Hilary Carrell

A personal brand for myself, particularly online, was not something I thought I would need to eventually build and create. Growing up in Generation Y, I am marked by the influence of technology. Using social media websites such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn just came naturally, but only recently am I realizing the power that lies in having very strong online presence. Your personal brand is not only in how you define yourself, but how you are perceived by others.

Applying the 4 Ps of marketing to creating an image and a point of differentiation for yourself online could make all the difference in job applications down the line. When looking at yourself as the product that you are trying to sell through your values, mission, knowledge, skills and abilities, like always, consistency and reliability are key. However, your online brand has the ability to sell them on the overall experience you are able to create.

A recent report stated that 64% of HR managers believe it is relevant to search your online profiles, and 41% have rejected people as a direct result. That’s a lot! The first six hits when you type my name into Google are all links to my various social media networking channels – have you Googled your name? As for my generation, their profiles probably need a lot of “tidying up” – to put it politely.

Before truly looking at the power of personal marketing in depth, it always came across as a way to “toot your own horn.” Now I am able to realize the major positive impact that it could have on your personal ROI for the rest of your life. President Obama’s digital director Teddy Goff certainly recognized and utilized the extreme power of creating a strong, trustworthy, personal brand. So what’s a couple hours here and there to blog today, if it will positively impact you tomorrow?

Whatever you had planned for the next 18 minutes, scrap that and watch this video instead, seriously.

The Way We Think About Charity – Dan Pallotta

Dan Pallotta really hit home for me with this Ted Talk on how our views on charity/not-for-profits have been extremely twisted in the wrong direction. Up until hearing this talk, I would’ve been right there with the supposed “pie givers” who insist that any money wasted on overhead expenses could be going to alleviating their cause right now – so why waste all this raised money? However, why are non-profits continuously rewarded for how little they spend vs. how much they actually get done?

It is heartbreaking that our society today has left us with the choice to either do financially well for yourself and your family, or to do right by the world and try and make a positive difference. Until watching this video, I would’ve said, “well people who can’t sacrifice the pay cut are obviously not that interested in changing the world are they?” However, as Dan points out, why is it okay to make $50 million selling violent video games to children, but not okay to make $0.5 million trying to make the world a better place?

Charities are heavily discriminated against for attempting to pursue heavy advertising and marketing, but the point shouldn’t be how much of your budget you spend on these expenses, but should be about how spending that money can grow your ROI 1000’s of times over. The way for charities to scale and grow is to market their on-profit, nourish it, and be willing to take that initial risk of failure. Using marketing to increase your revenue in the long run, has the power to help millions of people in your cause, rather than say, hundreds right now.

They say “pick your battles,” well this is one I would fight for.

Pinterest is a truly ingenious channel when it comes to marketing. With four million unique daily visitors marketers can sell basically anything including food and drink, home decor, clothes, workouts, ideologies, etc. In March alone, Pinterest had over 2.3 billion page visits and is projected to account for 40% of all social media driven purchases. It is not only popular with personal users, but B2B marketers have also quickly realized its massive potential (of course, there are many “pins” on how to capitalize on this).

One of the most interesting tactics that I have found marketers use on Pinterest is humanizing their brand. The trick is to not only link your pins to your own website, but to use this opportunity to showcase the culture and unique interests of your company. Ensuring that you are displaying specific topics or subjects, rather than just your company, will drive visits and drive success. This major marketing scrapbook will make your visitors 10% more likely to purchase something, and also on average will spend 10% more.

Personally, I have been addicted ever since I started “pinning” in December 2011. It is this giant, human indexing machine that allows to express ideas and experiences you’ve enjoyed or wish to enjoy at some point in real life – including things you never knew existed. It’s really not surprising that 72% of Pinterest users are women, and at first I thought this might be a fault, however, 85% of all consumer purchases are made by women. I do think that this is partly to do with how they designed and branded the image of Pinterest, they simply didn’t not allow it to be very “manly” to “pin” something. However, women are driving household purchases, and despite having only 10 minutes to shine on the “new” page, you’d have to be pretty blind to not include Pinterest in your marketing strategy.

While surfing Facebook last night, as university students typically do to procrastinate, an ad on the side of the page caught my eye. The irony made me literally laugh out loud in my empty house, however it also made the pit of my stomach feel sick thinking about how effective this ad might actually be. This was the ad:

Credit: Enbridge

In case you don’t know, the Northern Gateway Pipeline is planned to travel 1,177km from Alberta to Kitimat, BC carrying an average of 525,000 barrels of petroleum per day. Enbridge is using this ad to persuade Canadian’s to trust in the safety of their brand. The reason this ad makes me so sick is because 36% of people trust ads displayed by social networking sites. Therefore, people are actually believing the promise of “safety” behind this ad. Unfortunately, the safety that companies like Embridge or Exxon guarantee just isn’t there. Two spills of Canadian tar sands oil have occurred within the past week.

I’m not ignorant of the fact that the tar sands annually pump tens of billions of dollars into our economy, I just think brainwashing our citizens into believing that it’s going to be 100% beneficial to Canada is too much. (Depending on how you define beneficial, I suppose). They’ve convinced many Canadian’s that it’s patriotic to support Canada as an “oil-exporting nation for 60 years.” We are commercializing everything else, why not commercialize nationalism.

The reality is that a spill-free system is an impossible goal. So what can we as consumers do to ensure that we aren’t believing every word we read, consciously or unconsciously? I presume that my stomach-sickening feeling truly comes from the fact that many people get lazy and do not do their research before consuming a product, an idea, or trusting in a company such as Enbridge.

Image Credit: Mother’s Union

In the US alone, companies spend over 17 billion dollars marketing to just children. Kids today have much more autonomy within their families, therefore they speak up and are successful in influencing much of what their parents buy. Today, trends say that family sizes are typically smaller and have older parents with more disposable income which is often used in order to satisfy their children.

The pressures of advertising adversely affect children’s well-being, family life and peer relationships. In 2009, a study by Yale University found that children exposed to junk food advertisements ate 45% more than kids who had not been exposed. Even schools will take funding in exchange for posting advertisements, playing commercials, giving companies high visibility or selling specific soft drinks. This commercialization of education is honestly sickening.

Another major area of concern of advertising to children and teens is the effects of using unrealistic or sexualized body images and stereotypes. Culture today continues to grow increasingly sexualized so it is no wonder that seven in ten teen girls feel they aren’t good enough or do not measure up in some way.

So where are the ethics? Why isn’t anyone stepping up to try and make a difference? Thankfully, some are. UNICEF‘s 6th principle of their Children’s Rights and Business Principles states that company’s must “use marketing and advertising that respect and support children’s rights.” Also, a mother-driven campaign called  “Bye Buy Childhood” has been pushing for the rights of children. However, there is clearly a large chasm between policy and practice. It’s devastating how the world continues to teach children today that consumerism buys happiness. What’s much worse is that advertisers and companies alike do not care about the negative effects they are causing on this rising generation.