As I came across Elaine, our beloved professor’s marketing blog; I was captivated by one of her most recent post. In that post, she listed the results for the world’s top 50 most innovative companies. I was quite amazed by the fact that Twitter and Facebook came the second and the third place among all others. This totally proved me the power social media can cast on branding.
To be honest, branding used to be a negative word to me as it used to remind me of over-priced products and unreasonable prices. However, after going to Style and the City, a conference where I was first time officially introduced to corporate branding and personal branding by George’s inspiring speech, I figured I was mistaken.
“Marketing is all about selling stuff,” said George. How?
The power of branding through social media is that you don’t have to have money to get your customers’ attention. As George puts it, “It’s not about how much money you spend on advertising your products, it’s about how well you promote them to your consumers! One doesn’t need money to brand…just use social media.”
Many companies nowadays start to realize the power of the social media and many already started to adopt this powerful tool. A good example is Blenz Coffee’s president, George Moen, who happens to tweet with people on Twitter, becomes friends with people on Facebook and creates personal account on Linkedin to link with the general public and business professionals. He is now into .Tel, the first online digital contact list.
Isn’t it just amazing how social media pulls people together? A second year student can communicate with president of a successful company and totally alters her perspective about branding.
Getting close to the president of Blenz Coffee, in another way, is corporate branding. =) It’s the feeling of closeness and pride that one gains through personalized interactions with the company’s leading figure. It emotionally attaches you.
I now start to like Blenz Coffee more than Starbucks! Yes, effective branding Goerge!