November « 2010 « The BrandBuilder Blog

Archive for November, 2010

Stating the obvious:

Posted in account planning, smart business, Social Business, Social Communications, social media, social networking, tagged advertising, agency, brandbuilder, customers, guru, listen, marketing, olivier blanchard, pr, sales, social business, social media on November 22, 2010 | 100 Comments »

If I were to start a social media blog today, I would call it simply “Stating The Obvious.” The types of topics we would cover would fall along the lines of: 1. “Social” is something you are, not something you do. If your company culture doesn’t focus on building relationships with your customers, then chances [...]

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Social Media Management: Does experience trump talent?

Posted in account planning, business, management, smart business, Social Business, Social Communications, social media, tagged brandbuilder, management, olivier blanchard, social media on November 13, 2010 | 35 Comments »

I shoot a lot of video for this blog that never sees the light of day. This one is from back in July, I think, judging from the tan. I found it in some archives yesterday and thought it might be worth pushing out because it asks a pretty important question: Are we putting too [...]

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Every day is November 11th.

Posted in account planning, acts of rebellion, adaptation, purpose, rainmaking, war, tagged brandbuilder, honor, integrity, olivier blanchard, warrior poet on November 12, 2010 | 3 Comments »

I observed November 11th this year by having a few beers with a long-time Army buddy who will soon be redeployed overseas. Without revealing too much about his job, let me just say that he isn’t in the rear with the gear: Wherever he goes next, he will be in the forefront of the fight, [...]

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Altimeter’s report on Social Media Strategists: Real numbers behind the marketing imbalance in social media management

Posted in account planning, Social Business, Social Communications, social media, tagged 2010, altimeter, brandbuilder, olivier blanchard, report, social media, strategy on November 10, 2010 | 16 Comments »

Pretty solid job by the team at Altimeter, and an interesting read at that. Print it, share it, let your boss read it, learn from it what matters, and apply what you can. (If the embed doesn’t work for you, check out the report here.) One tiny little thought: The emphasis on having a strong [...]

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Care or die: Because customer loyalty isn’t really rocket science.

Posted in account planning, adaptation, advertising, advice, brand ambassadors, brand culture, brand insights, brand planning, brand promise, brand strategy, building value, business, commitment, communication, compassion, conversations, corporate culture, customer experience, customer relationship, customer service, Social Communications, social media, social network, tagged brandbuilder, care, content strategy, customer, digital strategy, gary vaynerchuck, olivier blanchard, pepsi, sales, social media, social media strategy, starbucks, twitter, web on November 10, 2010 | 26 Comments »

If you don’t care about your customers (or as Gary Vaynerchuck would say, “if you don’t give a f*ck about your customers,”) you are wasting your time with social media. Your customers aren’t wallet with legs. They are people, and here is the thing about people: People prefer to do business with people, companies and [...]

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Social Media and the Middle East: How technology, culture and shifting demographics will change the game in the next decade.

Posted in account planning, adaptation, advertising, evolution, expectations, Social Business, Social Communications, social media, social networking, society, solutions, travel, tagged brandbuilder, dubai, GCC, marketing, middle east, olivier blanchard, social media, total marketing on November 9, 2010 | 11 Comments »

What if 50% of your market were under the age of 25, extremely mobile, social-media-savvy and brand-conscious? What if you could turn back the clock a couple of years – knowing what you know now – and go back to the beginning of the social media “revolution,” only with mature tools and stable platforms at [...]

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Honda’s “Failure: The Secret To Success” project

Posted in success, tagged Alexa Von Tobel, brandbuilder, failure, gary vaynerchuck, honda, Mitch Thrower, olivier blanchard, success, Tim Ferriss on November 9, 2010 | 1 Comment »

In case you missed it last week, Gary Vaynerchuck, LearnVest CEO Alexa Von Tobel, “4-hour workweek” author Tim Ferriss, fellow triathlete Mitch Thrower and I participated in Honda’s “Failure: The Secret To Success” project, which basically consisted of shining a light on the (necessary) role that failure plays in success. The concept was simple enough: [...]

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Up in the air again…

Posted in brandbuilder, travel, tagged brandbuilder, dubai, olivier blanchard on November 1, 2010 | 3 Comments »

I am racking up the sky miles again this week with my very last international trip of 2011: A quick little stop in Dubai, to speak at the Total Marketing Brand Summit. No worries, only three quick days of work, and I fly right back. And yes, 13+ hour intercontinental flights rock my world. On [...]

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