands “Shop”?
A good tactic to ensure you’re unearthing Influencers who spread worthwhile information is to find proven brands, and check out whom they align themselves with. Your aspirational brands are most likely shooting for the same qualities in an Influencer as you, and they may have recognized a pattern or trend you’re simply not up to speed on. Drafting pacesetters means you get there quicker. And sometimes in life, being willing to stand on the shoulders of a giant is the only way to see as far as you need to.

In short… having one awesome, diamond-in-the-rough Influencer is worth more to your brand than twenty chatterboxes.

Do They Speak Your Language?
Every brand should have a distinct tone and feel to its voice; its own vernacular that makes its value promise more relatable, believable, and attractive to its target audience. Maybe your brand is confident and professorial? Perhaps it’s silly and good-natured? Whatever your brand’s attitude, your Influencer should be a direct extension of that––they are a brand partner in many ways. Do a little legwork here. Be thorough! The time you spend researching the ins and outs of your Influencer will payoff tenfold when they accurately articulate your brand’s mission with just the right expressiveness and tone.

How about a real world example?

Long before Ford was set to bring back its reinvented sub-compact, it launched the 2009 “Fiesta Movement”. This campaign gave 100 vehicles to web-savvy “millennials”: young adults born after 1979. Ford understood that some 70 million millennials would be driving when they launched the Fiesta –– and 77% of them use social media –– so Ford picked 100 driving Influencers and gave them a Fiesta for six months. The caveat was these “agents” had to share (online) their experiences as they took part in monthly missions.

Influencer Paul Stamatiou takes a photo of his unintentional crash test. Photo courtesy of http://paulstamatiou.com.

In a matter of months, the program generated 4.8 millions views of YouTube videos and 3.4 million Twitter impressions. Ford knew who they were selling to and used them to generate buzz around their product. Check out this Influencer’s take on the ride. Pretty honest.

Go Big or Go Home
Don’t be afraid to dream a little big as well! Too often, brands (especially smaller ones) will make the mistake of not pursuing those whom they consider to be the perfect catch––their reputed Big Fish of Influence. You’re in the same ocean as everyone else, and the only way to make a palpable connection may be to go for it. Good things come to those who ask. And if you want a little statistical courage, think of all the other brands out there not getting in your message’s way because they won’t be trying.

3 Keys to Assuring Your Influencers Are Saying the Right Things:

• Take the time to learn whom other brands are listening to. Who inspires your heroes? Who is doing a great job getting their message out? Taking a cue from those that have been there before isn’t just smart, it’s responsible.

• Establish that your targets are saying thoughtful, poignant things when they speak. And make sure those that are following them have some level of insight as well. Spreading your message to the masses doesn’t help if those masses won’t care.

• It’s okay to think large. Gigantic, exponentially large, if necessary! Go after those who you know can get your brand’s message out, no matter how out of reach they may initially seem.

When you think you’ve found the right person –– whose communication is worthwhile and aligned with your brand voice –– make sure you approach them with the tact and courtesy you would reserve for any other professional relationship. These are allies in your success. Cohorts in your brand’s ubiquity! As this series continues, we’ll dig into how to fine-tune your messaging to the strengths of your advocates, and how to assure they’re emotionally invested in your brand’s success.

Content Specialist

This post is part of a larger series on the important role Influencer Outreach plays in Modern Branding. For the introduction to the series, please go here.

The first step to reaching Influencers (who can provide a tangible lift for your brand) is learning how to single them out amidst the Internet buzz. This may seem like finding needles in haystacks initially, but a true trendsetter has the ability to make an announcement and generate a spike of activity in the digital world, similar to the wake created when a large ship passes by. These spikes can be measured in the form of how many people are in that person’s sphere of influence. Once you recognize the spikes, you can spot the Influencer creating them.

Locating these ripples in the digital abyss doesn’t require a web-psychic or a ton of intern legwork either. There are great tools that already exist that rate and categorize Influencers on the Internet. Here’s a free plug for one of the best: Klout®.

Klout® is a website in which people are given a number score based on their audience, the channels they frequent, and the true amplification of their messaging. For a fee, Klout® will even cultivate a list of Influencers within your self-designed niche. (There are other effective software programs and web processes out there that measure a person’s social influence, but currently, Klout® has the most… well… clout.)

How Heavy Hitters Are Leveraging Klout®
Using Klout® saves you time in identifying who matters and who doesn’t. And some pretty big names have already jumped on the brand wagon. This year, Audi ran a special San Francisco event where targeted Social Media users were given the opportunity to test drive the 2011 A8. The invited few were identified by Klout® as Influencers in the fields the automobile manufacturer has a stake in: cars, technology, consumer buying habits, etc. One special blogger even won a weekend trip chock full of driving––a sort of romantic getaway for the user and the car. By using Klout® to find the participants, Audi hedged their bets on the premise that these Influencers would write honest and persuasive thoughts about the event, about the Audi brand, and specifically the 2011 A8.

Their logic is simple: Genuine, positive insights from Influencers drive (pun intended) sales.

And Audi isn’t the only one to tap into these Klout Perks® programs. Influencers of the movie-going public were given the opportunity to see a private screening of NBC Universal Picture’s The Adjustment Bureau before it hit theaters. Prominent computer/technology bloggers were sent a HP Pavilion dm1-3020us Entertainment Notebook loaded with movies premiering at the Cinefest 2011 film festival. In both cases, the brands were banking on these select individuals to get the word out on the products they just used.

Kutcher's high score comes not only from his celebrity, but also from his advocacy for tech. startups. (Photo courtesy of Klout.com)

Klout® even released a list of celebrity chefs with their social scores, explaining that when these cuisine authorities tweet about a specific restaurant or post a recipe, their foodie followers move the needles.

Knowing Where Cool Kids Hang
Determining who is popular has always been a necessary and difficult task when branding, the only thing that’s changed is mediums! We know what you’re thinking.

And yes, it is kind of like high school. Except instead of counting the number of friends a person is surrounded by at the lunch table, you’ll identify how many friends, fans, or subscribers they have on Facebook®. How often are others commenting on their blog? Do they have a lot of Twitter® followers? All of these are great indicators of a person’s reach (or how many people they can digitally touch).

3 Keys to Identifying True Influencers Online:

• Make sure you look for a person who generates a tangible buzz after they disseminate something online. A genuine response within their sphere of influence means they are true Influences.
• Use the awesome and cheap analytical tools out there to measure a person’s true influential worth whenever possible. If several databases say the person have a high score, then they’re definitely worth your time.
• Always target a potential person who is fluent across various mediums (Facebook®, Twitter®, etc.) and who has a great following. True Influencers may prefer one to another, but they understand that the best way to be heard is to speak through as many channels as possible.

Once you find these Influencers, it is important to have a plan and the resources in place to build and nurture their relationship with your brand. They are after all, the potential spokesperson for your message. Our future posts will provide insights on how to maximize your outreach efforts, and what to say when you do make contact.

Content Specialist

If you’re one of the seven people who haven’t been on the Internet for a decade (and if you are, Welcome Back!), you’re probably a little overwhelmed by what it has become. Stunned by all the websites and the traffic being driven to things that weren’t relevant a year ago, let alone ten? You may have noticed almost every major brand, person, and pet now has their own Facebook® profile. Many have their own Twitter® handle, and possibly a blogging site where they write their thoughts, share photos, or pass on information they find useful. To state the obvious: It’s freaking crowded out there.

Social Media may have flooded the world with a torrent of information, but reading our proverbial tealeaves will weed out the winners from the whiners.

Despite everyone jockeying for the attention of everyone else, it’s actually become easier for small or mid-sized brands to have their messages heard. PR stunts, favorable reviews, and traditional marketing plans just don’t have the same impact on the everyday consumer they used to, and the days of giant agencies monopolizing the People’s Vote are over. Buyers now dictate what story they want to tell and how they want to tell it. This shift means little guys have the opportunity to find their voice amongst the throngs. Big ideas from small places can, for the first time, approach an audience on the same playing field as well-funded competitors.

There are also fresh, outside-the-box techniques that tap into this growing stratosphere––they use the online social world to sing praises for brands who get it right, and jeer those who don’t get it at all. Think of it as the modern word-of-mouth phenomenon! Understanding these marketing tactics means your brand can get its message out without resorting to an online shouting match, or spending tons of money advertising to people you hope will take what you say as meaningful.

One of the most effective, new tools of the trade is Influencer Outreach. Influencer Outreach is simply finding the right people –– who have the right voice, following, and emotional inspiration –– to help spread your brand across their online community. This practice should be an integral aspect of any contemporary agency, as it places the brand directly into the hands of those who can help launch it.

Like anything new, though, Influencer Outreach doesn’t come without its challenges. Understanding the best practices that shape the act, and how to avoid its hidden pitfalls are crucial to success. Luckily, modern branding is what we do best.

We have identified a few best practices to guide brands efforts in Influencer Outreach, including:

• Not Everyone Online Is a True Influencer – Every market has key individuals able to sway opinion and drive action, and the effort to identify the people who are fluent across mediums and can generate a response is critical.

• It’s Important Influencers Say the Right Thing(s) – The quality of what people are saying online matters––being loud is not the same as being an Influencer.

• Build a Tribe of Enthusiasts – Find Influencers empathetic enough to your brand that they feel emotionally compelled to promote it––or what is commonly called Tribe Building in modern brand speak.

In a series of upcoming blogs, we’ll outline some of the beginning steps to help guide you on this path, and teach you how to figure out whose ears are worth whispering into. 

We took a look at the full breath of how social media is amplifying brands at unprecedented levels. Here are 24 social media statistics and trends that are causing modern brand managers to rethink how they allocate marketing dollars to best reach out to consumers.

1. The average Facebook user has 138 friends and 50% of users check their Facebook news feed daily. Therefore, we assume each Facebook share can influence an average of 65 consumers (Facebook) simply by deciding to “like” a piece of content.
2. 68% of Facebook users “share” a product they like, which means each unique share can lead to roughly 44 more users being exposed to the product (Facebook)
3. Fans of a brand spend $71.84 more per year than non-fans (Syncapse.com)
4. Fans of a brand are 21% more likely to continue using a product. (Syncapse.com)
5. Fans of a brand are 41% more likely to recommend a product. (Syncapse.com)
6. Fans cost 15% less to convert to repeat customers than non-fans (TBGdigital.com)
7. Fans enable social advertising, which creates a virtuous cycle of organic word-of-mouth
8. The Internet has grown 14% since 2009 (Internetworldstats.com)
9. There are 152 million bloggers whose reach is staggering (Blogpulse.com)
10. 77% of consumers would use information from blogs to influence their purchasing decisions
11. 175 million people log on to Facebook every 24 hours (Facebook)
12. 65 million of the 175 million logging on to Facebook each day are doing so with a mobile device
13. There are 30 billion Facebook shares per month (Facebook)
14. Twitter marketing jumped from 3% of companies to 49% in 2009 (Econsultancy.com)
15. 84% of internet users view videos online (Comscore.com)
16. There are 2 billion videos watch daily on YouTube (YouTube.com)
17. The number of people using Facebook would equate to it being the 3rd largest country in the world
18. Google+ is the fastest growing social medium ever, being the fastest to 10 million, fastest to 25 million, etc. In fact, it took Google+ only 24 days to reach 20 million users, vs. Twitter: 1035 days, and Facebook: 1152 days.
19. $3.08 billion will be spent to advertise on social networking sites in 2011, a 55% increase over 2010
20. 53% of people on Twitter recommend companies or their product in Tweets
21. 43% of all consumers are social media fans or followers of a brand
22. There are more than 3.5 billion pieces of content (web links, news stories, blog posts, etc.) shared each week on Facebook
23. A brand’s recall, based upon the rule of seven, determines that on average, a person must be exposed to a traditional ad 7 times before purchasing a product, however, 34% of users are likely to use a product immediately, if someone in their social media sphere of influence recommends it (i.e. word of mouth recommendations / sharing).  This represents a 66% reduction in cost.
24. A recent survey states consumers are willing to spend 9.7% more on a brand that provides good customer service (StellaService.com). Social media enhances the ability to deliver rapid customer service, while allowing other consumers to witness the positive experience.

Is your brand modernizing to take advantage of these trends?

By Drew Schulthess
Practice Director of Social Media Marketing
Twitter: @drewschulthess

Work day complete. Grab the keys, start the car and you’re driving home. Thoughts of dinner, wife, kids, work, TV, pets or whatever rents your imagination as you approach your humble dwelling. As you make the final approach, something strikes you as out of the ordinary—there are cars lining your street. Even stranger, the space between cars is rapidly tightening, and downright ceasing to exist as you approach your driveway.  As you spot the parking lot in your neighbor’s lawn, you scratch your head and say, “huh?”

You silence the engine, kick your feet out of the door and head up the walkway. With building anticipation you pause at the door for a brief moment before turning the handle. As the door swings open, you hear what may be the only real lack of surprise as you hear it shouted, “Surprise…!”

Had you known that only a month prior someone pulled a little trick on you! That day you forgot to sign out of your Facebook account, they took the liberty of inviting your Facebook faithful to a surprise party at your house. Or is it really a trick? After all, you accepted or sent requests to be friends with them in the first place, right?

Take a moment and think about this hypothetical situation. How has your trigger finger been over the last few weeks, months or years since joining Facebook? During those moments of speculation, wonder and indecision, have you hit that old confirm button one too many times or, as the case for some, hundreds and thousands of too many times!

Over the last few weeks, I have been getting a steady flow of “friend requests” that fall short of this lofty nomenclature Facebook has created. I am not going to lie; I have accepted dozens of requests just because I haven’t had the backbone to say no or have fallen victim to desperate curiosity. But today, I would like to announce that I stand strong!

I guess profile development on Facebook is the result of the personality driving it. But seriously people, what are your goals? Do you really care what someone is doing who sends friend requests to everyone on their imaginary friend radar? Yes, you can hide them from your news feed. But if you don’t want to hear what they have to say, then why are you friends? In fact, accepting a friend request with the intent of hiding them basically means you are in it to build your friend count, doesn’t it? And that, my friends, is downright VAIN!

In summary, I ask you to imagine your very own Facebook surprise party. Do you really want these people in your house? And if not, why do you want them stalking your Facebook page? Sure, you can adjust your privacy settings, but at that point is it even worth it? Maybe it’s time to tighten your circle and hold your ground.

Like?
-Drew

In the past, I have shared insight about why a brand, organization or company would want to engage in the blogosphere. I have even shared a guide including 7 simple steps for enhancing online awareness with blogger engagement. I hope you have found these posts helpful and effective at delivering the real value of engaging the blogosphere for real results.

Within this post, I would like to share an additional insight and way of thinking about blogger engagement as a whole. Much like social media marketing, blogger engagement is the enablement of word-of-mouth on the Internet around a product, service or brand related experience. In the case of social media marketing, influence can travel in any direction and can start at an individual, group or massive scale.

However, in the case of blogger engagement, influence begins by targeting individual bloggers whose expertise, personality and perspective have built a readership in which your value proposition is directly relevant. It is from these individual bloggers that influence flows directly to an opportune readership. The result? Empowered individuals who actively want to learn more about you.

I invite you to learn more about blogger engagement and the tremendous opportunity it offers by subscribing to our blog feed to automatically get our latest insights into Internet public relations. Got a specific question? Please connect with us on Facebook and check out our Facebook Application for Internet Marketing Q&A; .

When writing blog posts do you ever feel like you’re forcing a square peg into a round hole? Let’s face it, even the best content creators occasionally run out of valuable and entertaining things to say. The dilemma of not having something good to write about is not an uncommon occurrence. However, the reaction to the problem of not having something to write about is quite common—sit there long enough until you make something out of … well, nothing. The result … a blog post that doesn’t engage users, provides little value and leaves readers with the impression you are a force feeder.

So how can you do a better job of making your posts interesting, valuable or downright entertaining? Here are three simple guidelines to follow:

Curiosity
A good blog is a combination of perspective, personality and expertise. Specifically, on the personality side of things, it is a good idea to build blog posts around topics you legitimately are interested in. Pay attention to how many times you are genuinely curious about a topic each week, I bet this number is over 10.

TIP
Do yourself a favor and make a note of what led you to be curious. If it’s a news story that led you to a web page, bookmark it. If it’s an advertisement you walked by on your way to work, take a picture and email it to yourself. Remind yourself of this feeling, because in all likelihood, what you are curious about is what your followers, fans and influencers might also be curious about. They do read your blog after all, right?

LOL Moments
Sometimes there is nothing more powerful than sharing a good laugh. Try to be more cognizant of what truly causes you to laugh out loud (LOL). Next time you have a LOL moment think about whether or not it can be recreated and shared. If yes, then recreate the experience as best as you can and share it!

What do you think?
This is single handedly one of the most powerful questions a blogger can ask. You essentially are opening the floodgates to your readers, followers and fans with four simple words. The takeaway with this one is that sometimes you don’t have to know the answer. All you need is to present a topic or thought interesting enough to be answerable.

At MicroArts we are always kicking around ideas for creating engaging content. Need some inspiration above and beyond these tips? We would love to connect with you and help you take your blogging to the next level. Feel free to give us a call or better yet connect right here by leaving us a comment!

Tweet – Engage the Blogosphere for Big Brand Awareness – Learn the Three Simple Principles for Success

Blogosphere engagement is the process of connecting, participating and interacting with blogs and bloggers that are relevant to your value proposition. In simple terms, blogosphere engagement is the act of getting influential bloggers to talk about your brand.

But why engage the blogosphere you ask? Did you know that 90% of consumers trust recommendations from people they know and 70% of them trust consumer opinions that are posted online, as found by the Nielsen Company in their latest Global Online Consumer Survey? That’s right, nearly 3/4th of consumers online trust the opinions posted online by other consumers which is higher than all other traditional formats like editorial content, TV, newspapers, magazines and radio. Still not convinced? Here are some compelling facts supporting the value of blogger engagement:

1. Brand mentions on the Internet are the best way to get users to visit your site to learn more about your brand. In a recent study by ARAnet, it was shown that the most likely source for Internet users to read and take further action was seeing your brand in an article format.
2. Ninety-five percent of the top 100 US newspapers have reporter blogs¹
3. Four in five bloggers post brand or product reviews, with 37% of them posting them frequently¹
4. There were 94.1 million US blog readers in 2007²
5. 184 million people world wide have started a blog³
6. Seventy-seven percent of active Internet users read blogs³

Now that we’ve established the immense potential value of engaging the blogosphere, we would like to share three simple principles for success.

1. Respect – you might think this is simple and straightforward but in blog outreach respect can take shape in many forms. Here are a couple manifestations of respect in the world of blogger engagement:
   • Treat every blogger equally
   • Treat each blogger as the expert
   • Take at least 10-15 minutes to read their bio and a few posts
   • Don’t talk above them
   • Encourage transparency
   • Expose yourself, don’t hide your real personality in the shade
2. Delivery – bloggers are connected. Sometimes stuffing an email down their throat isn’t the best way of going about things. Try to figure out the optimal communication medium for connecting with them whether it be commenting on a relevant post, Twitter, Facebook or even picking up the phone (that’s right … phones still exist .
3. Transferable Value – notice how the word “incentive” or “pay-off” isn’t used here? Bloggers aren’t a gumball machine you drop a quarter into. Instead, offer them something that is of relevant value. You should be talking to them because they are of relevance. Therefore, the product , service or development you are sharing should be of interest. Why not send them a package in the mail with your product and a thank you letter, or invite them to your private beta, or Tweet about them to your followers. Be creative here.

Serious about doing some blogger engagement for your brand? We would love to go a step further and work on a customized blogger engagement program for you. Feel free to give us a call or better yet connect right here by leaving us a comment!

And as a result, brand transparency is the next trend.

This article inspired me to write this blog post. Titled “8 marketing messages we know are all lies”, it is essentially a story about common marketing spins, slants and cooked performance statistics in brand communications. As I read this article, I realize this mindset is soon-to-be-dated thinking. This thinking was perhaps accurate before the onslaught of social media. Today, brand managers and brand advocates must realize social media is the new truth serum for their brand’s behavior.

Brand Transparency
Brands now live in an on-going conversation about themselves whether or not they join in or not, and the truth WILL BE set free. As a result, the trend WILL BE what I’m calling “brand transparency”. Brand transparency is the pinnacle of truth in marketing behaviors. These behaviors go well beyond inaccurate marketing communications. Brand transparency is when a brand welcomes the world in to understand exactly how their product is manufactured.

Truth in the Serum
For example, brands like Kleen Kanteen® and Sigg® marketed BPA-Free water bottles. Revenues spiked as the Nalgene® “BPA plastic bottle” business jumped off the cliff.

Nicely done. Or so everyone thought …

As it turns out, the Sigg brand had not been completely transparent with its BPA content.

The result? Patagonia terminated their Sigg partnership.

In reality, the amounts of BPA in their water bottles would never cause any human harm. They had fixed the problem [after millions of dollars sold], but weren’t forthcoming with both consumers and partners [including Patagonia]. If Sigg had engaged in brand transparency, their behavior and communication could have played out in a proactive way (instead of the reactive CYA efforts they were forced to take that fell short), with something like this:

We are very sorry to announce that we missed a trace amount of BPA in our water bottles. It is so incredibly small; our scientists simply did not see it. It is an honest error and we took immediate actions to correct it. Please understand these are such trace amounts they will not hurt you.

Nevertheless, if you like, please do mail your bottle back to us and we’ll send replace it with your choice of our new bottles. If you don’t want the hassle, since the bottle you have is safe to use, please still accept our apology for this oversight. And, we invite you to please download a “50% off” coupon for our new bottles.

We hope this has not caused any stress or inconvenience in your day. Thank you for your loyalty to Sigg branded products.

Sincerely,

[Founder's Name]

This turns a broken brand promise of BPA-Free into an opportunity to communicate what isn’t broken, the brand’s values.

Brand Strategy Trends
Total and utter brand transparency is one of the next major trends in brand strategy. Social media will expose your broken promises. Believe it—and brand transparency is the only answer.

In fact, we are launching a new consumer brand in 2010 that takes brand transparency to the max. We are still in super stealth mode, so I can’t even share the product category we’re aiming to dominate.

Starting with filming the day all the partners met for the first time in Vegas to discuss the brand strategy, brand values and, as a result, the brand’s opportunity, we will tell the story of who, what, where, why we are building the products the way we do.

We are 100% transparent with the World, identifying what is not ideal about the product and ask our customers for fresh ideas on how to improve it. Most importantly, we will carry on these communications, these relationships, in the wide-open forum called Internet social media. If you are an organic, all-natural, green, environmentally friendly, totally-safe-for-humans brand, you best have a brand transparency strategy that is as honest as the way you do business.

The first brands to take on this strategy will be handsomely rewarded in the form of unsurpassed customer loyalty, customer evangelism, blogosphere ubiquity and, ultimately, shareholder value.

Get brand transparency right the first time. Contact MicroArts to learn more about how to infuse your brand with truth.

PS: Truth in marketing may not apply to ski areas just yet. Downpouring rain will still be referred to as “mixed precipitation.” Unless, you are Alta’s weatherman. So many times last year, Alta reported 4″ of fresh snow whereby as I was walked toward the Wildcat lift in boot high powder. They under promise and over deliver! They report only 4″ when they get 8″ – How cool is that? Love Alta.