What's missing in your Brand Monitoring

Most businesses are online with a website, social media presence and possibly doing some SEO within those properties. Now some have taken the next step to include monitoring brand content and industry specific conversations online. Tools to monitor these activities vary from free (Google Alerts) to paid (Raven Tools) and can be set to keyword terms that are being used to describe and define your brand.

So what is missing with Brand Monitoring?

Missing from Brand Monitoring is when marketing agencies are contracted to provide social media and content strategy services that are Not capable of accurately representing the brand. This type of brand negligence can rapidly damage the brand with months of work needed to clean up the mess. Just cause an agency states that they know social media and/or content management does not mean they are astute in this marketing activity. Your responsibility as a brand or agency of record (AOR) is to perform your own online review which should include basic searches about the company and its constitutes.

The current customer is getting savvier by the day with reading reviews, joining brand's social media platforms, performing their own search and finally, ad networks are getting in on this action by way of designed ads that include who likes what brand and what they are saying. For the unskilled marketer, this can be a daunting task with a wide variety of answers online.

The amount of information and data about your brand is there for your taking. So take it and run with it! What you'll find is truly a gold mine of information and the most embracing, wonderful brand ambassadors that can do more for your brand than ever imaginable.

All the Best,


Michael Newhouse




WCNGroup is a Strategic Marketing and Branding agency founded by Michael Newhouse. Services include brand identity, demographic discovery, marketing planning, business plan development, experiential campaign execution, digital marketing and social media.

"Ship or get off the Pot", Inspired by Seth Godin

Yes, it's true, Seth Godin has finally inspired me.  I profess to not being a huge fan like others of Seth, but don't get me wrong, he does deliver moments of brilliance in marketing and business but not just all the time.  Today though, one of my Facebook friends posted this video and for some reason it just connected in the right spots for me.



Key points:

• Knowing the deep soul-feeling of being responsible for the business to succeed.  Unless you have owned a company there is no other feeling like this other than being a parent (not sleeping well, signs of sickness, wanting to buy every new gadget...)
• Discipline needs Strategy, period!  You can have all the discipline in the world but if your not performing the right task it becomes a mute activity.  This is why I am a Strategist, because after years of doing task from shipping, unloading trucks at 2am (UPS job in college), writing press releases to creating marketing plans - you have to think strategically in order to have the discipline to perform successfully.
• Live authentically by writing a blog or even daily Facebook post.  Marketing has changed and as a marketer you must know how to write including tone, when, why... because no matter what business, its all social (media) now.
• Content online is invaluable for many reasons - Real time results (SEO), link building, SERP, customer segmentation...

What keeps you Shipping?

Digital Marketing Talent Crisis

There is a Digital Talent Crisis happening according to a recent article by Shane Steele of Yahoo.  Shane discusses if the media and advertising industry is going to fully recover and grow in the future we must invest in talent. That begs the question, where is the talent coming from, particularly with the skills and experience needed to keep up with the radical pace of change in the digital age?

There is new digital education program called Boulder Digital Works (http://bdw.colorado.edu), a school with the ambition to produce the world’s best digital creative, business, and technology talent. BDW was formed by the University of Colorado in partnership with MDC Partners, Microsoft, and a number of other companies to address what its founders saw as a pressing need for digital talent and leadership in their own businesses. Their goal – build a digital boot camp to groom educated workers and leaders who move comfortably and intelligently across the disciplines of technology, creative, and business.

Upon reviewing job posting for digital marketing positions the confusion also lies with hiring agencies, managers and companies.  Digital marketing evolves daily with new technologies and transformations including how customers/prospects utilize and adopt the technologies.  Example would be that of eCommerce how years ago people were skeptical and did not trust this process.  Well, times have changed and the numbers of online sales continues to rise. 

Do current digital marketing professionals know how to build trust, create navigation that leads customers to conversion, or how to even drive customers to their sites and so on...

According to BDW they refer to this type of talent profile as “T-Shaped Talent,” or an “Integrated Digital Thinker.” It means that no matter what your specialty (base of the T), be it copywriting, media planning or flash design, in order to be most effective in the workplace today, employees must complement their subject matter expertise with a broad and holistic understanding of how digital technology impacts their business (top of the T). In other words, today’s talent must be fluent in at least one language but also literate in many.

Digital Marketing spend rising in 2010

According to a survey by digital firm Datran Media, marketers are expecting improved ad revenues and increased digital spending. 

The company's fourth annual report, which examined the marketing and budgeting priorities of digital marketers, found that 73.6% of respondents believe advertising revenues will increase in 2010.
Marketers are also planning to spend more money on online channels, which they see as effective and measurable, according to the study. The survey found that 93.6% of respondents will increase their budget for digital marketing channels this year, and 72.8% will use audience measurement tools to assess the success of their digital efforts.