Your Logo - Capturing The Essence Of Your Brand | BUSINESS CAPITAL TRENDS

Business Capital Trends with Douglas Castle

The Human eye records detailed images in a tiny fraction of a second. It then proceeds to process them consciously. After this, it continuously processes (in great detail, with a high degree of correlative symbolism) the logo image in the subconscious, where "intuitive" or "instinctual" feelings about the image are created. It's rather like "love at first sight."

Your logo is not a decoration. It is a message. It is a symbol... in point of fact, it is a tiny picture of your entire BRAND universe, replete with your personality, attitude and beliefs. It is a messenger in miniature, and is far more memorable than an entire written or oral presentation. Take it very, very seriously. It is a sharp little business promotion tool that can be worth millions of dollars -- or, it can spell stagnation for your otherwise promising business.
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Branding: Your Logo, And The Message That It Sends

Your logo is a critical component of your marketing, media and publicity campaign. It is a messenger.

It is a static picture or typestyle which speaks volumes about your business, product, service or brand in the literal blink of a consumer's eye. It must be memorable, distinctive and must penetrate at a multitude of psychological (conscious and sub-conscious). Your logo is a the shortest but most powerfully efficient form of ideological communication that exists. The mind processes and recalls graphic images much more readily than slogans or copy.

A logo is a first impression, but it remains imprinted on your consumer audience's conscious and subconscious for a long time. You must take care to have this tiny image be the purified, concentrated essence of your identity. A potent logo is worth its weight in unobtainium. It is a holograph of everything that you are. It must be perfect.

The biggest threat to the efficacy of a logo is unintended symbolism, either by the visual similarity to something unsavory, or by the implications which can be drawn by a closer look at what your logo actually says; the first has an immediate effect, while the second tends to smolder. These flaws can undermine a brand.

Eric Lowitt, an author ("The Future Of Value") and professional speaker, is a passionate expert on the increasingly critical topic of sustainability.

He is one of our Senior Advisors and Experts at TNNWC, and recently included the following piece in his Newsletter. It struck home. Hard. I would strongly suggest that you read it carefully, and think of its implications for your brand, as well as for what unintended signals you may be sending with respect to sustainability... among other things.

Note: This article, written by author and strategic corporate planning expert Douglas E Castle was originally published (in various forms) in the Mad Marketing Tactics Blog, Sending Signals! Blog, The TNNWC Supplemental RSS Feed And Email Blog, as well as in The National Networker (TNNWC) Weekly Newsletter.

The excerpt from Eric Lowitt's Newsletter follows:

You Are What Your Corporate Logo Says You Are

In the wake of the vigorous debate about the status of green marketing (and responses like this one and this one), it’s important to remember the powerful message corporations’ logos convey. For example, several years ago, a friend pointed out the subliminal arrow embedded in FedEx’s corporate logo.



Admittedly it took me a couple days to really see it. After all, I was trying to turn the tide of long-term memory—I’ve seen countless FedEx trucks over the years. Only after staring at a FedEx truck for what seemed like an eternity (likely no more than 20 seconds), I finally noticed the arrow. Years later I can’t help but notice the arrow every time I spot a FedEx truck. What is the arrow’s significance? It communicates what the company is about—moving products, and aspirations, forward.

To grasp the power of FedEx’s logo, consider the following logo, used by Sherwin-Williams, best known for its success as a global paint manufacturer. What does this logo convey?



The company’s logo clearly conveys the image of a paint company with global reach. The paint being spilled all over the Earth (with the comment ‘Cover the Earth’) also suggests either that Sherwin-Williams has limited concern about its product’s environmental impact. Sherwin-Williams’s logo isn’t aligned with its measured concern for the environment (as witnessed by its environmental sustainability initiative, called EcoVision). ####

What does your logo say about you? You might wish to design a better one. I know of some people who can do that.

Faithfully,

Douglas E Castle

Related articles

• Creative Logo Designs with Hidden Messages (logosdesignblog.com)
• 30 Brilliant Logos With Hidden Messages (adoholik.com)
• The Logo Test in Action (brandautopsy.com)
• Your Logo is the Doorway to Your Small Biz Brand (smallbizbee.com)
• The Ultimate Question: "Am I Stupid?" (imagesbydouglascastle.blogspot.com)
• The National Networker Weekly Newsletter 6.13.2011 - [condensed Version for Rss] (thenationalnetworkerweblog.blogspot.com)
• Branding - Are Your Advertisements Effective? Does Your Audience Remember Your Name? (aboutdouglascastle.blogspot.com)
• Lead-Generating, Sales-Closing, Customer-Retaining Magnetic Websites - The Secrets. (dailyburstofbrilliance.blogspot.com)
• Puns Are Permitted - But You'd Better Be Appealing To An Intelligent Audience! (sendingsignals.blogspot.com)
• An Entrepreneurial Enterprise Built By Collaboration and Crowdsourcing. (thenationalnetworkerweblog.blogspot.com)

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Your Logo - Capturing The Essence Of Your Brand | BUSINESS CAPITAL TRENDS

NET-TECH REPORT: Twitter - For Fun and Profit!

Net-Tech Report with Chris Kauza

According to cnet news and TechCrunch. Twitter has received $250M in capital to fund current operations and growth, from a group of undisclosed investors. Twitter has been in use since 2006, with people from all backgrounds and companies from all verticals joining in the conversation, and thus making Twitter into a more useful tool. If you haven't yet, you need to start paying attention to this social networking tool now.

Last April I wrote an introductory article describing Twitter, how to sign up and how you might use it for general networking purposes. In this article, I am going to assume that you have set up an account, you are following some interesting people, and that you have a few followers of your own – all of which makes for an interesting and more enjoyable Twitter experience. We're going to build on that foundation and talk about some tools that will make your Twitter-life easier and hopefully a bit more productive for your business.

For interactive Marketing, Twitter is an excellent tool. With a user base numbering over 5 Million (and growing), it's a tool you need to pay attention to and learn. Many large organizations are already using Twitter to creatively”humanize” their brands and customers' experiences with their companies. NASA's JPL has created mission-specific accounts such as @marsroverdriver, @SpaceCenterHou, @MarsScienceLab, @MarsRover, @MarsPhoenix and @CassiniSaturn, which are fun to follow if you're interested in what Nasa is doing, several major airlines (i.e. - @virgindotcom (I also follow @richardbranson, but his Tweests are less frequent), @SouthwestAir, @JetBlue), @WholeFoods, @Zappos (a rapidly growing online shoe retailer) to name a few. There are many more great examples to review, but in my opinion, using your real name and picture is the best way to promote networking and relationship building. Non-profit organizations are even getting into the act (shameless plug – check out a non-profit I helped start: @saproject). Bear in mind this tool has only seen two full years of market exposure...

So how can you start to leverage Twitter to your advantage? Here are some tools to help you get started:

Tweetdeck

The Twitter client presents real-time text feeds from your Twitter-universe (or “Twitterverse”, for short). If you start to follow more than a dozen people, your conversations can get a bit confusing. When your Twitterverse starts to climb into the hundreds or thousands...well, it can get pretty noisy and frustrating!

Tweetdeck is a client you install, that can break up these conversation streams into more manageable threads. The default column contains the same information you see on your Twitter page, while you can set up additional columns for direct messages that people send you, replies from others to your Tweets, and just about anything else you'd like. For example, if you wanted to see what I was up to recently while attending the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas last month, you could set up a column to search on #ces09 and you would see Tweets from anyone attending and tweeting about the trade show (FYI – CES was savvy enough to set up their own Twitter account - @2009CES – which they used to update attendees to great effect). Even though this tool is still in “public beta”, it can definitely make your life easier.

Twhirl

Twhirl is another client that helps make your Twitter life a bit more manageable. It's similar to Tweetdeck, but my colleagues who use it absolutely RAVE about it – stable installation, ability to cross-post your Tweets to multiple platforms, automatically shorten long URLs (important when you want to share a web page and are only limited to 140 characters!), and you can automatically post images to Twitpic (Twitpic is an application that allows you to take pictures from your phone or camera, and share them with your Twitterverse – but more on that later).

Last but not least, here are a couple of “how to” tips to help you get more out of your Twitter experience.

How To Search Twitter

One of the easiest and most interesting aspects to Twitter is the ability to get new perspectives on all different kinds of information – everything from earthquakes, to space missions, to conference session and breaking news events world wide. For example, I saw and read about the Mumbai terrorist attach about 2 hours before I saw anything from a major news outlet. In fact, I was able to link up a senior correspondent from ABC news' online bureau with several people on the ground in Mumbai.

Click in this paragraph's title and you will be taken to the search window page. No account to set up, no need to login – think of it as “Google for Twitter”. In fact, right below the search window there will be several “trending topics” (i.e. - the most currently searched topics on Twitter, at that moment). This is a page to bookmark and keep handy

Twittergrader

It's just what it sounds like – it tells you your “Twitter Grade”. It doesn't really mean anything, but it sure plays into one's ego gratification needs to see where they rank relative to a Twitter population. Supported by Hubspot (an online / Web 2.0 / Search Marketing firm), Twittergrader will even suggest other Twitter users whom you might be interested in following. One way I've used this is to find people who are local to where I work or to where I meet be traveling. Every so often, people will organize a “Tweetup” - an offline meeting where Twitter users will get together to enjoy each other's company and converse face-to-face (what a concept!). I have met some really smart and unique folks this way – people whom I otherwise would most likely never have met. If nothing else, it is an amusing distraction while you are on hold with a customer service representative!

Take this information and use it to make your Twitter experience a more enjoyable one. I'll write another article in a few months profiling organizations that are using Twitter effectively to enhance their brand and thus their relationships with their customers – companies like Southwest and Jet Blue airlines, and NASA. In fact, NASA recently held a Tweetup for their Twitter followers at JPL, where attendees were treated to a behind-the-scenes look at interviews with Mission engineers. I think NASA is really doing a great job of using social media to connect with a wider audience and build support for their organization. You can see more examples at this page), etc. In the meantime, if you have any questions, feel free to “DM me” (i.e. - send me a direct message on Twitter) and I'll be happy to help if I can.

Until next month,

Chris / @ChrisKauza

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NET-TECH REPORT: Twitter - For Fun and Profit!

NET-TECH REPORT: How To Manage Your Online Brand

Net-Tech Report with Chris Kauza

Readers of this column know that there are many ways to enhance your brand by building a stronger online presence. Following some of my previous tips, you should be starting to see some positive results – at least in terms of connecting with others who know and like you.

But what happens when you run into people who don’t like you? How can you be aware of them, and what can you do to mitigate their impact on your Brand?

Recently, I had the opportunity to hear Andy Beal relate some ways you can manage your brand online. While there are a number of tools and techniques you can use to “listen’ to what is being said about you, these are four simple tools you can start using right away:

1. Google Alerts – if you have nothing else set up, you can set this up to monitor Google Search, Google News, Google Blogs, Images, Groups, etc. You can even have alerts sent to your email.

2. Technorati – this is a great tool for tracking mentions in blogs and other Social Media. It’s an opportunity to answer questions and engage others in your Brand. If you find someone who is bad-mouthing your Brand, this gives you the opportunity to engage with them and see if there is something you can do to fix the issue. If they are supporting your Brand, then you have a great opportunity to thank them for their efforts, and reward them / turn them into a raving fan.

3. Twitter – if you’re online with any kind of presence, then your customers and peers are already talking about you, and they are probably doing so on Twitter. This is a good thing. But, if you don’t want to sit and monitor a Tweet Stream all day, you can log onto search.twitter.com and do searches on keywords that are important to you – your company name, your product or service name, etc. Simply subscribe to the RSS feed on each search in which you are interested, and you will be alerted when those terms come up in Twitter. Reach out to those who are speaking about what is interesting to you and engage them!

4. Brand Protecting – if you do any kind of selling online, you want to make sure you are protecting your brand. Just type in your brand name and it will check all of the popular social media sites and let you know if it has been registered or not. If the are not registered, you should go ahead and register it, so you have it under your control. Don’t think this is an issue? Ask Wal-Mart if they mind that walmartsucks.org / walmart-blows.com / walmart-really-sucks.com are online. These sites are great examples of a large company not effectively managing or engaging with their brand…

By using these four tools you can start creating and managing a stronger online presence, right now. Feel free to follow me on Twitter: www.twitter.com/ChrisKauza.

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Posted to THE NATIONAL NETWORKER. To subscribe for your free newsletter, go to www.TheNationalNetworker.com. For the complete National Networker Relationship Capital Toolkit and a free, continuous RSS feed (available either by traditional RSS or by direct email), go to: http://thenationalnetworkerweblog.blogspot.com. You are also invited to click our buttons:


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NET-TECH REPORT: How To Manage Your Online Brand

The Best Friends You've Never Met!

By Chris Kauza
Technology Editor

Everyday new users flock to the Social Networking sites of MySpace and FaceBook. While the media likes to portray these as sites for your kids, that juxtaposition belies the fallacy.

The dynamics of relationships are changing, and these applications are making it so that you will most likely end up with really good friends you have never met!

What are the implications for your business?

The nature and reality of relationships is changing. “Good Networking” used to be only about who you knew in your immediate circle, and who they knew in their circle, whom you could trust. Networking is evolving to include people you may not have physically met, but may have been introduced to you by a trusted source – a friend, a professional colleague (either of which you may not have physically met either), or even through a website like LinkedIn.

People are changing how they present themselves to others. They are redefining what their Brand is, and what was once considered to be merely “interesting” or “creative” is now vital to differentiating yourself from your competition, and being “top of mind” when your customers are making purchasing decisions. Users are wresting control of their environment and refashioning it to suit their purposes – which may be very different from how the original designers intended. Or different from how you intended.

The fact is, the sum total of all of your conversations and discussions about you, your product or your service are becoming your brand! And how you choose (or not choose) to use the new environment will determine how you are perceived, the level of credibility you have (or don't have) and the kinds of customers you can attract.

Over the next two months, we will examine how you can use MySpace and FaceBook in your business and networking endeavors. We will start with these because:

1) They are two of the largest and fastest growing Social Networking applications on the web today

2) Most people dismiss these out of hand as being irrelevant to their business

3) There are people who are successfully using it to connect with others and grow their business in ways that previously weren't possible.

In the meantime, if you have questions about these or other technologies, feel free to email me at ckauza@soltusgroup.com or to connect with me on LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/chriskauza

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The Best Friends You've Never Met!