Indianapolis Ranks the Best and Brightest

The 7th annual Indy’s Best and Brightest awards will be held on Wednesday, October 6,2010  to recognize Central Indiana’s 10 finalists, age 40 and under. The event will take place at the Indianapolis City Market and is expected to have 600 attendees. The Indy’s Brightest and Best website features all the finalists to be honored. When you visit the website you can take a look at past years finalists and sponsors of the event. I’m completely honored to be included in the list.

What makes this event interesting is why these people were chosen. The selection criteria is as follows:

• Be no older than 40 years of age as the date of event
• Reside or work in select Indiana counties
• Have meaningful professional accomplishments
• Positively influence others around them
• Demonstrate leadership qualities in the workplace or community

Once the committee selects 100 finalists they narrow it down from 100 to ten finalists from each industry category.

The 10 different industry categories are:  Accounting; Banking & Financial Services; Education & Nonprofit; Government; Health& Life Sciences; Law; Manufacturing, Retail & Services; Media, Entertainment & Sports; Real Estate Development & Construction; and Technology. All finalists will receive an award and the winner of each category will be announced.

This event’s proceeds go to the Junior Achievement of Central Indiana,Inc. It’s a great organization that aims to educate and inspire Indiana’s youth to value business, free enterprise and economics to improve the quality of their lives. Needless to say, this organization is important for the future leaders of our community.

Are You Going to the YouToo Social Media Conference?

I wanted to let you all know about the YouToo Conference in Akron, Ohio on April 16th. I am going to be opening for Phil Gomes of Edelman Digital (Chicago).  theI can’t wait for this because it is going to be a fun time and AWESOME!

Check out the information and be sure to check out the YouToo Social Conference website.

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It’s not just Web sites and e-mail anymore. The use of social media in marketing and business communications exploded during 2009. In 2010, social media are being used in all phases of operations for companies and non-profits.

Business and non-profit communicators and students can learn how to tap into this vital network at the Third Annual You Too Social Media Conference to be held Friday, April 16, at Kent State University’s School of Journalism and Mass Communication in Franklin Hall, itself a national model for communications education.

The all-day conference, co-sponsored by the Akron Area Public Relations Society of America Chapter and the PRSSA Kent State Chapter, will include hands-on sessions with expert presenters in such branding tools as Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. There will also a dessert reception for professionals and students to network.

Who: Akron Area PRSA and PRSSA Kent

What: Third Annual YouToo Social Media Conference

When: Friday, April 16, 2010 from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Where: School of Journalism and Mass Communication
Franklin Hall
Kent State University
Kent, OH 44242
(Directions)

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I Received My MBO Degree Yesterday

I attended the Masters of Business Online Conference yesterday in Indianapolis and I am happy to say that is was AWESOME. I really enjoyed hearing the presentations and getting to know plenty of influential people from the city of Indianapolis and abroad.

I had a great time at my session, Evolve or Die: The Future of Online Communication, and as promised (to the crowd) I am going to be placing the slidedeck on my blog to be viewed. The slides do not give the depth of the presentation but it gives you a sneek peek into what we were talking about…

If you want to check out what people were talking about in regards to the conference. Check out the Twitter feed: #mbo09 or click this link.

10 Ways to Stand Out from the Crowd and Win

In today’s turbulent economy it is extremely important for every business (both large and small) to stand out from the crowd. Brand awareness is huge in the competitive world. It is no longer good enough to deliver a superior product or customer service experience…. you need to be known as well.

How do you use the tools on the Internet (mainly social media) to increase your brand awareness and drive the competition into oblivion? And by oblivion I mean… the junkyard of dead businesses.

1. Start a Blog

In my opinion, starting a blog is the center point to all marketing activity online. If you are going to be spending time in social media it is extremely important that you have a central location for all of your content. People want to connect with you on a completely different level once you have started the communication process. Use WordPress to start a blog. When writing content it is important to schedule blog posts ahead in order to be completely successful at managing your time.

2. Develop An Outstanding Identity

Branding is huge when standing out from your competition. If your logo and brand identity have a unique twist from a quality design firm… you will be able to reap the rewards.

3. Use a Flip Cam to Record Customer Testimonials

Flip cam is a unique video camera that allows you to record up to 60 minutes of high-quality HD footage. The Flip cams are small enough they can be taken anywhere… anytime. You never know when you might have the chance to record a customer or an employee talking about your company. Upload the videos to YouTube and play them on your website.

4. Start a Referral Program with your Current and Past Customers

5. Tell stories about your daily routine

Many customers (both potential and current) want to learn about your company from the actual individuals running and working behind the brand. Tell stories about the daily encounters inside the firm. Did you have a trip to a local amusement park? Did an employee win a race or a exhibition league championship? Business is personal again.. now is the time to shift the way you communicate with the world.

6. Create a Facebook FanPage to Showcase Your Ideas to Your Fans

Facebook FanPages are amazing tools withing Facebook that will add onto the human capital value of your company. Ben McConnell from the Church of the Customer gives an excellent idea surrounding Facebook FanPage marketing:

When fans interact with a fan page on Facebook, that interaction is sent through the fan’s news feed, which goes to all their friends, practically daring a chunk of them to see what the page is about.

7. Use Email Marketing to Stay in Front of Prospects

Email Marketing is not dead and it will give you an edge over the competition if done right. I will leave this up to the professionals over at Delivera: If You are Going to Win. You Have to Play the Game!

8. Sponsor a Tweetup or Social Media Meetup

I know.. I know.. Tweetup sounds like a complete GEEK fest! If can be a huge source of potential clients depending on your demographic. There are many small business and c-level employees who have started to attend Tweetups. I have yet to see a local Tweetup sponsored by a company. If you are wondering how many Twitter users are in your general area try Twellowhood.

9. Fully Utilize LinkedIN Recommendations

In my opinion there is nothing more powerful than a LinkedIN recommendation. Why is that? You can only get so real (other than video) in the world of the Internet. A LinkedIN recommendation gives your happy customers the ability to give you the KUDOS your company deserves.

10. Encourage Your Sales Team to Use Social Media for Lead Generation

Driving Leads Through Facebook and Twitter Seminar

Brandswag will be hosting a seminar dedicated to teaching the fundamentals of increasing lead generation and MAKING MORE MONEY on Twitter and Facebook.

You’ve heard the buzz around the micro-blogging site Twitter and the social networking site Facebook… but now is the time to make it work for your business! We will teach you how to intimately use 5 of the main key tools of both Twitter and Facebook. You will learn how to create and facilitate relationships with your current and potential clients!

Other tips you will learn:

• How to increase your close rate using Twitter, Facebook, and social media
• How to drive an increase in lead generation using social media
• Make more money… period.

You will be able to leave the meeting and apply the concepts that very day!

Sell by Educating Through Social Media

Seth Godin had a great blog post yesterday talking about the fear of apples and the top two reasons people are not buying your product:

1. They don’t know about it.

2. They’re afraid of it.

Haven’t we been dealing with fear quite a bit this year? If you are a sales person (which most small business owners are) you may have seen the effects of this fear on your bottom line. The down economy has been killing the “risk-taking” gene of many professionals from corporate level employee to small business owner. The “risk-taking” gene is that diamond in the rough that allows for business to exist… to flourish. It reminds me on the William Shedd quote: A ship is safe in harbor, but that’s not what ships are for.

Are your clients clamming up? Are potential customers not buying because they do not know about your product or service…. or they are just… afraid?

Companies that use social media for lead generation and product information have a huge advantage over the companies that do not use the tools. Social media gives you the ability to inform your potential clients on products with stories! What better way to inform?

Be honest with me… would you rather read a story or boring product/service information?

I would rather read a story… every… single… time.

What stories are you telling your clients?What about your potential clients? Do you have a blog where you are writing your business stories? The marketing for your business should read like a book… a book of stories… a book where your potential leads learn about your company.

When the time comes to buy on a product or service… who do you think they are going to call? You or the business who doesn’t care about educating through stories?

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Where is Your Customer Conversation?

Amy Lemen is the President of ALL In One Marketing, a strategic brand and marketing consulting business in Indianapolis. She specializes in helping companies leverage customer insights to build better brands, develop new products, and create marketing strategies.

If your brand were a celebrity, who would it be and why?
This is a question typically used to define a brand’s character, which is a critical component of the overall identity of a brand.

Up until recently, many brands were able to grow without having a well defined and compelling brand character. As long as a brand provided a consistent set of meaningful, differentiated benefits to a target group of customers, it had a chance of being successful. This was because the brand could control its messaging, as it consistently talked to its target customer.

The communication framework between brands and customers is now very different. A brand now must engage in a conversation with its customers. A conversation means that a brand can’t just keep stating its key messages. It has to respond to what customers are saying and asking, and sometimes the key messages just aren’t appropriate responses.So in these cases, what is a brand supposed to say? This is where the brand’s character plays a critical role.

The brand’s character enables the brand to talk with its customers without the key messages while still staying true to what it stands for. The character is truly the brand’s personality, defining its temperament, attitude and behaviors. It is now the critical component that supports conversations between a brand and its customers. Without it, who are the customers really conversing with?

Can you identify the celebrity that personifies your brand? If this doesn’t come easily to you, perhaps you should take some time to more fully develop your brand’s character. It will make the conversations between your brand and your customers far richer and more meaningful.

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11,000 Reasons to Listen to the FTC

Hannah is an attorney at Hollingsworth & Zivitz, PC where she focuses her practice on business law and entrepreneurial services. Hannah is one of the few attorneys in Indiana to offer experienced legal guidance on promotional law, including advertising, sweepstakes, contests, consumer privacy, and e-commerce related issues.

Have you ever used your blog to review a product you received for free?  Have you ever offered a fellow blogger a deal where you review his product or service if he reviews yours?  Did you disclose that deal to your readers?  If not, it is time to start.

This week, the FTC announced new rules aimed at increasing transparency used in social media advertising.  Starting December 1, 2009, bloggers and other users of social media such as Twitter and Facebook must disclose if they have received any type of payment in exchange for promotion, advertising or endorsement.  This seems to include in-kind exchanges, free product or good old fashioned money.

Almost every business has a blog these days.  It is a free, easy way to reach existing and potential customers.  And there is a lot of trade going on out there in the blogosphere.  Bloggers commonly receive gratis products or services in exchange for a positive write up.  Companies who send out free stuff have nothing to lose, because if a blogger doesn’t like their product or service, the blog simply doesn’t review or promote it.

In many communities there is a spider web of connections among successful social media sites.  But the era of “you scratch my back and I will scratch yours is over.”  Bloggers who promote one another for pay, free goods, free services or simply shared promotion now face significant penalties from the Federal Trade Commission, up to $11,000 per violation!

What does this mean for your business?  Well some common social media practices that may be affected include anything from writing a positive comment on Facebook in exchange for a free hat to writing a recommendation for a CPA on LinkedIn for a discount on your taxes.  You may think that the blogosphere is so vast and there is too many infractions out there for the FTC to catch you, but don’t forget about Naptster.  The federal government cracked down on anyone and everyone, including teenagers living in their parent’s homes, simply for downloading a few songs.  The FTC is primed to make an example of any business violating these new rules.  Don’t subject your business to an $11,000 fine.  If you are promoting another company’s product or service on a social media site, and you have ANY kind of relationship with that company, be sure to disclose it.

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Are You Coming To The Hullabaloo on Sept 16?

I am happy to announce that I will be speaking at the AddressTwo Hullabaloo which is going to be held on September 16th in Indianapolis. What is this thing all about… other than the weird name? It is beyond cold calls and bulk mail… it is about hunting down new business using tools that are revolutionizing the way we communicate with each other. This is a half day extravaganza of networking, workshops, marketing ideas, hunting for new prospects, and killing it on sales/business growth.

More information on the Hulabaloo:

Who Should Attend?
The AddressTwo Hullabaloo is for anyone—whether you’re an AddressTwo user or not. The workshops and training you’ll receive are applicable for any business, regardless of how you manage your contacts today. Of course, if you’re interested in learning more about AddressTwo, there will be plenty of opportunities for that as well.

What will go on there?
The agenda will begin with a keynote address from reknown speaker and business coach, CJ McClanahan. Then, the afternoon will be broken into two 1-hour sessions during which you can choose which workshops you wish to attend. Finally, we will close with a short address from Nick Carter, inventor of AddressTwo, and then an hour of free drinks and networking.

Do I have to kill any animals?
No. All the food provided will already be dead and cooked. The hunting theme is only figurative. Loon Lake Lodge would like all guests to rest assured that no animals were harmed during the decoration of the lodge

Register Here: AddressTwo Hulabaloo

Giving More than You Get and Living the Dream

We have a half-day planning session at Brandswag today. You know how strategic planning goes… you go through values, vision and mission statements, marketing initiatives, and the like… However this is not why I am excited to attend the planning session. I am excited to see the power of six creative minds joined together to brainstorm around the future of a company… a company that we all love.

It has been two years since Brandon Coon (my partner) and I have opened the doors at Brandswag and now we have the most talented team a person could ask for..

I consider myself blessed to be running an organization who has a mission/vision statement that isn’t lengthy and boring it is simply:

To help companies incorporate creative tools that build strong relationships with their clients.

There is one other statement that we try to live by at Brandswag:

By creating ideas that infect business, we move beyond thoughts, ideas &  theory.
It is about producing intentional campaigns and dialogue that move customers to buy.

In the words of Mike Lantz, one of my mentors and owner of LQ Strategies: I am living the dream.

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