Last year, notable director Kevin Smith was ejected from a Southwest Airlines flight because he was considered an oversized passenger by Southwest Airline’s “Customer of Size” policy. With over two million twitter followers, Kevin Smith took to social media and started a PR disaster for the airline. Southwest lost a significant amount of customers because of the way the situation was handled. While it is true that not everyone has over 2 million followers but almost any social media user knows how to influence their network in just 140 characters.

Sentiment is subjective. If you provided the exact same service for two customers their perception of that service could be polar opposites. Companies will never be able to produce a perfect experience for their customers one-hundred percent of the time. So if you can’t make everyone happy what’s the point in monitoring sentiment?

Sentiment allows companies to know what’s being said about their brand. If your company is investing money into building social capital there must be a reason. Whether it is brand image, awareness, or increasing sales, the goal must be tied back to a company objective. Knowing what is said about your brand can affect all three areas.

Sentiment can potentially show areas of growth. While monitoring the conversation new ideas might be presented by customers. Getting feedback of existing services and products might provide valuable insight into areas that you might not have thought of.

Positive Sentiment can provide new customers. . Peer to peer recommendations typically carry more weight than business to customer. If customers are happy and excited about what you have to offer they will use their influence and social reach to tell about a service or product. In fact, many social media users turn to their network of followers or friends specifically for recommendations on restaurants, products and more.

In the age of social communications customers  cucuare quick to turn to their social networks to share the details of a bad experience or a disappointing product. One bad review to a large audience is all it takes for the airwaves to catch on.  Big and small brands are at the mercy of the consumer’s opinion and outcry of unhappiness.

“I am pleased to welcome Steven and Blake to the BraveMatters team,” said Peter Wyro, President and Founder of BraveMatters.  “Steven brings a wide range of experience to BraveMatters, both as a strategist and as an implementer. Blake has worked in the rapidly changing social media strategy environment, giving him a depth of knowledge in digital and social media most companies simply can’t offer.  I believe that their combined experience and leadership, coupled with the proven ability to deliver results for clients will continue to move our business forward, allowing us to strengthen and broaden our scope of services,” Wyro added.

Steven brings nearly a decade of broad-based marketing experience to BraveMatters. An expert in brand strategy, identity, and media buying, Steven is focused on helping companies maximize return on investment, while increasing brand awareness. He is responsible for understanding the intent and scope of each client’s needs and developing and executing a well-planned strategy. Steven has led corporate marketing initiatives at national companies and served clients in entertainment, franchising, medical, non-profit, retail, including bi-lingual campaigns.

“I am energized to join this growing and innovative company.  Part of what attracted me to BraveMatters was the company’s commitment to achieving results for clients through innovative marketing strategies and the ability to deliver effective ROI tactics to clients, and I am honored to be a part of it,” Newlon stated.

Blake has been creating brands, most notably; he created and nurtured the social media strategy for Northeastern State University while an undergrad. With a BBA in International Business from Northeastern State University, Blake has learned the art of developing brands across many different platforms and cultural barriers. “We have an innovative way of proving ROI on social media for clients, in an easy to understand way, that the typical ad agency just can’t offer,” added McCammon.

The first and best place to start is the name. Everyone asks about the name. “What’s Brave-Matters all about?” Well, what’s first and most important is that it invites you to ask. It’s memorable and despite the obvious perception of self-importance, the intent was to respect the very serious nature of making big, important business decisions. There’s nothing brave about making choices that lead to the same momentum and the same results. And there are no paths that are without risk. Every path offers pros and cons and risk that require judgment, leadership and courage.

Our original logo was meant to be accessible and unintimidating. In the beginning, the flag theme seemed like an unassuming “take charge” visual-counterpoint to the serious and prescriptive tone of the name.

After three years, the original identity felt disconnected from the way we presented ourselves and the transformation of our organization, our clients and the nature of our services. We’re dealing with serious stuff. Why diminish the importance of it?

What’s different? We’re different. Our approach to marketing is different. We work with a broad footprint that requires looking way beyond media and communications. We’re concerned with how an organization is holistically organized and optimized to serve their customers, beyond the media, beyond the communications. We’re here to protect what our customers have and improve their return on assets.

A flag? The concept felt much too lighthearted and might have even come across as a bit satirical.  So, after careful introspection and a comprehensive search for a metaphor, we found it hard to let go of a “shield” concept, despite our concerns that the visuals would be too unoriginal or too conservative. Thanks to Seth Rexilius @sethrexilius, we developed a modern shield identity and new brand artifacts that helped reinforce a more culturally-relevant value proposition.

When should you update your brand?

A successful brand strives to be relevant to its future market (its next dollar) and its history. That’s not an easy balancing act. A brand is being continuously steered and realigned. Just like evolution, it’s sometimes difficult to see the small changes and every once-in-a-while, you need to take big step to survive.

And the other day, I fell in love at first sight.

The IOWEU Project is based in India and is creating a unique cultural movement.  They’re combining new technologies, very old production techniques and storytelling in a way that is truly captivating and is really benefiting the world.

The brand sources all of its hand-woven fabrics from independent weavers all across India.  Using these fabrics, IOWEU crafts one-of-a kind clothing and accessories and sells them online.

What’s really interesting about this brand’s approach is that you can track each item of clothing’s journey- creation through purchase.  The story of each fabric and its crafter are captured with words and images.  As we journey through the site, we learn the history of each weaver, each artisan and in the end customer can contribute with their own story.

They’ve taken the storytelling aspect across multiple mediums.  At trunk shows held throughout the UK and India, customers can scan items QR codes and receive these stories via text message on their phone.

IOWEU is truly on the forefront of what every brand should be considering:

1.       How do we (as a company) help the world?

2.       How do we (as a company) become meaningful to our customers?

3.       How do we (as a company) give our customers something they will pass along?

4.       How do we use technology to bring it all together?

Don’t be afraid to share your story and don’t be afraid of using technology to do it.  We’ll see more and more companies take this approach to better connect with their customers and communities in the very near future.  Check the project out at www.iouproject.com.

Image Credit: http://iouproject.com

At the top of their list? NASA.

So it turns out – well, unbeknownst to me, anyway – the National Aeronautics and Space Administration has been carrying out a considerably robust engagement initiative. Their dedicated landing page alone is an incredible point of entry for a colossal collection of content; you can connect with any of their 48 Twitter profiles or 28 Facebook profiles, download browser add-ons, RSVP for TweetUps, subscribe to their podcasts via iTunes, browse Flickr sets, watch SlideShare presentations or upload an image of yourself to be flown into space on the Space Shuttle Endeavor. Like I said, robust.

Yet despite the panoply of interactive opportunity, it wasn’t an official NASA channel or the coverage of astronaut Doug Wheelock checking into the International Space Station via FourSquare that made me reassess NASA as a brand. It was this video:

“The Frontier is Everywhere”

Narrated by famed cosmologist Carl Sagan himself (albeit via the audio book version of “Pale Blue Dot”), this video – just barely over 3 minutes long – spread like wildfire, garnering a quarter of a million views in mere days and, as of this writing, nearly 2 million views.

Small wonder. NASA’s message is irresistible and stirring; space exploration becomes intertwined with the human experience, the need to rally against adversity and unite for a purpose ultimately greater than the sum of its parts. It is an entirely different way for people to connect with NASA.

And yet, NASA had nothing to do with it.

It turns out this video – the first in an ongoing series named for Sagan – was produced entirely independent of NASA by a Canadian of the name of Reid Gower. He said, very simply:

“I got frustrated with NASA and made this video. NASA is the most fascinating, adventurous, epic institution ever devised by human beings, and their media sucks. Seriously. None of their brilliant scientists appear to know how to connect with the social media crowd, which is now more important than ever. In fact, NASA is an institution whose funding directly depends on how the public views them.

In NASA’s defense, they have embraced social media. I guess my point is that they don’t fully understand how to best use it. In all of their brilliance, NASA seems to have forgotten to share their hopes and dreams in a way the public can relate to, leaving one of humanity’s grandest projects with terrible PR and massive funding cuts.”

Want to understand what Gower’s talking about? See how much of NASA’s most viewed YouTube video (with about 875,000 views) you can slog through; titled “NASA Selects Target Crater for Lunar Impact of LCROSS Spacecraft” and at a little under 8 minutes, the largely silent video doesn’t exactly encourage a meaningful experience.

There are a lot of lessons here: the power of emotional appeal and brand clarity, the modern conversation loop that sees users contributing to brand growth and identity, the value of creating an experience rather than a show-and-tell and a reminder that no matter what level you or your business is on, there’s always room for refinement, enhancement and improvement. All with just a montage and a voice-over.

Gower himself has created opportunities to connect with the Sagan Series; you can follow him on Twitter, “like” the series on Facebook or upvote each installment on Reddit.

Most importantly, don’t be afraid to ask yourself what your product’s story is or how you’re creating value; you may not be able to tap into a species-wide predilection towards discovery, but emotional appeals are a great way to provide a means of user personalization and internalization. Branding is all about telling a story, and sometimes, making sure you’re telling the right story in the right way can make all the difference.

10 years ago, it wouldn’t have been unreasonable to find companies that restricted email access to a select few key employees. You know, the ones who really needed access. And while we’re adding technologies to our list, we shouldn’t forget to mention mobile phones. Every decade, revolutions in technologies bring with them fear and restrictions – sometimes for perfectly sound reasons and at other times, for reasons that are completely irrational.

It would be unfair for us to judge those decisions by what we know now and especially because of how commonplace email and mobile phones are in everyday communications. And of course, we’re cherry picking the obvious, perhaps forgetting other technological innovations that might have been riskier.

However, considering the transformative power of emerging technologies and the speed by which they are released and effectively utilized, companies NEED to build processes and resources to evaluate how they can harness and enable their organization to take advantage of the opportunities, rather than wait.

We understand the formula for success, but not always the means. The companies that can build more effective relationships, identify prospects and influencers, provide better service and source new ideas for product innovations – all faster than the competition will just plain win. The risk of getting left behind is far too great to be too cautious.

10 reasons that companies are reluctant to evaluate social media

1. The perception that people are wasting time or it’s a purely personal endeavor
2. We’ve been successful so far without it
3. Lack of knowledge and unwillingness to invest resources to learn
4. Lack of executive or leadership sponsorship
5. Focus on one-way, advertising communications
6. Lack of perceived control of brand and messages
7. Culture that is uncomfortable with change
8. The perception of IT security risks
9. Concern about legal risks
10. Unwillingness to be transparent and accessible to customers

All of the above issues are by themselves not unreasonable considerations. Companies of all sizes need to have sound justification to embrace new strategies and should have practical understanding of their costs and ultimate value of the new direction to the organization. What I’m arguing for is for businesses to speed up the process by readying their organizations for change and enabling small teams – no,  “requiring” small teams to evaluate new technologies and address each of the above issues.

There’s just no excuse for sitting on the sidelines when there’s ample evidence for so much success.

What is often forgotten are the steps required to create a social culture that enables the organization to truly harvest the benefits of a social strategy. If an organization isn’t comfortable with change, a sudden transformation of the fundamental way that it communicates internally and externally might be an uncomfortable proposition to digest.

A social culture is flat and transparent. The organization is part of a dialogue between “real people” inviting feedback, responding to questions and concerns and including the participation of internal and external stakeholders. Employees have not only a voice, but a responsibility.

The community is creating the dialogue. Companies need to decide whether or not they wish to try and influence the conversation for positive outcomes. If one opts-out of the dialogue, a competitor will take advantage of the invitation.

Components of your social culture

Rules of engagement

These are the patterns and practices of how people interact with one another.

Values
What’s acceptable and what’s not. It’s a good idea to have a set of policies that help frame the culture that you’d like to create.

Syntax
What is our language, technology, iconography, symbols that make up our vocabulary?

Style
How does it make us feel when it’s working or not? What’s the mood of our conversation?

How will you know when you’re on the right track

You’re still focused on business results

Understand the broad set of objectives that can be enhanced by your social culture and social media communications before you take any new direction. There are always media and financial measures to any strategy. Discover which ones are relevant for your business.

You are participating in the dialogue

Use communication channels that allow information to flow both ways and make it a priority to show up where the conversations are happening

Empower and encourage authentic participation from employees

Your employees are most-likely passionate about your brand. Give the access and empower them to have an opinion and appropriately engage one another, give feedback to leaders, and respond to customers about any issue that is important. Your rules of engagement will govern what is appropriate.

Listen before you speak

A conversation works both ways. If what you have to say isn’t very interesting to the other parties, you might get tuned out. The only way that you will now if what you have to say is meaningful or not, is to listen.

Focus inside as well as outside your organization

Increase the speed and intensity of your communications by giving your organization an internal opportunity for discussion. The people on the front lines are in a great position to discover innovation.

You understand that you can’t outsource your authentic voice

It’s a lot easier to take advantage of social marketing strategies when your organization is prepared for change and ready participate. Your marketing partners provide expertise in planning, implementing your platforms and understanding your customer’s needs, but your voice needs to remain in the game.

BraveMatters supports an Oklahoma City based organization that is changing the lives of some of the most at-risk children in our communities. Before learning about Positive Tomorrows, It had never crossed my mind that homeless adults would often be accompanied by homeless children, constantly moving from couch to couch or living in shelters or even worse.

These children are often the silent victims of domestic violence, addiction and a seemingly never-ending cycle of poverty. As you can imagine, the lack of stability and other complicating factors that most only see as depression, behavioral problems or poor academic performance. Without early intervention, these children are likely to drop out of school and repeat many of the same patterns.

Positive Tomorrows provides a private, free education that cares for the special needs of Oklahoma City homeless children, Kindergarten through 5th grade. Having been personally involved with the organization, I am proud to say that it is much more than a school – it’s a sanctuary of hope for these intelligent, wonderful kids.

How you can help, immediately:

1. A local filmmaker, Mike Jones has pledged to make 5 commercials for the top 5 non-profit organizations that receive the greatest amount of votes. Click here to vote now.
2. Cork and Canvas is a wine tasting and art auction fundraiser scheduled for February 19, 2011 at the City Arts Center at Fair Park. Purchase tickets or make a donation.

For Local Businesses:

If you are a local business residing in the Oklahoma City area, I encourage you to visit Positive Tomorrows and consider supporting their mission.

Good for Branding

Your brand is a connected to a wide range of emotional associations and allied connections. You can’t go wrong linking yours to Positive Tomorrows.

NORMAN, OK – November 8, 2010. BraveMatters and Holotrope Marketing, two firms providing integrated communications and strategic marketing services, announce that they are merging. Effective immediately, the resulting full-service marketing agency will integrate strategic resources and personnel operating under the BraveMatters brand. The firm will share resources and maintain offices in Norman, OK and Dallas, TX expanding its regional footprint in the economic corridor between Oklahoma City and Dallas.

BraveMatters, founded in 2008 by Peter Wyro, and Holotrope marketing, founded in 2001 by Tom Howard, both offer specialization in online marketing services including web design, development, inbound marketing, and social media strategies. Both companies have earned strong reputations for developing results-driven strategic marketing initiatives for their clients. Howard will be joining BraveMatters as a Principal while maintaining a presence in the Dallas area.

“The strength of this merger lies in expanding our platform of inbound and social marketing strategies to help clients create more engaging and valued brands, not only online but offline as well,” says Wyro, Principal and Founder of BraveMatters.

Holotrope’s experience with delivering interactive marketing solutions expands BraveMatters engaged marketing practice and enhances its strategic approach across all marketing disciplines – research, branding, customer relationship management, and strategic communications.

“The merger of BraveMatters and Holotrope further solidifies our commitment to the business in the Southwest,” says Howard. ” The Austin-Dallas-Oklahoma City corridor is an important market for us. This merger doesn’t just provide greater access to clients in the corridor but also nationally and internationally as well. Our growth potential is exponential.”

BraveMatters is a multidisciplinary marketing solutions firm with emphasis in branding, customer engagement, and strategic marketing services in B2B industries. The firm’s goals are to represent the needs of the market and work with each client as a partner in the planning, implementation and optimization of marketing strategies. BraveMatters has offices in Dallas and Norman, OK, and serves clients anywhere in the United States.

Also available at PRWEB