Align your vision with your reputation. And be like Chuck Norris!

Everyone loves Chuck! His vision and his reputation were so aligned that you couldn’t smash a karate chop between them. He was toughness, in martial arts tournaments and on the silver screen. And everyone looked and went, “Wow!”

So when even Sylvester Stallone asked the martial artist, “How many push-ups can you do?”, and Chuck replied, “All of them”, you believe it.

Chuck may not be a business, but in a world where practically everything today, including him, is a brand, he has lessons to teach us.

Separate marketing, advertising, PR and communication? That’s so 20^th century

Chuck may have been big in the ‘80’s but he was ahead of his time. In the 21^st century, a clear brand vision is still as crucial but the disciplines of explaining that vision to your market have merged, thanks to the digital revolution and customer empowerment.

There’s only one discipline now: reputation

Take cell phones. Most people would agree that the iPhone 5 has a reputation for style whilst the Galaxy S4 has its rep around innovation.

And most people would agree that those are the same qualities as the brand visions of the companies behind those products. Apple’s vision is style and simplicity. Samsung is innovation. The S4 may now outsell the iPhone 5 in most markets but what made both products successful is that they both delivered on their promise.

But that’s not true of every company. Some companies have a different vision to how their customers’ perceive them. Some companies don’t even have a vision. But every business has a reputation, good or bad.

For a brand to be successful, the company’s vision and its identity needs to be aligned with how customers regard it.

What worked for Chuck can work for your business

Start promising. Start delivering. Keep promising. Keep delivering. Above all, stay consistent. Sure, move with the times, change with the market, but keep up that same, trusted reputation.

Get your staff to actively buy into both your vision and your reputation. They are your ambassadors to the world. You can’t do anything about them.  They (and your products) sell your reputation to the world.

And be realistic. You can’t achieve a great reputation in a day. But you can start it in a day. And it’ll get better most days after that.

Remember: a strong reputation works wonders for any brand.

Just ask Chuck.


 
Hilton Alexander Rose
Your Brand Agency | Director 
Skype: hilton293

linkedin.com/in/hiltonrose

www.yourbrandagency.co.za

https://twitter.com/YourBrandAgency

www.facebook.com/yourbrandagency

Measuring social media. Plus the story of John Wanamaker

Not many people have heard of John Wanamaker – and if you have, it’s unlikely his name was uttered in the same breath as social media. You see, Wanamaker came from a different era. He was an American businessman who died decades before the first room-sized computers were dreamt up and almost a century before you could buy your groceries online.

However, he’s most well-known for his quote. "Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted,” he grumbled. “The trouble is I don't know which half." Now he was talking about print advertising, of which he was a pioneer, but as it turns out, nothing’s changed. Even in the land of social media.

Half of companies have no ROI figure for the money they spend on social media

You’re on the sites. But how exactly do you measure the efficacy of your presence? Here we offer up three viable options. None of them are perfect but they will get you a lot closer to how much buck you’re getting for your social media bang!

Metric Tools

Using a Facebook tool, or even better a combination of tools such as Conversion Measurement and OptimizedCPM, allows you to record the behaviour of those who click on your ads. You are then able to see click-through rate, purchase rate, and by targeting the right people, cutting your cost of new customer acquisition by up to 39%.

Interactions

“Likes” used to be the only way you could tell whether your audience could hear you at all. Nowadays, however, we can extrapolate this data further. Every photo, post, video or comment takes seven seconds for the average user to digest and appreciate while his or her close friends take five seconds to digest that ‘like.’”

By analysing how many likes were received, multiplying by how many friends of those likes witnessed the action gives you and your business a clearer idea of how far your message has reached.

Analysing Traffic

It’s not optimal to analyse your website in terms of how often people find your page through Facebook or Twitter, because it’s not always easy to tell what actions drove that traffic or how much that traffic cost. By analysing your website analytics against pay per click (PPC) campaigns however, things become much clearer.

Compare the average cost of PPC per person to how many visitors you get from free social media placements – and, abracadabra, you can put a rand and cent tag on each and every ‘Like’!

But let’s leave the final word on the subject to John Wanamaker

John Wanamaker really did make it in the American dream – and my guess is he went with his gut, challenging convention and never relying solely on any particular tool. Let’s sum it up in his words.
“One of you is right. The question is which one.”



Hilton Alexander Rose
Your Brand Agency | Director 

Skype: hilton293

linkedin.com/in/hiltonrose

 www.yourbrandagency.co.za

https://twitter.com/YourBrandAgency

www.facebook.com/yourbrandagency