I’ve had the honor of working with some mega brands on their community strategies. There’s a growing recognition that this is where the real conversations, collaborations, and insights are taking place (and it’s out of reach of social listening platforms). But how does a brand get involved in consumer communities?

Many brands — big and small — have built their own consumer communities. Look to Nike, IKEA, and Lego as best examples. Sephora operates 2,700 brick-and-mortar stores, yet 80% of its revenue derives from its online community of 6 million fans. That’s not just a community – that’s an economic force of nature.

Here’s the wake-up call: Your customers are already having conversations about your brand. On Reddit. In Discord channels. Through Slack communities. The only question is: Are you part of that conversation or the awkward outsider looking in through the window?

Even if you don’t build your own community, it makes sense to have some presence in hotbeds of consumer insight. Let’s talk about how to do that today.

Community versus audience

Let’s start with an important point. An audience is not a community.

I wrote the bestselling book about why brand communities are the future of marketing (Belonging to the Brand), and one of the most important ideas is understanding the difference between an audience and a community. For example, I hear many people describe their “blog community” or “Instagram community,” but those are not communities. Those are audiences. There’s nothing wrong with that, but it’s not a community.

An audience is one-way. If I blog, I have an audience. If I go away, I don’t. But a collective of people sustains a community and this has important implications for brand marketing.

Here are the three differences between an audience and a community:

COMMUNION

In a community, there is communion — people know each other, like a neighborhood. Members of an audience don’t know each other. This is a critical difference because the goodwill and friendship that occurs in a community spill over into the love for the sponsoring brand. Customer communities represent the highest level of emotional brand connection. If customers are emotionally invested in a community, they literally belong to the brand.

PURPOSE

Something must drive a customer to your community — a unifying purpose. What are your customers yearning to do? Learn something? Change the world? Create, connect, or collaborate? The best communities occur when the brand and the customers share a common purpose.  A community thrives when a company realizes that it can have a bigger impact when the customers come along to help.

A well-known example is Patagonia. What is its purpose? Responsible outdoor recreation. Patagonia’s customers are also devoted to this purpose, creating an ideal opportunity for community.

CONTROL

A company controls its mission, a marketing plan, an ad campaign. But community members drive the direction of the community, at least to some extent. This might sound scary, but wouldn’t it be amazing to have your customers help drive your future based on their wants, hopes and dreams? Access to this first party information is golden for any brand.

The biggest hurdles

Why isn’t every brand participating in brand communities? I consistently hear these obstacles:

Scale — Brands are accustomed to an advertising strategy that can generate millions of impressions. Even a community with 50,000 members doesn’t meet their expectations for vast reach.

Personal involvement — How does a “brand” show up in a community? It doesn’t. A “person” shows up in a community. Real people have to create real connections and relationships. This is a new dimension of customer intimacy that seems intimidating for marketers who are comfortable in cubicle land. There’s no effective way to automate interactions in a community. Somebody has to show up.

Outsourcing — Even when companies buy into a community strategy, they struggle to figure out how to delegate this to an ad agency partner. After all, throughout marketing history, the ad agency usually does the heavy lifting. How does an agency represent the brand in a customer community? It might be possible, but I think that would be unusual. I’m not sure a brand should out-source community relationships.

Measurement –Brands need to understand that these communities aren’t just marketing channels – they’re genuine spaces where people share experiences, advice, and support. If you come into a community trying to reach quarterly sales objectives, you’ll fail in a spectacular way.

For these reasons, brand communities could be a more likely strategy for small- and medium-sized companies with a culture geared to patient, human participation in customer communities.

Connecting to a community

So here’s the million-dollar question: How do brands respectfully enter these spaces?

I’ve reached out to community leaders and asked them, “How could a brand add value to your community?” Several themes emerged:

• Show that you really understand us, and not just selling stuff. Spend time observing the community’s conversations, pain points, and values before jumping in.
• Show us relevant new products and how to use them. Pay attention to our pain points.
• Provide educational content. Teach us something new.
• Actively participate in community conversations. Be transparent about who you are.
• Offer exclusive access to executives, designers, marketers, and others who can help us grow.
• Every community needs content. Is there content that can spark conversations in our community?
• Offer to help organize community events or challenges.
• Amplify community members’ voices and expertise, not just your own
• Help us have fun. Can you sponsor contests, quizzes, and games?

In addition to direct involvement, here are three ideas for indirect involvement that might fit the culture of larger brands:

1. Many community founders have a blog, podcast, or YouTube channel. Sponsoring their content can be an indirect way to access their communities.
2. Most large communities have offline events. Could the brand sponsor those activities to gain access to the community?
3. Could you create an event adjacent to a community? For example, fast-food restaurant Jack In The Box hosted an online late-night party on Discord during Comicon with live music, contests, and food giveaways.

The future

We all live in a world longing to belong. We don’t just want community. We need community to function as healthy humans. A brand community might be the only marketing tactic customers actually embrace.

I’m often asked if any brand can have a community and I don’t know the answer, but I take a clue from Yeti. This is a juggernaut of a brand that began with an ice cooler. They didn’t create this success with advertising. They relied almost entirely on community. In fact, Yeti hosts 12 different communities ranging from skiers to rodeo fans. If a cooler can create a cultural movement, what’s your excuse?

Connecting through communities isn’t just brand marketing; it’s brand anthropology. Your social listening platforms are just scratching the surface. The real gold — the authentic discussions, the brutal honesty, the passionate advocacy — that’s happening in communities you can’t track with a dashboard.

We need to connect to the world in new ways to keep our brands relevant. That means patiently learning about our consumer communities and showing up in a meaningful way.

Need a keynote speaker about brand communities? Mark Schaefer is the most trusted voice in marketing. Your conference guests will buzz about his insights long after your event! Mark is the author of some of the world’s bestselling marketing books, a college educator, and an advisor to many of the world’s largest brands. Contact Mark to have him bring a fun, meaningful, and memorable presentation to your company event or conference.

Follow Mark on Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Instagram

Illustration courtesy MidJourney

The post How should brands connect to consumer communities? appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.

The other day I checked in on Twitter (Still can’t bring myself to say X) and saw this tweet:

About a year ago, Twitter started injecting tweets into my “notifications” stream from people I don’t follow. So, I don’t know Faith Back Rub. Never heard of the account before. And yet, Twitter’s algorithm somehow thought this was one of the most important things for me to see that day.

The message I received was “a famous American football player slammed a presidential candidate.” And then I went on to something more interesting in my busy day.

But then I thought about it a little more: this celebrity American football player is usually non-political. He makes millions in product endorsements and podcast sponsorships. This statement seems uncharacteristic. So I went back to the tweet and clicked on the actual Kelce message:

Now my reaction was — well, this is a verified account. Looks like Travis Kelce really did take a clever swipe at Trump. Surprising. But what is this “Parody by Rub” thing in the corner? Is this real or not? Now, I had to dig to figure out what was going on. And here’s the truth:

This did not come from Travis Kelce, but how would I obviously know that? Remember how this showed up in my news feed: There was no indication that this was fake news when it was displayed to me. I read the headline and moved on.

As it turns out, most people who clicked through were fooled by this tweet, even though it was identified as a “parody.” I know this because there were nearly 1,000 comments on this tweet, most of them Trump supporters blasting Travis Kelce — who had nothing to do with this opinion.

And this is the true problem with social media. The threat to our society doesn’t necessarily come from what people say, it comes from algorithms amplifying disinformation.

The implication of amplification

Everybody has a right to say what they want to say, even if it’s incorrect or controversial. When the American Founding Fathers drafted the Constitution, even the most powerful and compelling voice back then could only hope that somebody would read their pamphlet or hear a speech. Information spread slowly, and mostly, locally. Even a juicy conspiracy theory couldn’t get nationwide attention very easily.

But today, damaging content can spread instantly and globally. And that puts a new spin on the issue of free speech.

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes famously said there is a limit on free speech: “You can’t yell ‘fire’ (with no fire) in a crowded theater.” But today, anybody can yell fire, and it can impact the opinions of hundreds, thousands or even millions of people. Amplification matters. Amplication is the threat. Why isn’t anybody taking responsibility for this?

Social media companies must be accountable

Let’s think through the case study I presented today.

• Twitter’s algorithm—no human being—decided to amplify news clearly marked as fake into user news streams without indicating that it was a parody (the first screenshot above).
• Based on the comments, two-thirds of the recipients of this tweet thought it was real, or 342,000 people.
• But that’s just the beginning. This fake news was retweeted 7,700 times!

This example was relatively harmless. The parody tweet probably caused Travis Kelce some irritation, but maybe that goes with the life of a celebrity.

However, what if this amplified fake tweet was devastatingly serious?

• What if a “verified account” called off evacuations in the middle of a hurricane?
• What if a fake account said every computer was hacked and would blow up today?
• What if the tweet accused Travis Kelce of beating up his girlfriend Taylor Swift?

My point is that Twitter and any other platform that employs algorithms to knowingly spread false claims should be held accountable.

In a recent interview, author and historian Yuval Noah Harari made this comparison: People can leave any comment they want on an article in The New York Times, even if it’s false. But amplification from social media companies is like the newspaper taking a bizarre, false comment and putting it on the front page of their newspaper.

That’s irresponsible and dangerous to society. Nobody would stand for that. And yet, we do.

Aim at amplification

As we enter the AI Era, the danger of fake news and its implications grows profoundly.

Let’s cut to the chase — Twitter knowingly lied to me to increase my time on their site and benefit its bottom line.

While it would be nearly impossible for any platform to monitor the comments of millions (or billions) of users, it’s much easier to hold companies accountable for spreading known false information to innocent people. This is a simple first step to protect people from dangerous falsehoods.

Why is nobody talking about this? Addressing bot-driven “sensational amplification” is a much easier fix than trying to regulate or suppress free speech. This must be a regulatory priority.

Need a keynote speaker? Mark Schaefer is the most trusted voice in marketing. Your conference guests will buzz about his insights long after your event! Mark is the author of some of the world’s bestselling marketing books, a college educator, and an advisor to many of the world’s largest brands. Contact Mark to have him bring a fun, meaningful, and memorable presentation to your company event or conference.

Follow Mark on Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Instagram

The post The biggest threat to free speech and democracy isn’t speech, it’s amplification appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.

Today, I’ll explain the Parasite Economy and why it is destroying businesses but opening up new opportunities for creators.

For many years, I’ve subscribed to Ted Gioia’s newsletter, “The Honest Broker.” It’s hard to describe this newsletter. Ted is a music critic and historian whose musings tend to wander all over the cultural landscape. But he has a knack for consistently connecting the dots in insightful ways, and I almost always learn something from his posts.

In an article titled “Are We Now Living in a Parasite Culture?” Ted makes an observation that is profound in its simplicity and wisdom. It goes like this:

“Nowadays, parasite businesses are the largest corporations in the world. Their technologies do many harmful things, but lately they have focused on serving up fake culture, leeching off the creativity of real human artists.

“Just take a look at the dominant digital platforms—and consider how little they actually create. But the amount of leeching they do is really quite stunning, especially when compared with the dominant businesses of the past.

• What does Facebook really create? Almost nothing. It relies on 3 billion users to create content (ugh!—their word, not mine), and then monetizes these people and their unpaid labor.
• What does Google really create? Almost nothing. Just look at how it destroys newspapers, while doing zero journalism itself. The comparison with a parasite could hardly be more apt. It feeds off the news, but never adds to it.
• What does Spotify really create? Almost nothing. The folks at Spotify don’t worry about their lousy app, because they’re so busy sucking blood from the creative economy, to which they contribute not one whit. Meanwhile, their CEO is now richer than any musician in the history of the world.
• What does TikTok really create? Almost nothing. This company relies on one million creators—none of them are employees. Most of them are working for hopes and dreams. TikTok is run like a Hollywood studio, but without cast, crew, directors, scriptwriters, or any creative talent whatsoever. But that hardly matters when you’re just a parasite living off unwitting hosts.

“Consider the case of the woman who attracted 713,000 TikTok followers and generated 11 million views for her videos—and got paid $1.85 over the course of five months. No that’s not $1.85 million—it’s one buck and eighty-five pennies. You can practically hear the lifeblood getting sucked out of the creator economy.”

Ted’s post continues, and he concludes by saying, “For the first time in history, the Forbes list of billionaires is filled with individuals who got rich via parasitical business strategies—creating almost nothing, but gorging themselves on the creativity of others.”

As usual, Ted made me think long and hard. I agree with him, but there is another side of this coin. In fact, the Parasite Economy is the best thing that ever happened to me in my professional life. And it can be for you, too. Today I’ll explain why.

The Parasite Economy’s Poster Child

On the surface, I am the poster child for “Victims of the Parasite Economy.”

I’ve probably added 20 million words to the social web through my blog and podcast alone. Google and its algorithm brotherhood crawl the internet like bugs, chewing my content like termites and then hurling it back out as an indistinguishable paste. The molecular material of my precious content is within everything now—no attribution, no money, no customers.

The years of effort behind this content are now part of the immortal glue that holds AI together. How have I been compensated for my significant content contribution? Nothing at all. I’ve never received one penny from Google, social media sites, or an AI company.

And yet, after 15 years of blogging and 12 years on the podcast, I keep churning out more. In fact, I think I’m doing my best work ever, giving away my most valuable ideas and insights every week.

Through Ted’s view, I should be incensed. But I’m grateful. Here’s why.

The Benefits of the Parasite Economy

While it’s true that I’m not making money from my content, I’ve made millions of dollars over the course of my creator career because I built an audience. You can’t have an audience without awareness, and you can’t have awareness without giving away valuable content.

I can see why Ted or any creative would feel abused because their content is consumed, loved, and shared without compensation. The key to surviving in the creator economy is not counting on your content for revenue. Those days are gone. So go ahead and grieve that reality, but get over it and look for other profitable ways to serve your audience.

I have 24 revenue streams. The most important ones are:

• Keynote speaking events and corporate workshops
• Personal coaching
• Book sales
• Private marketing retreat (The Uprising)
• Online classes

Until last year, I would have had marketing strategy consulting on the list — this was number one for many years. But I’ve been turning down these opportunities due to the wear and tear of travel.

My point is that, purely based on the awareness provided by the Parasite Economy, I’ve reinvented myself in a way that has allowed me to move away from the 9-5 corporate job.

The economics of our world today

I’ve never received a dime from Google or Facebook, but I’ve also never paid them (or anyone) a dime in advertising. So, at least for me, it’s been a fair trade-off.

Likewise, even a media company like The New York Times has been able to reinvent itself by diversifying into new media properties like podcasts, events, books, and speaking (they are building personal brands for their best reporters).

I am NOT dismissing the galaxy of negatives about internet parasites, including many of the good points Ted made in his post.

But I wanted to provide an alternate view that, with some creativity and resourcefulness, a creator can thrive, even under these strange circumstances.

Need a keynote speaker? Mark Schaefer is the most trusted voice in marketing. Your conference guests will buzz about his insights long after your event! Mark is the author of some of the world’s bestselling marketing books, a college educator, and an advisor to many of the world’s largest brands. Contact Mark to have him bring a fun, meaningful, and memorable presentation to your company event or conference.

Follow Mark on Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Instagram

Illustration courtesy of MidJourney

The post The Parasite Economy: An Upside for Creators appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.

About a year ago, singer Ed Sheeran partnered with Heinz on a new hot sauce. This is a great lesson literally pointing to the future of influencer marketing, and I kept forgetting to blog about it. But before I get to the dazzling marketing lesson from Ed Sheeran, let’s talk about the marketing problem with soap …

The new influencer landscape

I recently attended a meeting at a CPG company famous for its iconic soap products. They went through a big competitive analysis with profiles of all their traditional global competitors. At the end of the talk, I sheepishly raised my hand and suggested they had completely missed their biggest competitive threat. It isn’t P&G. It isn’t Unilever. It’s a 24-year-old TikTok star.

Influencer marketing has entered a new phase. The biggest stars’ celebrity power commands more loyal audiences than traditional TV networks. Mr Beast has more subscribers than Netflix.

These aren’t just kids shilling energy drinks. They are savvy entrepreneurs who are building their own mega-brands. Here are a few examples:

• Addison Rae – Item Beauty
• Emma Chamberlain – Chamberlain Coffee
• Charli and Dixie D’Amelio – Social Tourist (clothing line)
• Hyram Yarbro – Selfless by Hyram (skincare line)
• Blair Walnuts – Jewelry line
• Michelle Khare – MKfit (fitness app)

And, of course, there is Kylie Jenner, the world’s youngest self-made billionaire who sells her cosmetics in airport kiosks,

These young creators have something the big companies don’t—a credible, authentic voice and a loyal audience that visits them online daily to see what they’re selling next.

And that brings us to the marketing lesson from Ed Sheeran.

The beautiful ketchup move

Like the other influencers I mentioned, Ed Sheeran could have created his own line of hot sauces and a saucy empire. But why?

Partnering with Heinz made so much more sense. For one thing, Heinz actually makes stuff. They have contracts with suppliers, big factories, and an excellent distribution system built over a hundred years. So, with very little actual effort, Ed made his hot sauce dreams come true just by lending his charming face to the new brand. Win-Win.

And here’s the lesson for the mega-brands. Put your marketing ego aside. Go find yourself some beloved influencers and make them rich. They can out-market you, but you can out-manufacture them. It’s a match made in heaven.

Since the Ed Sheeran announcement, I’ve been waiting for a deluge of influencer-brand product launches, but there have been very few. I don’t get it. Influencers own your market, folks. Partner with them to disrupt your market before you’re the one being disrupted.

if you’d like to hear more about this subject, I discussed these ideas with my friend Amanda Russell. You won’t want to miss it!

Click here to enjoy Marketing Companion Episode 298

Please support our sponsor, who brings you this amazing episode.

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Now any business can build automated customer experiences, email marketing workflows, and landing pages that guide your customer to your main message. We are here to support businesses successfully navigating their digital presence in order to strengthen their customer relationships.

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The topic for this blog post came to me in a dream. I woke up from my dream thinking, “Yes, it’s true. There really is one big mistake content creators make. I should tell others about it!”

I’m sorry this dream wasn’t more exciting or titillating. Maybe my other dreams will be a story for another day. Or not.

Before I reveal my dream-truth, I need to review a basic content marketing philosophy:

Content must be unleashed.

It doesn’t matter if you’re creating epic content or the best work of your lifetime if nobody sees it. The power in your content doesn’t from the content. It comes from the transmission of the content. We want our work to move, which leads to awareness, fans, subscribers and people who will buy things from us.

The biggest mistake content creators make

OK, let’s think this through.

You create great content. You post it everywhere. Somebody bites. They click on the link and what do they see when they arrive at your website?

A blog post? A video? A podcast episode?

Of course … but what else? If you’re like most people, the answer is … nothing. And this is the problem.

When I visit most blog posts or other web content, I can’t even tell who wrote it. I don’t know what this site is about. I don’t see a place to subscribe. I don’t see a place to share the content on social media if I like it. It’s a marketing dead end!

When people click on a link to your content, they don’t arrive at your home page. They arrive at your content. And if all you have on this page is your content, you’re missing a massive opportunity. In fact, this is by far the biggest mistake content creators make today.

In essence, your content page needs to be a mini-landing page for your business. You spend all this time bringing people to your business, but it’s not your business—it’s just a piece of content. They read it and leave. TRAGIC!

Here is your goal: Keep them on your website. You should put as much thought and design into your standard content page as your home page. The longer you keep them on the page, the bigger the chance they will subscribe to your content, share it, or even buy something from you. So don’t miss this opportunity.

Let’s learn how to do this …

The mini home page

If I were sitting with you over coffee, I would pull out my laptop and give you a demonstration. I would probably even buy you the coffee. But since we might be thousands of miles apart, I’ll walk you through it and owe you the coffee when we finally meet. Deal?

As I give you this lesson, it would be helpful to look at how I display my own work, the result of many years of testing. If you like, open up this blog post as you read the rest of my tutorial so you can visualize the lesson.

We’ll start at the top and learn how to make your content into a mini home page.

On my post, what’s the first thing you see under the headline? Social sharing buttons. I can’t believe how often I go to a site and have to work to figure out how to share the content.

Research shows your content will be shared 400% more if you simply add social sharing buttons. The total social shares displayed on my buttons isn’t accurate. It’s sort of a long story why they’re not, and it’s frustrating that nobody has worked that out, but put the buttons up there anyway. No excuses.

Next: An eye-catching graphic. If somebody sees your content shared on LinkedIn or Twitter, the first thing that grabs their attention is the graphic. Maybe you can stop them long enough to read the headline and get a click. The image that goes with your content is also an SEO boost because you can add meta tags to the photo to help Google figure out your content.

Let’s start looking at the right-hand column. You first see a call to action to spend time with me. Cool.

However, the next field, an invitation to subscribe, is the most essential item on the entire page. Why? Because a subscriber is opting in to you and what you do. They are volunteering to hear more. They are becoming members of your email list and possibly future customers.

You might be asking yourself, if the subscribe button is the most critical part of the page, why isn’t it at the top of the column? Heat map studies show that the top right corner of the web page is invisible to many people. I don’t know why, but the conclusion is consistent. So, the top of the column is sort of a throw-away item to get people to the next block which encourages them to subscribe.

As you go down the rest of the column, you’ll see:

• An opportunity to buy my book
• An invitation to attend my marketing retreat
• News about a class I am teaching
• An ability to search the site
• A little welcome message so people know who I am
• Boxes to search my posts by topic, date, or recent articles.

These are all things you might expect to see on a homepage. But most visitors who click on a link never see your home page. We need to fill that gap and give them lots of things to do. Remember, we want to keep them on the website.

Now let’s skip to the very bottom of the blog post. What have we here? A photo of me and further invitations to engage and connect. 

You might note that this page has lots of reasons to buy something from me, but I never sell within the content of the post. Some content gurus insist that you should sell something on every blog post, but I say phooey. I think that’s annoying and disrespectful. I wouldn’t want to subscribe to a constant sales pitch, would you?

But we’re not finished. Under my bio is another opportunity to share the post on social media because we want to get this content to move!

Next, there are a couple of prompts to send you to similar posts on my site. These are free WordPress apps that increase your time on my site by 18%. Huzzah!

And we wrap things up with another opportunity to connect with me on something like buying a book.

Just copy me

I just gave you some ideas for overcoming the biggest mistake content creators make today. My guess is that you have almost none of this on your page today. These ideas are easy to implement and can elevate your content immediately.

Everything I’ve covered here is free if you have a WordPress site. Nothing custom. Ask your web person to review my blog posts and copy my format. I’m happy to help you in that way.

It’s upsetting that so many people put their heart and soul into great content, only to have it languish on a boring, useless page.

I hope these ideas will give your content and business the boost they deserve.

Need a keynote speaker? Mark Schaefer is the most trusted voice in marketing. Your conference guests will buzz about his insights long after your event! Mark is the author of some of the world’s bestselling marketing books, a college educator, and an advisor to many of the world’s largest brands. Contact Mark to have him bring a fun, meaningful, and memorable presentation to your company event or conference.

Follow Mark on Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Instagram

Illustration courtesy MidJourney

The post The biggest mistake content creators make today appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.

Sara Wilson and I are both obsessed with a similar professional passion: Cutting through all obstacles to reach our customers. Becoming the signal against the noise.

I can argue that this is the most difficult time in history to break through and reach customers — by far. I’ve written about this extensively, but the short story is, our customers have largely become their own ad-free, isolated, curated media outlets.

Another dynamic that is good for consumers but bad for brands is the move toward online communities for connection and information sharing. Sara believes that communities are now the primary online gathering place for customers. That is a radical and profound change from the public forums of social media, a fertile field of data for our social listening platforms.

The latest episode of The Marketing Companion is a show bursting with big ideas and a healthy debate about what’s happening and what’s next as we fight to connect to customers who don’t want to be tracked and found. There are some bold new ideas in the show as Mark and Sara connect the dots on one of the biggest problems facing companies today.

We cover some big ideas …

• Can a hashtag become a community?
• Can a brand truly participate in a community … or is it a person?
• Is the idea of an “affinity group” the key to new social platform success?
• How do we find the nuance and insights that lead to innovation?

This is a mesmerizing conversation and all you have to do is click here to listen in …

Click here to enjoy Marketing Companion episode 290

Please support our sponsor, who brings you this amazing episode.

Bravo for Brevo!

This episode is brought to you by Brevo (formerly Sendinblue). Brevo gives you the tools to attract, engage, and nurture customer relationships.

Now any business can build automated customer experiences, email marketing workflows, and landing pages that guide your customer to your main message. We are here to support businesses successfully navigating their digital presence in order to strengthen their customer relationships.

Go to https://www.brevo.com/marketingcompanion to sign up for Brevo for free and use the code COMPANION to save 50% on your first three months of Brevo’s Starter & Business plan!

Illustration courtesy MidJourney

The post The problem with social listening platforms and disconnected customers appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.

When it comes to my content projects, am I a coward or a genius?

This is an internal debate I have when considering my content strategy. It goes like this …

I have three main content projects:

1. A blog I’ve populated with content at least once a week for 15 years.
2. A podcast now in its 12th year (never missed an episode)
3. Marketing-related books (counting all editions, 16 since 2010)

I have been a model of consistency.

But when I look around the industry, my colleagues are stopping and starting content projects all the time. Limited edition podcast series. A small video series. Or completely abandoning major content assets and starting over.

And I wonder if I am missing something. Am I boring, or am I consistent? Am I stuck, or am I focused? Am I in a groove or stuck in a trough?

When do you know it’s time to stop and start over, or when it is time to start at all?

This is the debate I have with my friend Jay Acunzo, who has stopped and started many newsletters, podcasts and video series over his career. In the new episode of The Marketing Companion, we explore the psychology and business benefits of starting and stopping your content projects. Click here to listen!

Click here to enjoy Marketing Companion episode 287

Please support our sponsor, who brings you this amazing episode.

Bravo for Brevo!

This episode is brought to you by Brevo (formerly Sendinblue). Brevo gives you the tools to attract, engage, and nurture customer relationships.

Now any business can build automated customer experiences, email marketing workflows, and landing pages that guide your customer to your main message. We are here to support businesses successfully navigating their digital presence in order to strengthen their customer relationships.

Go to https://www.brevo.com/marketingcompanion to sign up for Brevo for free and use the code COMPANION to save 50% on your first three months of Brevo’s Starter & Business plan!

Illustration courtesy MidJourney

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This week marks the fifteenth anniversary of my blog. Crazy, right? I realize that nobody cares about an anniversary like this … I don’t even care, honestly … but I thought I would use the milestone as a teachable moment because blogging changed my life. And here is the main lesson of the milestone:

To stand out in this world, you have to be known. To be known, you have to show up consistently. Consistency is more important than genius.

Unfortunately, this is where most people fail. They stop and start, or perhaps they never start at all.

In my Personal Branding Master Class, I show a slide depicting my personal income attributed to “being known.” My income grew steadily over time (except 2020!) because the more I am known, the bigger my audience, the greater the opportunities, the higher the book sales, and the more valuable the speaking and consulting engagements. This progress can only come through consistently showing up with helpful content.

Creating meaningful content is hard work, and at low times, I wonder if it’s worth it. While I’m working on a blog post, my friends might be reading, hiking, or cooking a great meal. Blogging is a sacrifice.

But when I emerge from this introspection, I return to the same conclusion: Everything started from the blog, and every business benefit comes from the thought leadership I’ve built from this space. In fact, without a doubt, blogging changed my life forever, in these five ways:

1. Deep emotional connection

A few years ago, I received an email from a blog reader: “I’ve been reading your blog for three years. It led me to buy your latest book, and it is the best business book I’ve read in the last ten years.”

It was signed by the CMO of a Fortune 100 company. Two years later, he hired me for a consulting project to transform his content marketing department.

Let’s dissect what happened:

• A stranger built an affinity for me through my blog.
• Over time, the affinity became trust … a strong enough bond for him to hire me, even though I had never met him.
• To earn his business, I didn’t have to apply for the job or bid against competitors. I was simply awarded the work, and I named my price.

If I didn’t have a blog, how much would I have had to spend on advertising to have a success story like that?

Brand marketing is about building an emotional connection that differentiates you from the competition. What a wonderful world we live in where a guy like me has the opportunity to build relationships — and a business — through my content. You can do it, too.

2. The introvert’s revenge

I hate networking. I am the worst networker in the world. I’m an introvert who loves a quiet dinner with friends, but put me in a room with a lot of people, and I want to crawl into a hole.

I know that sounds weird coming from a person who delivers keynote speeches in front of thousands of people, but it is different. I come alive on a stage because I can teach and entertain, and I’m really good at it. But shaking hands all night at a cocktail reception is my idea of torture.  I am a mingler misfit.

But through a blog, I can build business friendships with people every day without actually meeting them!

3. The fuel for a legacy

When my blog hit its tenth anniversary, I wrote that my biggest accomplishment was that over all those hundreds of posts, I never humiliated myself. My record still stands!

I have not made a major stumble because blogging forces me to clarify my ideas. Before I put something into the world, I think it through deeply. Is it thorough? Have I considered all sides? Am I being kind and showing up in a way I can be proud of?

These clarified blog concepts are later used in my speeches and books. The seeds of my legacy are planted here.

4. Personal reward

When I was in the corporate world, I would get an annual performance review (if I was lucky!).

Although I generally had an idea of how I was doing, there always seemed to be a zinger in there. Nobody gets a perfect performance review, right?

The cool thing about blogging is that I get a performance every week. Here is a comment posted on LinkedIn recently by Jim Hunt.

Isn’t that awesome? It makes my heart soar. I just can’t believe how lucky I am to have an audience of people who appreciate my work.

That’s the fuel that keeps me going. When I create a blog post, a podcast episode, or a book, I have only one mantra in my head: “I will never let you down.”

5. Personal healing

In the first chapter of my book KNOWN, I wrote about the darkest time of my life. This was so difficult for me to reveal, but I did it to show the reader that when I started my personal branding journey, I was a mess. I was below zero. I wanted to encourage people — If I can do it, you can too.

In those dark days, the stress of my life was killing me. When I went to see a doctor, my blood pressure was so high she would not let me leave her office. She was afraid I was about to have a stroke or worse.

The doctor demanded that I monitor my blood pressure every hour of the day. And this is when I witnessed something miraculous. There was one hour every day when my blood pressure was normal. It was when I was blogging.

There is a zen about blogging that sends you to a different place of focus and peace, even when the world is terrible.

Even more importantly, when I started posting my ideas online, I received feedback from people who didn’t know what I was going through. It was so nice to connect with people who didn’t know of my suffering. I was so tired of being sad.

Perhaps it is too dramatic to say that blogging saved my life, but mentally, physically, spiritually, and financially, I am transformed from creating these words on a screen.

Thank you, friend

I will never forget the moment 15 years ago when I received the very first comment on this blog. It was a moment of awe. Somebody read my work and spent their precious time commenting on it.

I have never forgotten that feeling. I re-live that sense of awe every day when I get feedback on my work.

Whether you have followed me for 15 years or this is our first meeting, thank you for being here. I’m just getting started, and I will never let you down.

Need a keynote speaker? Mark Schaefer is the most trusted voice in marketing. Your conference guests will buzz about his insights long after your event! Mark is the author of some of the world’s bestselling marketing books, a college educator, and an advisor to many of the world’s largest brands. Contact Mark to have him bring a fun, meaningful, and memorable presentation to your company event or conference.

Follow Mark on Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Instagram

Illustration courtesy MidJourney

The post 15 Years On, Five Ways Blogging Changed My Life Forever appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.

A friend forwarded a post to me penned by digital superstar Neil Patel. I like and respect Neil a lot, and generally I agree with him, but in this case, I don’t — and I think his post provides a great lesson in the value of personal branding.

Which works better? Today we’ll examine the business value of the personal brand versus corporate brand.

Personal brand versus corporate brand

Neil’s post goes through a detailed analysis of the number of followers on his personal and corporate accounts. He does his best to attribute revenue streams to his personal brand versus corporate brand, to determine which might be the most important effort. The corporate brand drove more revenue and he came to this conclusion:

If you look at the biggest companies in the world… Apple, Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Pepsi, Proctor and Gamble, etc… they are all corporate brands.

Sure, you can build a big personal brand like a Kardashian, which is great, but they don’t generate anywhere near the revenue a strong corporate brand can generate.

This doesn’t mean a personal brand isn’t effective.

I’ve used it to kick-start my corporate brand.

A lot of corporations like Beats by Dre used a lot of personal brands (celebrities) to create something amazing, and then they eventually sold it to Apple.

So ideally, you should leverage both to their maximum potential.

I think Neil is missing a few important points.

Neil is the brand

So Neil’s conclusion is to focus on corporate brand — like Apple or Microsoft. The corporate brand drives more revenue for him.

First, let’s take a little test. What is the name of Neil Patel’s company?

Think hard now. If Neil’s corporate brand is working so well, driving more revenue, and meaning more to his customers, obviously it should be a well-known name, right?

I’ve followed Neil for more than a decade and have no idea what the name of his company is. I assumed it was Neil Patel. (It’s NP Digital).

My point is, how do you separate the two? My guess is that no matter how many referrals Neil gets, a new customer is going to do business with him because it is Neil freaking Patel, one of the best-known digital gurus in the world.

Similarly, do you know the name of my business? Nope. Nobody really cares that I lead Schaefer Marketing Solutions. People hire me for me.

What is a brand?

The second problem with Neil’s analysis is that he is attempting the Sysphian task of attributing revenue to brand marketing efforts.

There are two kinds of marketing, and confusing them causes problems.

The first kind is direct (or performance) marketing. This is easy to measure and is directed at revenue generation. Examples would be advertising, SEO, and, to some extent, content marketing. If you spend money on ads, for example, you can generally measure how much revenue comes in.

Brand marketing helps distance yourself from the direct marketing battle. Your image and reputation create the expectation of a feeling you have toward a brand. The words Disney, Nike, or Coca-Cola mean something to you because of the tremendous effort they put into brand marketing. This moves them above commodity status.

Brand marketing delivers loyalty, preference, and, often, the ability to charge more.

But here’s the problem. It’s almost impossible to measure brand marketing. Most people associate Coca-Cola with their whimsical polar bears. How many cans of Coke does a polar bear sell? Who knows? But the brand image creates meaning that separates it from the competition.

My point is, when Neil compares the personal brand versus the corporate brand, he’s mashing together direct marketing with brand marketing. He’s trying to provide direct attribution to how well he is known, and that’s very difficult, or impossible, to do.

The personal brand is everything

Last year, I whined to a friend about my book sales. “I’m writing great books,” I said. “Why don’t I sell as many books as Seth Godin?”

“Because you’re not Seth Godin,” my friend replied.

Exactly.

In many ways, Seth, Neil, and I are in the same business. We speak, we write, we consult.

But Seth Godin can sell more books, charge more for his speaking fees, and attract bigger consulting engagements than me because he’s at the top of the marketing influence scale. It doesn’t matter if my books are better, cheaper, or more beautiful. His personal brand is bigger than mine, and that trumps everything.

For the same reason, I don’t think Neil even has a “corporate brand.” Neil is able to drive crazy revenue streams because he’s known, loved, and trusted. Sure, he does a great job with SEO, ads, and content. But the real key to his success is the reputation, authority, and presence that makes his personal brand soar.

Putting this into action for you

I don’t want to dismiss the power of corporate branding. If you can afford an ad on the Super Bowl, go do it. But most of the people reading this article will never have that opportunity.

Remember that branding is about creating an emotional expectation that leads to awareness and loyalty. It’s hard for people to fall in love with an ad, a logo, or your SEO scheme. But they can fall in love with you.

Neil is an SEO and advertising wizard. He might be able to trick people into clicking a link or an ad, but he can’t trick them into buying. That decision is made because of his reputation, his body of work, and the social proof coming from reviews and testimonies.

I hope you take a simple lesson from this tale. Your personal brand is everything.

What do you want to do in this world? Make more sales? Write a book? Sell a course? Speak on the biggest industry stage?

All worthy goals, but the only way that will happen is if you are KNOWN.

In Neil’s article, he said he brings in about $20 million a year. Could he have done that 10 years ago? No. Five years ago? No. His revenue grows and his opportunities expand the longer he works on his personal brand.

That’s why you need to be working on your personal brand now.

Need a keynote speaker? Mark Schaefer is the most trusted voice in marketing. Your conference guests will buzz about his insights long after your event! Mark is the author of some of the world’s bestselling marketing books, a college educator, and an advisor to many of the world’s largest brands. Contact Mark to have him bring a fun, meaningful, and memorable presentation to your company event or conference.

Follow Mark on Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Instagram

Image courtesy Midjourney

The post Personal Brand Versus Corporate Brand: Which is More Effective? appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.