Online Presentations and Branding

“Hiding content on a multi-slide file and expecting people to click through it to get to your oh so important message is just dumb,” says Wedge.

Although I hear what he’s saying I’m not so dismissive. You can achieve quite a lot with a well-constructed presentation distributed on services like SlideShare.

Google Juice and SEO
The great thing about SlideShare is that Google seems to rank it very highly. You can achieve good placement in search results with a well-phrased title and keyword tags. Experience has shown me that you can use it to improve a client’s visibility on the Net. A high-ranking presentation in Google can be a great stepping stone to drive traffic to a business’s website.

Online CVs and Personal Branding
Another reason to use a slide presentation is that it can be a very useful way to demonstrate that you’re a good storyteller.

Storytelling is part of today’s corporate culture and if you have those skills, you want to make them visible to customers and clients as well as, say, potential employers.

Rather than telling someone you’re a good presenter or storyteller, include a link on your online resumé or weblog and show them what you can do first hand.

Finally, a quality online slide-presentation can win you a new audience.

I’ve never heard Valeria Maltoni speak but her presentation on Career Development, Social Media and Branding was enough to get me to subscribe to her RSS feed earlier this morning. Succinct and informative, her presentation told me enough to know that this was a voice I needed to follow.

Update:
A screen shot just a few hours after posting this entry and a PowerPoint presentation on SlideShare. Don’t underestimate the power of online presentations!

Slogans Say A Lot About Your Business

Image: Robbed

I was in discussion with a client from the education sector this morning ahead of the annual recruitment drive and I was concerned that they’d changed tagline three times in the last three years. Ever since that conversation I’ve been thinking:

• Don’t rush your company tagline or slogan
• Think carefully about what it says about you or your products

Build Your Brand with Words

In a small market like Stockholm, it takes time to build your brand identity. Every time you change something like the tagline or tone of your copy, you redefine or waterdown your brand.

This can be a positive thing, especially if you’re looking to rebrand or in the midst of launching a new product; however, changing slogan can also undermine the good work that you’ve done, shifting your audience’s perception of what you or your product represents.

Great Slogans Talk to the Audience

My favourite slogans and taglines – and I think the most successful ones in recent years– speak directly to the target audience; they involve you personally.

• “Because you’re worth it!”
• “Where do you want to go today?”
• “Think Different”

See what I mean? Each of these speaks directly to a particular audience.

In the education sector, it’s much harder to position yourself with a tagline or slogan.  The University of Cambridge doesn’t have to bother – no doubt because its reputation speaks for itself.

The Perse (where my father went) uses a clear and informative tagline:Cambridge Independent Day School whereas St. Paul’s School in Concord (NH), has the, er, rather intriguing tagline: Freedom With Responsibility.

Your Copy Shows You’re Different

One of the things you can do with a tagline is illustrate what makes you different from other businesses. Hence Yale doesn’t need one, but ”Yale - The World’s finest Lock” does !

Blog Crisis Management: Use a Blog to Tell Your Story

It’s not always good PR to stay silent if your company or organization comes under attack on the Net.

As I’ve previously blogged, the Basset Hound Club of Great Britain could have used a weblog for crisis management after a BBC documentary lambasted breeders for creating monsters.

On Sunday the Telegraph ran an article featuring the Albany Bassets under the headline: “Top breeder says Kennel Club is in denial over ‘deformed’ dogs”. In the article Alison Jeffers, who runs the Albany, claims:

Bassets bred for shows like Crufts are so inbred that most are incapable of being working dogs even though they win prizes in that category

As a basset hound breeder myself I’m frustrated that the basset hound club in the UK again failed to meet Ms Jeffers’ claims.

With a weblog it can be as easy to update your website as sending an email so there’s no excuse really for the leading basset club in the UK to make their position clear –especially as many pet owners won’t necessarily be able to differentiate between the facts and spin that is currently being put out there on numerous websites and dog blogs.

I would have thought it shrewd of the basset club to offer their version of the story as to why Ms Jeffers was expelled from the Kennel Club.

Moreover, by engaging with readers on the web, the club could also illustrate how, say, here in Sweden basset hounds regularly win hunting trials against other breeds.

When bloggers and the national press making statements about you or your organization, engaging publicly in the debate via your own website, in a tone that is accessible and open, can be the best way of getting your version of the story out there for other people to make their mind about. 

One Month on Twitter

I’ve been on Twitter now for a month or thereabouts. Initially I just lurked a bit; but as I learned more about how it works I’ve become more active as I look to grow my network, share information and learn more about this particular channel for digital copywriting.

Already I’m noticing a number of knock-on effects since starting to Tweet that are both positive and negative. On the positive front, I’m noticing better, richer conversations on the Net with people than I’ve done in the past. I’ve come across new and interesting voices in the fields that interest me (copywriting, social media, marketing, blogging) that Google or the blogosphere hadn’t led me to.

The biggest negative has to be the number of followers I’ve had to block because they were using Twitter to bombard me with overt (and covert) spam.

As someone who writes and uses words for a living, I’m fascinated by the way people are using Twitter to communicate. Since I signed up I’ve been watching, learning, experimenting and tweeting, tracking the kind of results I get, following the strategies others use. But you have to stay with it a while before you get it. It changes all the time, though. As I write this I was struck by how boldly Social Media guru Chris Brogan is using Twitter to reach out to his community. He just tweeted:

Anyone @ TechSet in NYC call me?  9788851551

How wonderfully direct! Chris’s tweet here just shaped and changed the scope of this particular blog post because it got me thinking about how important it is to think through how you can use Twitter.

Topping Google: Now it’s Essential for Web Marketing

Being at the top of the first page of Google results has always been important. Now it’s essential.

The boffins at Think Eyetracking got 30 participants to view a Google Search Engine Results Page (SERP) for the term ‘Oasis’. (Dont’ ask me why: maybe they were Lian and Noel fans!)

Compared to the results for the same search term from 2005, Think Eyetracking found that the way we use Google SERPs has changed drastically in the last 3 years. Whereas 3 years ago eyeball-tracking showed searchers viewing the entire first page, today searchers are only glancing at the top three results.

Think Eyetracking reveals that:

• the top 3 Google results get 79% of all clicks
• 86% of participants altered the search query if they didn’t find what they wanted until the desired result was among the top 3
• 97% of the participants used Google as their primary search engine.
• 87% said they ONLY use Google for internet search.

Graphic: Think Eyetracking

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