The way people discover, research and choose products, services and businesses has been changed forever by Google, the web, and social media. Old marketing strategies like interruption (advertisments in the middle of your favorite TV show etc) just aren’t working anymore.

Now the best brands are letting their customers do their marketing for them – they are leveraging the power of sharing.

Personal referrals and recommendations are still gold

Personal advice from the people we trust is still the most powerful factor influencing our purchasing decisions, but the way these are communicated and shared is shifting more into the digital space. Not only are people using tools like social media to share opinions and facts about products and businesses, the very nature of these tools means the reach of these communications has been dramatically increased.

Learning how to harness the power of this virtual referral network is essential for businesses that want to survive, and thrive in the next few years.

In this presentation The Sharable Brand, I explain why your business needs to create remarkable customer experiences and then needs to make these easy for your customers to share online.  We’ll also cover the process of nurturing leads into engaged customers and  passionate brand advocates..

The main topics we’ll cover in The Sharable Brand are:

1. The new referral process
2. Online business strategy
3. Crafting a shareable brand
4. Building lead and referral systems
5. The importance of campaigns

I’ll also give you a sneak preview of my brand value elevator process.

Join us at the BNI Cairns Harborview meeting on 26 June, 2013 at the Holiday Inn at 7am. Please give me a call to RSVP in advance, or contact another member of the chapter.

The event won’t be recorded but I will do a follow-up video presentation if you can’t make it.

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Brands are becoming more personalised (to the consumer) and also becoming more personable (having more characteristics of a person). At the same time, our personal brands (in many cases largely comprising our consumer brand choices) are becoming stronger and more prominent.

This is eroding the barriers between brands and people. Let’s examine this further, looking firstly at successful personal brands, and then at company brands which have created a value proposition by what buying them says about our personality, and finally by looking at companies which are succeeding in creating personable brands.

Personality that shines through

Let’s start by taking a look at well known people who have developed a strong personal brand (I’m Australian, so my list will reflect this). These people are all famous for some reason, but they’ve gone beyond that by branding themselves in a way which makes them more memorable, meaningful and appealing.

OK, so most of these people are influential within their sphere. They have money, fame, and/or power. But the reason they are most recognisable is that they have a strong personal brand. Their personality shines through. We can imagine them dressed in their particular style. We know what they like doing, what they stand for and where they hang out. There is a certain way we expect them to behave and it bothers us when they don’t.

Brands Create Value

A strong brand creates premium value. To some degree, a brand is value. Some top athletes make zero money unless they attract a major brand sponsorship. Being good is just not enough – both athlete and brand rely on each other to maintain the strength and value of the brand.

The value of a brand relies on strong positive associations – included in our list of strong personal brands are a few which have eroded their value by behaving in a way which is not consistent with their brand.

“The top people in an industry have become brands, The top brands are trying to become more personal” – Dallas McMillan

Companies with personality

Now let’s take a look at a few companies which have developed a striking, powerful brand.

Now these companies have become successful by creating high quality products. But even when there’s a rival product that’s technically superior, these companies garner more loyal followers, command a higher price, and have extra clout in the marketplace.

So what do these brands stand for?

In each case they are mass-producing a product, whether it be cars, watches, furniture or books. They are one of many players in the market, yet they’ve positioned themselves as being superior in value, or quality, or other positive association, and can thus command a higher price in their marketplace.

Does Nike’s brand say ‘sportswear’? Does BMW say ‘car’? Not really! In each case, the brand represents something about the people who buy it, rather than the product itself – maybe that they are ‘cool’, ‘successful’, ‘affluent’ or ‘adventurous’.

The people who choose these brands may tell themselves they want the best quality, or need specific features, but they are really choosing the brand because of what it says about them.

Our consumer decisions are part of our personal brand

Social media like Facebook and especially MySpace (yes, it’s back!) are built around the human desire to facilitate and share these overt displays of taste or affluence.
This tendency to self-publicise looks set to continue as young people grow up in a world immersed in branding and marketing. These digital natives are often acutely sensitive to the nuanced meanings associated with brands in their life. Narcissistic? Yes, but no more so than other generations with their fixations on BMWs, power suits and designer sunglasses. The inclination to define and broadcast our personality through what we buy, use, wear or drive hasn’t changed; it’s just become easier to achieve.

You cannot escape your brand

What this means is that as a business you can’t neglect your brand, and you can’t afford to get it wrong. A weak brand will limit your business success anyway, but with the intense focus and amplification of online marketing and social media, a strong brand can generate enormous value, while digital faux-pas can seriously damage your image.

Great brands make things personal

Great brands succeed because they make it personal. They offer unique value which is only available to their customers – like an exclusive club you canonly be a part of if you buy the product. Brands often achieve this by marketing themselves through brand advocates, people whose opinion customers will trust. Nike pays millions for celebrity sports stars (with a strong personal brand, naturally), always looking for a good match between the person and the brand.

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Our world has changed dramatically in the last few years with the rise of the internet, social media, mobile computing and other technological developments. This online evolution is transforming business, careers, marketing, socialising, learning and practically every other aspect of life.

Democratization of media and publishing means that marketing yourself or your business has changed for ever.

Suddenly anyone, anywhere in the world has access to communication tools which are powerful, instant and free – and there are no limits on what they can achieve.

• Small up-and-coming brands can trump established major players simply by engaging with customers online (for free).
• Online merchants can set up shops which offer cheap, highly targeted products for a specific niche. Their low capital expenses mean they can make a profit on margins a bricks and mortar store couldn’t dream of.
• If a customer is happy – or unhappy – with a product or service they can tell 100’s of people about it at the press of a button.
• Celebrities, sports stars and politicians, and companies of all sizes are far more visible, accessible and accountable.We have moved from a world where big media and big companies had control of the conversation to one where individuals, smaller brands and large companies are on a more or less level playing field.You’ll pay less, but you gotta deliver moreBut while these online platforms are often cheap or even free they do take time, and having the right quality content for a given audience has become more important than ever before, because people have so many more options.Traditionally, you had to pay big bucks to access broadcast media and advertising, but in return you got direct access to your customers’ attention – you could interrupt their day and convince them to buy or believe something. Now, powerful multimedia publishing platforms with global reach are accessible and affordable for anyone, but your audience can tune in or turn off whenever they want.

Social media: handle with care

Before you attempt to develop and market your personal or business brand it’s essential that you get your message right.

It’s vital to remember that social media isn’t a new advertising platform. It’s all about human interaction, and if you approach it as an exercise in blatant self- promotion you are likely to fail – catastrophically. Social media, the internet and world wide connectivity means we can reach a vast audience – which can be amazingly powerful, but also means that if you don’t hit the right note you can do a huge amount of damage to your reputation almost instantly. That means both your brand and your messages need to be well thought out, meaningful, sharable and authentic. Sometimes this means you need to change your whole approach to business.

Become the one they listen to

To be influential online you need to have something worth saying, and have the right tools and strategy to achieve the results you want.

It comes down to being likeable, authentic and authoritative in the topics you talk about. Becoming educated and finding information is no longer a challenge, but expert opinions are still essential to help us make sense of the avalanche of information available online. And we don’t just want put our trust in a random ‘expert’ – we want personalised information, tailored to our needs and reflecting our world view. When we find someone who can provide this for us – on a topic that interests us – we identify with them and begin to value their opinion. These are the people and businesses we’ll listen to, talk about, and buy from:

• People we know, like and trust
• People like us
• People who understand and provide what we need
• People who know what they’re talking about on a specific topic.
• People who are memorable and stand outIn many cases, these people will be people we know via traditional media – such as journalists, celebrities and TV identities, or household name companies.But with the right brand, strategy and effort they could be you.

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