Let’s face it, marketing can be hard! In each marketing blog post, we hope you’ll find the information you need for your business marketing success.
Do You Have a Website?
71% of businesses in 2023 have a website. That’s a clear message that having a web presence is essential to running a modern business. 21% of people use the internet to find a local business daily. That doesn’t account for all the consumers who shop online, either. Regardless of the size of your business–from a…
What Will the Musk Buyout Mean for Twitter Advertising?
Twitter has been an interesting social media platform. While Twitter says there are currently about 486 million account holders worldwide, their latest earnings report shows only about 238 million of those are active daily. This is a small share compared to another popular social media platform, Facebook, with about 1.93 billion accounts active daily. Yet…
Do You Need a New Logo?
For many companies, a logo feels like the keystone of their brand. It’s easy to get into a rut and think that a new, snazzier logo might drum up more business and improve profitability. Yet, if you haven’t changed your logo in decades, it may be past time to update it or create a new…
What’s the Difference: Brand Book vs. Brand Guidelines vs. Brand Bible vs. Identity Guidelines
A brand book, brand bible, brand guidelines, or identity guidelines is essential for businesses to maintain a consistent and strong brand identity. Beautiful brand books serve as a comprehensive guide that outlines the brand’s visual and messaging standards, ensuring that all brand elements are used coherently and effectively across various platforms. Creating a solid brand…
Starbucks without Limitations
By now you’ve probably heard that Starbucks has introduced a new logo, with intentions of moving into the realm of Apple and Nike — a logo without words. It’s a bold move, and one that not many companies have the brand equity to pull off – however, given Starbuck’s significant marketshare they are positioned better…
Separation of Personal Page and Business Page Like Separation of Church and State
A lot of us have Facebook personal pages as well as business pages. A pet peeve of mine is people who spend most of their time on their personal page talking about their business and sharing the links from their business and then ask me to ‘Like’ their business page. Why? You’re filling me in…
Facebook Profile Management: Balancing Personal and Professional Lives
The worlds of our personal and professional lives are set on a collision course more strongly now than ever before, with the update to the Facebook profile management last night. Upfront and center when you go to someone’s page is a short bio announcing to the world where you work, where you studied, where you…
The Innovative Ducks a Little Like Social Media?
Have you watched the Oregon Ducks play football this year? If not, you’re really missing out. As I watch how innovative Coach Kelly and the Oregon Ducks are on the field I can’t help but think of the comparisons with social media. Some of the traditional football fans and writers complain that they’re offense is…
Are You a Part of Small Business Saturday?
Have you heard of Small Business Saturday? It takes place on the Saturday after Thanksgiving. And it’s a movement that is growing. The concept is simple: A day to come together in support of the small businesses we love. The businesses that are the heartbeat of our communities and local economies. That day is November 27, 2010—the…
Branding a Local vs National Company
I had the opportunity the other day to chat with a friend who is a brand marketer for a national brand. During the course of our conversation, I was struck (again) by the same-ness and at the same time, the different-ness that comes with branding a national vs. local brand. At its core, branding is…
Visual Identity on a Budget
Brand strategy and positioning, image attributes, and brand architecture can become overly complex when there are hundreds of thousands of dollars involved. Many small to mid-size companies (with fewer than 500 employees) want the same thinking and quality that define a major branding initiative. It is just too expensive. Seeing no alternative, these companies search…
What’s Next For Social Media?
While the big brands and big boxes have taken early advantage of social media, if social media continues to grow it will be because of the smaller local businesses. Big brands are paving the way which makes sense being that social media is more popular in the larger markets. The next phase will take place…
5 Reasons a Local Business Owner Should be Involved in Social Media
There are many reasons that every local business should be involved in local social media. I’ve found that if it takes more than five reasons, then they are afraid of what they don’t understand, or are fearful of change. To go beyond five you are just reaffirming to someone who believes in what you are…
Social Marketing: Why it matters.
We do believe that social media and social marketing has radically altered advertising. We believe that social media can level the playing field between Madison Avenue and local business owners. It’s not a fad, the landscape of social media has changed dramatically over the past three years, and what we see today will dramatically change…