The first of several new social media platforms went public last week – and now seems to be valued by the market somewhere in the neighborhood of $9 billion. There may be some irrational investor exuberance in that number, as LinkedIn only generates around $15…

The social media Beast seems to have become a permanent part of the mainstream, and yet we still don’t quite understand it. Television newscasts depend heavily on Tweets and e-mails from viewers in order to appear relevant. Viral marketing campaigns ranging from Blendtech’s “Will it Blend?” campaign, to Old Spice’s “…

Social media is a Beast. Like every communications tool that has come before, whether it’s the printing press, telegraph, telephone, radio or television, it is powerful and hungry. The Beast requires everyone to take notice, to engage, and to constantly feed it attention and content. It provides a platform to communicate with millions of people all over the world. It has the power to change minds, societies and economies, but it is important to understand that a Beast is, at heart, a wild…

Online social media is probably the most exciting new thing to hit marketing since the invention of television. With minimal cost, it is now possible to communicate…

It would be a mistake to think that social media is new. Certainly, using the Internet to tend a personal and professional network is state-of-the-art, but the behaviors, disciplines, and benefits of social media have been around as long as civilization. The central enabler for the development of communities, tribes, organizations, cities, countries and companies has always been the network and our ability to trust and work with others.

That’s why the skills that generations of people…

Even if a network pays attention, it can sometimes be difficult to get it to do anything. After all, most people over the age of 30 have been taught their entire lives to watch, listen or read media passively, whether it’s a television program, a newspaper article or a radio broadcast. Communication, as it is defined through those mediums is mostly about receiving something, not about doing anything with it. Conversation, engagement and collaboration have been…

(this article and others can also be read on the Branson Powers Marketing/Innovation Blog)

Once you look beyond the excitement of new applications, web sites and the obscene fortunes made by the likes of Facebook and others, good social media comes down to a simple idea:  the care and feeding of your network.  Whether they are aware of it or not, every person, organization,…

I came to social media relatively late.  I’m not under 30 and I didn’t grow up compulsively texting a network of friends.  I still think digital watches, cell phones and e-mails are pretty neat.  I’m basically a middle-aged guy who has spent the bulk of his career learning how to master traditional marketing tactics, mediums and strategies.

But then a few years ago I started to learn about…

Why is the Beast so hungry?

It is astonishing just how hungry people are for conversation.  Human beings are social creatures, so much so that we organize ourselves in groups, live in massive cities, form families and clubs and work mostly in groups.  For most people, if they are alone too long, they become depressed, and even physically ill.  Human civilization has worked to make sure that even when we are alone, we are connected.  Books and periodicals allow us to connect…

Marketing technology has changed, but have marketers changed their operational model enough to follow suit? Or are we jamming the proverbial square peg of…

Do consumers buy green products in order to save the world? Or do they buy it for the same reasons they might buy any other product? Is virtue a strong enough…

I am haunted by the cautionary tale that is illustrated by the chart above. It was first pointed out to me by Dan Wallace of Launchpad Partners during his discussion of the post-recession economy. The chart compares the fortunes, approximated by share price, of two American computer companies,…

Originally Posted on www.smebranding.com/blog

Real pizza is not “puffed up,” and that’s how Domino’s plans to separate itself from the competition.

"Here at Domino's, we don't think our inspired Domino's pizza needs the "extra" things typically done to food at photo shoots to look mouth

watering. Our pizza is good enough to stand on its own. That's…

Oddly, it isn’t always a good idea to discourage or disallow negative thinking.

In 1952, Dr. Norman Vincent Peale published a very successful book titled, The Power of Positive Thinking. It sold over 5 million copies and has been published in at least 15 languages, and despite being dismissed by a good number of psychologists, the ideas in the book have endured to this day. Central to his philosophy of positive thinking is the idea…