I have to admit I agree with both sides. I know that sounds completely stupid. How in the world can you agree with both sides?

Before we get too far I need to lay down a base understanding of Twitter for everyone. Beyond the known that twitter is about posting 140 characters stating what you’re doing, it really is an excellent tool to let people know you as a person. Wait… let’s review that. ALL social media’s purpose for human-to-human interaction with the personality and humanity of you and/or your brand. (I really need to get into this on a different blog post.)

If you’re going onto social media for the sole purpose of selling something, then good luck. You’ll be treated like a leper in a crowded street in the dark ages.

In short: the secret to my Twitter sucess is a 70/30 breakdown. 70% of the time it’s me talking and 30% of the time my agenda. Other days it’s an 80/20 or 90/10 or 60/40. The point is that each day it needs to be different and interesting with you as the main focus.

You are the secret ingredient, because there is no one like you and there will never be another of you. A lot of businesses are afraid of letting people see the “person” side of the business. They error too much on the side of presenting the professional side of the business. Really we could call this the boring side of the business. It lacks personaility, pizazz, humor, and… you.

Let’s face it, business is not business without people. That goes both ways. People don’t buy products they buy people. No matter how good your business is without you there will be no goods or services sold or bought.

Alright… so how does one really get 1,000 followers in a week or so?

I used Tweet Later (tweetlater.com) to schedule out messages. I never put them out on even times. Looks too fake.

I also tweeted a lot of quotes and articles that I found interesting to me and those who follow me.

What always boosted my followers were political articles and especially articles on how to gain more twitter followers or twitter tools. With Politics though you need to remain neutral as much as possible, unless you’re audience is your preferred political view point or you just like to stir up the pot for the heck of it.

Sharing articles on how to gain twitter followers is always a hot topic.

Using TweetLater I set my account to auto follow and went through and followed people that were tweeting on things that I wanted to target.

Those people typically have their account set to auto follow. You’ll gain a lot of followers and for a while your following to followers ratio will be lopsided.

I also would follow those who have more than 10,000 followers and they are not a spammer. The person needs to be a real, living, breathing, interacting human. I would follow their followers and also reply to their posts creating conversation. After all, if you can’t talk to the people you are following then what’s the point of following them?

TweetLater also has a setting that lets you auto unfollow those who unfollow you. Very handy!

Next I went through my list and used a tool to unfollow all those who were not following me back. That usually will only dump about 1/3 of your followings which will them bring you down to a healthy following-to-followers ratio.

VERY IMPORTANT: if you find someone that is very interesting and they are not following you and they have a healthy community do not unfollow them. Interact with them because this is where you will get the most organic followers you could ever ask for.

Once I hit about 300 followers it started to grow. after about 500 followers I was gaining almost 130 new followers a day.

I hope that helps you out. Leave a comment and I’ll be sure to add any more information that you need.

In closing Twitter’s main and just about only purpose is to connect people with people and let them share their life as 140 characters at a time. If you deviate too far from this path it could become a huge time sink. You’re agenda should be connecting with people and getting to know your audience to build a long and meaningful relationship with them. Not to promote your next hottest product or service.

Why are these facts placed into the context of stories?  Unlike facts, which, on their own, need to be memorized in order to be retained, stories (knowledge, meaning, and facts contextualized, and delivered with emotional impact) only need to be remembered.  According to Roger C. Schank, a cognitive scientist, “Humans are not ideally set up to understand logic [or facts]; they are ideally set up to understand stories.”   It’s hardwired into our brains.  It’s part of our subconscious.  It’s who we are as human beings.

Think about your experiences and the knowledge you posses.  How is all this information organized in your mind?  How do you explain it to others?  How do you relate to others and their experiences? Through stories.

Brand signatures are expressed in to four of your senses. Taste, smell, sound, and sight. We hear about that secret ingredient where that is there brand. It’s that one ingredient that gives it that specific flavor. KC Masterpiece BBQ sauce is a great example of taste branding. KC Masterpiece started out in Kansas City at a BBQ restaurant. They were known for the flavor of their BBQ so much so that they began to mass produce it. They have a secret ingredient that is their branded flavor. No one else can have that flavor. It is their brand signature.

Ahhhh… onto my favorite. Otis Spunkmier cookies. I love Otis Spunkmier cookies. I don’t care where I am at, if I smell Otis Spunkmier cookies then I am there to expecting a warm hot cookie. They have a distinct smell (and FLAVOR!). I love these cookies. In fact if you want to get my attention put a plate of cookies in front of me and I’m good to go. If you have ever smelled, tasted, or cooked Otis Spunkmier cookies you would know exactly what I talking about.

Another great example of a brand signature that uses smell is of course colognes. Abercrombie and Fitch is another great example of a brand that uses smells. A good friend of mine was explaining to me that they use those bathroom air fresheners to spray their cologne in intervals. Whenever you’re in a mall you can tell that you’re by an Abercrombie and Fitch just by the smell. They do this on purpose. They are a great example of brand immersion. When you walk into their store you are immersed by their brand. The pictures (sight), the cologne (smell), and the experience do not sell the clothes but and idea. The idea that become socially cool, attractive, and popular when you wear their clothes. They are the perfect example of branding to me. On the negative side of things it is said that people who wear their clothes are “Abercrombie and Bitch” because they take on a different personality. No other clothing brand that I personally know of does it as well as they do.

This points to the fact that people don’t purchase your comodity they purchase your experience. If your experience sucks they won’t purchase from you. If they do purchase then it’s based on a real deal of a price and you probably won’t get a repeat customer.

Now, onto sound. Intel and Harley Davidson are both examples of using sound as their brand. Harley Davidson has branded their sound in way that if any other motorcycle out in the world tries to sound like their distict rumble then they will get a letter from the lawyers. Several Japanese manufacturers tried to put that one to the test. Instead they became the laughing stock of many riders.

When thinking of your business brand try to create something that is a unique signature. The worse thing you could do in my opinion is to copy someone else. I see this all the time with small businesses. Copying someone else’s brand hurts your credibility as a business and devalues you. To me it says, “I couldn’t come up with an original idea myself so I had to steal it from competition.”

Look at the various solutions you bring to many problems. Ask yourself what is unique in each of those solutions. Is there a sound, word, or jingle you could use? Does your product have a distinct smell in a good way (or even bad)? Does it have a texture, picture, or image? Is it a color like Tmobile or AT&T Wireless? Whatever you decide is your signature be sure to lean your business on that signature and incorporate it everywhere. Ultimately your brand signature should be an expression of the culture and personality of your business expressed to the world around you.

Branding for most is known as a really well designed logo. Whenever I’m speaking to a group of business owners and the question of branding is brought up most think of it as a logo, some colors placed together in an orderly fashion, or tagline. What most people are missing is that this is only the result of good or bad branding.

Over here at Veloce Media we educate our clients on what we feel is the true definition of branding. Helping businesses understand branding is very important and when they understand it their businesses begin to grow by leaps and bounds. The definition is quite simple.

Branding is the expressed personality and culture of an entity, business, or organization expressed throughout a business. You can think of branding as we would think of social clicks from high school. On one side of the school hallway you would have the “Jocks” on the other end the “Nerds”. Based on a popular movie, “Revenge of the Nerds”, there was always a conflict between the Jocks and the Nerds. Each social group has a way it acts, thinks, talks, behaves, responds, dresses, interacts with it’s surroundings, and views the world around it.

Nerds have their own view of life as do Jocks. Nerds like to wear clothes that clash, pants that are too tight or too short, tshirts that are outdated, wants to play with anything involving a computer, and spend their days reading in their books.

Contrast that same age demographics with those that would align themselves with the “Jocks”. They are all about sports, like to pick on those around them, they wear clothes from sporting activities, and some how always end up at prom with the cute girls.

You would never see a Jock spending time with a Nerd. These two social cultures don’t mix too well. They really have nothing to relate on. Where am I going on this? Just on hang there with me.

Going back to branding as the expressed personality of a company, you will see that the personality influences the way that “person/company” will relate to the world around it. The personality will establish how the logo looks, how the company communicates, and what social demographics it goes after.

The problem is that most businesses who are starting up and even those that are established never take the time to define what is the “brand personality” of their business. Like it or not society has clicks not because we are stupid or closed minded, but because human nature wants to categorize and organize the world around us so we can best relate to it in how it matches our internal view of ourselves.

When a customer comes into contact with your business personality and it resonates within them there begins the process of a buying decision. For example, no matter how great McDonalds is I will not eat there because it is not the social culture of our family to eat fast food. I want to eat fresh and somewhat healthy. Take me to an asian restaurant any day of the week and I’m happy or a good homemade burger joint.

Like a good friend of mine always says, “Branding starts with the phone call.”   Branding is all about the experience. If the customer doesn’t have a good experience or doesn’t relate to the social culture of the business then no matter how good your sales pitch is they won’t buy!

The above statement is something you should take to heart. Branding is all about the experience and that is what people buy more than anything else. It’s not the price point, it’s not the features, it may not even be the benefit, it’s the experience of them coming into contact with your company.

I would consider myself a business geek. I love my gadgets, computers, video games, martial arts, and marketing books. My idea of an ideal weekend would involve those pieces. Sell me that and I’m excited. Sell me anything in the opposite direction and you’re going to get a big no.

Here’s a quick tip to get you started with branding. Define the personality of your business. Ask these important questions.

1. How are you currently being perceived in the market place? Do you even know how you are being perceived?
2. How would you like to be perceived in the market place?
3. What solutions do you offer to problems?
4. What is the average person’s personality like who need your solution for their problems?
5. Have you ever defined what the business culture of your company is like. For example look at Google, one of their slogans is “Don’t be evil.”

The people running the news channels want to tell you as a business there is no hope. I say tell them to shut up because what I’m going to share will open your eyes up as a business owner. What most business owners do not realize is that even though during the great depression unemployment was up and economy was looking like it was dead, there was a rise of millionaires. In fact so much so that during the great depression more millionaires came out of that era than any other era before and after that. Yes you heard me correctly! When all hell broke loose and the economy looked like it was dying there was a huge growth of people who were prospering.

How come this was happening? Value, vanity, and necessity.

Value

Businesses that sold products or services at a value price point is what kept them alive. The challenge is that because a business is selling based on value it needs to be based on quantity or very low cost. An average small business will have a challenge competing in this market, especially against the likes of Walmart. Companies like this have buying power and can negotiate lower price points due to the massive amounts of customers.

If you still feel that value is the way to build your business then you’ll need to look for ways to offer a lower cost item. You can do this through the use of outsourcing, doing it yourself, or negotiating lower prices from your vendors. Each of these areas have their own challenges and benefits. I’ll have to write a follow up post on the three challenges and benefits of outsourcing, doing it yourself, or negotiating lower price points.

Vanity

Unless your like me and enjoy watching the History Channel you probably wouldn’t have ran across this information. During the great depression there was a particular company that rose to the top out of no where. Can you guess that company? Maidenform. Women where buying bras left and right because it met an emotional need. Even though times were tough people still wanted to feel good about themselves. This touches on a really important point that any smart business really needs to pay attention to. People do not buy based on features, widgets, or even price point as much as they buy based on an emotional need. Everything that people buy is based on a perceived value. If a user perceives they need it then value is associated to it. I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s slow this roll down a bit and get back to vanity.

Vanity products are cosmetics, cologne, lingerie, some clothes, and anything that appeals to making someone feel or look good. Basically vanity products are products that appeal to an emotional need. They are products that speak to the core of someone in that they make them feel better about themselves. There is the key, themselves.

Necessity

Alright, here’s where the real juicy information comes. Necessity. This subjects comes in many shapes and forms. On the surface level necessity products or services are those that are needed for the perseverance of life. Food, water, oil, electricity, etc. Anything that keeps a home going or a business running would be considered necessity on the surface level. The word of the day on this street here is “surface level”. I’ll explain that in a minute, but first let’s back up to the surface level necessity.

Every market has their own necessities. Where one company sees Internet access as a luxury the others see it as a necessity. For example, if I’m a media and marketing company, then having computers with various types of software are needed along with my good friend the Internet. In contrast a florist may not need software but what they will need flowers. Both are great examples of necessity.

Every business will need to figure out what niche markets see their service as a “surface level” necessity and begin marketing to them aggressively.

Onto the Juicy Points of Necessity

Here’s where a good marketing firm (such as Veloce Media the top marketing company) play an important role. People make buying decissions off of perceived emotional need. The buying decission that a customer or client makes is done within the first 30 seconds. Subconsciously a person has made up their mind and either identified or rejected you. The rest of the conversation and decission making process is their conscious mind making logical points of why their subconscious mind made that decission in the first place. This where most sales professionals miss it. They get so caught up on the features, values, and the objections that they don’t take the time to uncover the emotional decission that was made. Deep stuff.

Where this becomes beneficial for you as a business is to understand how to build the emotional need behind your product or service. I can’t stress this enough, necessity is based upon perceived need. The more someone perceives they need it the more it becomes a necessity. The way you begin building the perceived necessity is by throwing out talk about features and begin looking into solutions. Find out what problems people have, dig deep into that problem. Once you have identified that problem find the emotional need behind it and show how your product will meet that emotional need in the form of a solution. The more you communicate that principle to your target audience the more it will become a place of necessity in their life.

For all of you out there that are new take the time to say hello.