If you want to include marketing and social media in your 2016 strategy to brand your business, think things through and get the most out of your time and resources. Below are important steps to consider when you :
1. Where Do You Stand Now?
Take a serious look at the inner workings of your marketing and social media plan. Do an internal and external audit of where your business really is, and not where you think it is … including what you’re doing right and what hasn’t worked?
2. What Do You Want To Accomplish?
Advertising and social media isn’t going to get you there if you don’t have an achievable GOAL. Get your branding and message really tight then set the tactics in motion.
But, You Didn't Deliver What You Promised ...
Does this ring a bell with you ... you hire a vendor to provide a service to your company and it goes terribly wrong?
Several years ago as the Mar-Comms Director for a large technology innovator on the ‘client side’ of the fence, I conducted a PR agency review seeking help in enriching our media presence, enhance our brand awareness and grow the company.
Once the initial research (verifying references, identifying, interviewing, testing, comparing and final selection of the background review) was completed, my colleagues and I were satisfied that our efforts had brought us to the best candidate, and we signed a limited retainer with them.
Endurance Test: Build A Real Website In 24 Hours
A few years ago we decided to test market an idea that sounded, well, a little crazy.
As a web design firm, we have created and designed several hundred websites. Some very deep with 70+ pages, and others a modest five-six-page versions that suited the client's needs as an Internet 'placeholder' .
When clients call, they like our work and are interested in discussing 'what it will take' to design a website for them. During a staff meeting these client questions brought us to an interesting 'What If' discussion and we decided to take a run at it.
A recent article on Top Performers and what makes them tick came across my desk the other day. It reminded me about the learning methods of behavioral conditioning through experiments using laboratory experiments ... which use three basic conditioning strategies:
- Positive reinforcement - based on a reward for some activity
- Negative reinforcement - based on a form of punishment for an activity
- Aversive conditioning - conditioning that teaches and maintains a specific behavior
Anyone who has ever been a manager of another person or staff learns these basics either in school or in the school of hard knocks - called OJT (on-the-job-training).
