Book Review: Known, The Handbook for Building and Unleashing Your Personal Brand in the Digital Age

All of the personal branding gurus out there are leaving out an important piece of the puzzle.

Yes, you should try to discover your life’s passion. But what’s next?

According to Mark W. Schaefer, consultant, speaker, and author of Known, the missing piece is applying your passion in service of a long-term goal.

For example, talking about my obsession with cupcakes is not going to help my personal brand unless I’m opening a bakery.

Mark is a masterful teacher, and he uses extensive interviews with successful people to give the reader actionable advice. He pulls back the curtain on regular people who found the right niche, built an engaged audience, and then patiently activated that audience to achieve a goal.

He’s the right person to talk about this subject, since he left the corporate world and started over as a consultant, using blogging as his calling card to become known in a new professional niche. His blog, grow, is now one of the top marketing blogs in the world.

My favorite thing about this book is that it’s written in Mark’s inimitable voice, as if you’re old friends. It’s not a stuffy, by-the-numbers business book.

Each person interviewed brings a new insight to the story, whether it’s the “grandpa who shoots things on YouTube,” or the blogging pediatrician. You’ll just have to read the book to meet these interesting characters.

There is also a separate workbook that takes the lessons from the book and provides a step-by-step walkthrough of the process to become “known.” Each question or prompt will provoke deeper thought and encourage you to put some meat on the bones of your professional plan.

I’d recommend this book to anyone who is struggling to be heard and recognized above the din. You’ll find inspiration and solid ideas in one entertaining package.

 

 

Disclosure: I consider Mark a friend, but he did not request this review or send me a free book (what’s up with that?). I forked out my own hard-earned dollars to purchase it, and these are my unvarnished opinions.

 

Author’s Bio: Rosemary O’Neill is an insightful spirit who works for Social Strata — makers of the Hoop.la community platform. Check out the Social Strata blog. You can find Rosemary on Google+ and on Twitter as @rhogroupee

The post Book Review: Known, The Handbook for Building and Unleashing Your Personal Brand in the Digital Age appeared first on Successful Blog.

Successful Blog

Book Review: Known, The Handbook for Building and Unleashing Your Personal Brand in the Digital Age

When Should a Brand Take a Stand? When It’s Values are Clearly Defined.

Whether SNL knows it or not—they have just nailed the kinds of meetings marketing executives on both the brand and agency side will be having for the months if not years to come. While one team pitches «Cheeto executives» the same idea over and over again of political hot topics with the brand tacked on at the end—the other team in futility keeps trying to bring the brand back to more basic truths. People eat Cheetos because it’s fun and they taste good. 

The spoof was in reaction to the 2017 Superbowl, where several brands in reflection of a polarized climate took a definitive stance on where they stood. Knowingly or not, SNL hits a very real chord that marketers must carefully evaluate. Brands don’t like being irrelevant or out of touch with culture, and when a culture is divided and polarized—it puts pressure on the brand to become or stay relevant. But in that rush to relevancy, brands are going to have to answer some key questions or risk out of touch with what they actually are. 

Key Questions Brands Will Need Answered Before Taking a Definitive Stance

Do we have a right to weigh in on a specific societal issue?
When marketers wax poetic over the effectiveness of value-driven campaigns such as #Likeagirl, they often overlook that the brand in such case (Always) has a built in right to cultivate a conversation around woman empowerment. Without a genuine right to join or lead a conversation—a brand stance will fall flat. 

Have we uncovered and articulated our core values?
Brands have personalities like people—and they can often hold values. Not all brands have done the work needed to define what that guiding «north star» is and without this—they risk sailing into consumer activist waters without a compass. 

Do our core values align with our value proposition to the consumer/customer?
Does the average Nordstrom consumer have the same values as a Budweiser consumer? Brands must go beyond traditional demographic data and see their consumers in more nuanced ways. 

Is our brand’s business operations a good representative of the values we are championing? 
Audi’s Superbowl ad looked different from the faces and gender of their executive ranks. Brands that haven’t aligned marketing with business operations must way the risk and rewards of taking a stance especially if there is a gap between communications and operations. 

Does the societal issue fit into our higher purpose at the company/corporate level?
Does your brand operate under a broader «corporate» brand structure or are they the same? Either way when engaging with consumer’s and taking a stance—a brand’s values should align with the corporation. 

Who will we possibly alienate—who doesn’t share the same values we do? 
Taking a stance doesn’t guarantee that everyone will agree with you even if the company and CMO think it’s the right thing to do. Brands will need to be prepared to handle scenarios where even the most positive messaging may be as interpreted as offensive or disingenuous.  

SNL’s Cheeto skit may have been fictitious but it’s closer than they likely know in terms of how brands will wrestle with when they should stand for something or not or if so, how. And in polarizing times—the stakes have never been so high. 

Related articles

Nike CEO Mark Parker Slams Donald Trump’s Muslim Ban

adidas Slams Donald Trump’s Muslim Ban

Shoppers weigh boycott calls as buying gets more political

The Product Plus Politics Equation. | TWIST Creative Inc. — A Full Service Advertising Agency

Audi: DriveProgress Big Game Commercial — «Daughter» — DAILY COMMERCIALS

Audi is under a heap of criticism over its gender pay equality Super Bowl ad

Nordstrom broke the curse of the Trump tweet

The Action-Reaction Cycle: Consumer Activism Ignites Brand Response

Logic+Emotion

When Should a Brand Take a Stand? When It’s Values are Clearly Defined.

Superbowl Helps Brand Activism Go Mainstream

This year’s Superbowl was historic on two accounts:

1. It is the first Superbowl to have ever been won in overtime 
2. It will be known as the Superbowl that brought Brand Activism into the mainstream

What Is Brand Activism?
Simply put—it’s when a brand decides to take a definitive stance on a societal issue and bring it front and center into its messaging or value proposition. And it’s not totally new—one of the most well known examples of Brand Activism is P&G’s #Likeagirl campaign which artfully brought the societal issue if gender equality into its core message of empowerment. Brand activism is part art, part science and part sociology. When done right, it aligns the brand and company’s values with the values of consumers. When done wrong—it’s heavy handed, forced, contrived or disconnected from how the company and brand functions. 

When Should a Brand Take a Stance?
A complex question to answer and it’s a different answer for different brands. Some brands will look to Brand Activism as a way to remain or obtain relevancy with consumers and audiences. Others will do it because it is in line with either the company’s or brand’s stated values. And yet others may have a direct stake in the issue. 

84 Lumber for example (a brand most people have never heard of) is in the midst of a recruiting campaign and logically who and how they hire is an issue likely on their minds:

«Under owner Maggie Hardy Magerko, the daughter of founder Joe Hardy, 84 Lumber currently operates more that 250 stores across the U.S. and it’s planning to expand further by putting up new outlets on the West Coast.

Sunday’s Super Bowl ad comes as the company is in the middle of a recruitment campaign.»

Source: Fortune

But there may be more than just employment at stake—from 84 Lumber’s Website:

Brand Activism When Done Right Means Both Living and Speaking a Brand’s Values 
One can make the case that what 84 Lumber is doing is using a platform and compelling storytelling that supports the values which are true to the company. It took a chance to communicate those values on such a large stage and as a result—has the attention and awareness of a broader audience. Is this what the brand hoped to achieve? Likely—but there may be deeper foundational forces at play.

Brand Activism in a Politically Charged Climate
Given recent events regarding Brexit and the election of Donald Trump in the U.S.—the world is debating with itself. Individuals are questioning traditional institutions such as government and media and an air of uncertainty remains constant. In this world, brands are beginning to become more vocal around the issues they know their consumers think about and in the next four years at minimum, as brands look to fill the trust gap left by government and media—Brand Activism will become part of how they are built and maintained. 

Related articles

A construction company has released what will probably be the most controversial ad of the Super Bowl

Super Bowl LI: Airbnb, Coca-Cola Get Political in Ads | 101.7 Chuck FM — We Play Everything

Here’s everything we know about the Super Bowl ads so far

Fox rejected a construction company’s Super Bowl ad because it was too political

Is Super Bowl advertising worth it? Well, perhaps not.

This Company’s Inspirational Ad Is Now Banned From The Super Bowl

Logic+Emotion

Superbowl Helps Brand Activism Go Mainstream

The Action-Reaction Cycle: Consumer Activism Ignites Brand Response

We’re entering a new era of consumer activism as a result of societal divisions, a lack of distrust in once trusted institutions such as media and the mainstreaming of peer to peer information sharing enabled through social media. But how far should brands go to take a stance?

Source: Vanity Fair

The answer to this question is as complex as the issue itself. For some brands, it’s a matter of public perception, for others— a matter of principle and for others, it means aligning the values of their brand with the values of their consumers: 

Source: Greatcompany.org

Taking a Stance Is Not Without Risk
This Sunday, Budweiser will be airing an ad that takes on the issue of immigration head on. It does so in a powerful and emotive way—tying it to to its heritage and making the case that the brand would not be what it is today without immigration. 

Source: The Virginian Pilot

Budweiser’s message for what they stand for and believe in is clear—but the question left unanswered at this point is how the message will resonate with the millions of consumers who have affinity for the brand. Will some cheer the move while others feel alienated by it? Will the typical Budweiser consumer appreciate the not so subtle stance? For every action there is a reaction which prompts a response from brands and for Budweiser, what’s yet to be seen is the full reaction to their message. 

Balancing Consumer With Brand Activism
If we’re seeing a perfect storm for consumer activism, then by logic the cause and effect becomes a form of brand activism. And this is where brands will need to do a gut check on their values and the alignment with the values of their consumers. Much like how social sentiment and search engines provided indicators for what people REALLY thought about Donald Trump—brands will have to have the finger on the pulse of their core consumers now more than ever. The stakes could not be any higher for the relationship between consumer and brand.  

Related articles

The Rise of Consumer Activism in an Era of Distrust

Budweiser focus on immigration in Super Bowl LI ad

Logic+Emotion

The Action-Reaction Cycle: Consumer Activism Ignites Brand Response

Building A Modern Brand: Strategy, Creativity and Agility

Building brands in the mad men era was a relatively straight forward endeavor…

A brand needed to effectively communicate its value to the consumer, plainly stating its functional benefits and for the more enduring brands—connecting with consumers at the emotional level typically through a story told via television led advertising campaigns. The most iconic of brands over time, mastered the art of really digging into the «soul» of a brand. How it was differentiated from others and how it should be expressed in all parts of the world. 

Building brands became something of a religious pursuit, with high priests and gatekeepers of brands in place to ensure that a brand did not become diluted. These guardians of brands created all kinds of doctrine meant to keep a brand’s value proposition pure and true. Brands have always been built and expressed based on how they met consumers needs at the rational and emotional levels. More recently, brand stewards have been grappling with the notion of a brand’s «purpose»—industry shorthand for how a brand’s «values» take into account societal context. Can a brand stand for something bigger than itself? Does it exist for a higher purpose? Is there a cultural tension point that a brand has a right to participate in (or lead) a conversation around? 

Data from Edelman’s Brandshare study concluded that today’s consumers look for and evaluate their relationship with a brand beyond traditional rational and emotional benefits into areas that veer into societal. Well over half of 10,000 consumers polled globally indicated that brands having a clear «mission and purpose» influenced how they felt about that brand. 

In short, today’s marketers must ask themselves—does our brand stand for something? Does it stand against something else?

It is this tension point that takes us back to the drawing board when it comes to the «soul» of a brand. But we cannot divorce this exercise from how a brand must be brought to life. The re-visiting of a brand’s foundation requires taking another look at how it comes to life an today’s always on, multi channel world. Modern brands must master the relationship between these three key facets for how brands sustain their relationship with consumers after answering what it stands for and against:

Strategy
It’s tempting to think at the program level (campaigns, etc.) that once a foundational brand strategy is set—we can go right to ideas and tactics both big, medium and small. Avoid the temptation. Strategy at the program level should be the nucleus of any program and it should inform and influence all ideas. It should present clearly the balance between meeting business, brand and consumer/customer objectives. 

Creativity
Never has creativity been so important. People are rarely motivated by statistics and logic—but rich stories and experiences can lead to desired action. However, telling stories and designing useful, usable and desirable experiences requires out of the box thinking. Stories don’t get shared by people unless they are exceptionally compelling, entertaining or educational. There are thousands of apps to compete with and digital influencers can often times build audiences better than brands can. Creativity is now complicated. 

Agility
Probably the newest and most disruptive dynamic out of the three. Most brands grapple with agility because they are still operating in a construct built for the industrial broadcast era of marketing. As I’ve outlined in Responsive Marketing, it’s adding a layer of smaller more nimble initiatives than can help inform and even optimize the bigger more comprehensive programs that are still linear in nature. What both layers have in common is that they must move away from the launch and walk away model and move toward a model that puts various «things» in a live environment and adapts along the way. Google’s Ben Jones recently pointed out the elephant in the room when it comes to agility:

«Advertising has radically shifted to be more agile, useful, and relevant in the always-on age of mobile. Yet the foundation of creative work, the creative brief, remains largely unchanged.»

The creative brief shouldn’t go away, but if you truly buy into the notion of agility then the doctrine of briefs and briefing must become more dynamic than static while preserving the ability to influence big, medium and even small ideas. 

It’s been said that the more things change, the more they remain the same. In the context of building and preserving brands—this holds somewhat true. A brand becomes a brand only the the hearts and minds of consumers. And today’s consumers have ever evolving values, demographics and technology/lifestyle habits. We didn’t walk around with super computers in our pockets years ago and millennials are a far cry from baby boomers.

Modern brands will be built and re-built on foundations which reflect these evolutions but they must come to life informed by strategy, inspired by creativity and designed for agility. 

Related articles

Brandshare: Is The Value Exchange Between Brands and Consumers a Myth?

Societal: The Third Dimension Of Modern Day Brand Building

Three Things Consumers Want From Brands Today: Responsiveness, Involvement and Conviction

Ruling The «Aggregators» With Creative and Editorial Talent

Video Killed The Television Star: Why Total Fragmentation Is The New Norm

Responsive Brand: Chevrolet’s #Technologyandstuff

Logic+Emotion

Building A Modern Brand: Strategy, Creativity and Agility