THINKing

Seven Steps To Building Your Personal Brand

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You can’t build a personal brand until you do a little soul searching and research. Let’s take a look at some things to think about when developing your brand.

The Brand Called You

The best brands always try to do the right thing, so that their reputations will remain unsullied. But beyond that they grow, evolve and get better with time, while maintaining their special qualities from the past.

Creativity 2012 – Week #20

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Rewarding Creativity - Extrinsic motivation–especially based on monetary rewards–has a detrimental effect on creativity. But is this really true?

Innovation Requires Both Ideas And Action - Some say the lack of innovation within organizations isn’t because of a lack of ideas, rather a lack of action. There are too many ideas and not enough implementors.

Driving Blog Traffic With Pinterest

Are you using Pinterest to drive traffic back to your blog? I am experimenting with it. Why? Well, a recent study indicates that Pinterest drives more sales than Facebook. Is this true? Don’t know. But a little experimentation doesn’t cost me anything. So, why not?

You Might Be A Writer If…

There are some writing errors that can make you appear stupid, particularly if you call yourself a professional writer. You would not believe – or perhaps you would – how many times I have received content from “writers” containing some of these errors. So, I have compiled my list of things you need to know if writing is your vocation or avocation.

Creativity 2012 – Week #19

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5 Effortless Postures That Foster Creative Thinking - Literally sitting outside a box, rather than in it, makes you more creative, according to new psychological research.

Doodling For Dollars - Employees at a range of businesses are being encouraged by their companies to doodle their ideas and draw diagrams to explain complicated concepts to colleagues.

Top 5 Posts Of 2012

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We’re five months in to 2012, so I thought I’d review what you have been reading here at THINKing. Let’s get going:

Creativity Boost #3 – Dictionary Excursion – Far and away this is our most popular post ever. It’s a writing exercise guaranteed to stimulate your little gray cells.

Crisis Management Series

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Our digital colleague and social media public relations counselor, Rodger Johnson, has written a series for THINKing about issues management. This post provides you a brief overview of each installment plus a link to get to them easily.

Creativity 2012 – Week #18

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Brainstorm Like A School Lunch Tray – In brainstorming, we need to get beyond the old adage: there are no bad ideas. How? Compartmentalize.

An Absurd Idea To Create Wonder - In your own work and life, what are the elements missing that should be there? What absurd ideas can bring wonder and beauty into your own work?

How To Repair Your Company’s Image And Regain Brand Equity

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My plan to publish the last in a series of six crisis management posts was delayed by a mountain of work from my clients. But these things happen for a reason, and for this post, I have a great story of a moving company whose owner hasn’t the first clue about damage control.

A Holiday Gas

You have to love clients who clearly understand their brand, their audiences and have the courage to communicate with them in their vernacular. That’s why I love the folks at Newell Rubbermaid. They get it.

LinkedIn – Branding

We’ve been talking recently about LinkedIn and the numerous ways you can utilize the platform for yourself and your organization. We see at least six business functions (see list below) in which LinkedIn can assist your company. We have already addressed #1. Today, we take a look at branding.

QR Code Update

You might remember our piece recently about the Top 15 Uses For QR Codes. We have been seeing a lot of content recently on this topic, so we thought it was time for a curated update.

How Is Social Media Like A Mullet?

Photo: Copyright 2001 Columbia Pictures

When you live in the South you sometimes still see the male hairstyle known as the mullet. As Joe Dirt said in the movie by the same name, a mullet is “business in the front, party in the back.” And that is how social media is like a mullet: it’s both business and personal.

A Silent Message From Your Customer

Your customers are telling you something, but aren’t saying a word. Most businesses will never get the message because they are too focused on what they want, not what the customer is asking for.

LinkedIn For B2B – The Series

We have recently concluded our series of posts on how to use LinkedIn for business-to-business purposes. Below, you’ll find an easy-to-navigate overview that takes you to the complete posts.

7 Strategies For Employee Communication Through Social Media – Part 1

Five Ways To Not Be A Weiner

I’m sure you have heard about Democrat Rep. Anthony Weiner’s PR problems stemming from his inappropriate online relationships with at least six women. This cretin provides an example – albeit a bad one – from which we all can learn.

Fortune 500 Friday – 7/8/2011

Since My Creative Team works with Fortune 500 firms, we often like to share the marketing techniques of these big boys with you. Many of these techniques can be replicated by marketers in any size business. So, let’s see what the big boys have been doing.

QR Codes Revisited

QR codes, we believe, have a place in marketing. However, they are not just for directing traffic back to your website. The future of QR codes is in making the user’s life easier. We plan to explore this in a future post.

Scan Me

By Harry Hoover

The QR code above is provided by ScanMe, where you can develop your own QR code that provides access to all of your contact information to anyone with a smart phone. Go ahead and scan mine to find out how to connect with me on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook. Below is what you see if you scan the QR code.

Crowdsourcing Your Social Media Strategy

By Harry Hoover

I joined an interesting Tweetchat July 11, moderated by Socialfresh. Each week a company will be selected and anyone who wants to can wade in to help develop a crowdsourced social media strategy using the hastag #socialfresh.  It was fun and there were some good ideas generated, but a lot of the ideas were way off-target. Here’s why:

Generate Your Own Infographics

Above is an infographic generated using Visual.ly, a service that allows users to create their own infographics. These visual representations of data are a great marketing and public relations tool. Are you using them in your marketing and PR?

Here are a few infographic resources you may want to investigate.

Brands Still Matter

I just ran across this piece, Why Brands Don’t Matter Anymore, by John Jantsch, who knows his marketing. But I have to disagree with his headline, which was probably written to create a hint of controversy. (If you read the piece, you’ll see that he and I don’t truly disagree on this topic.)

All Branding, All The Time

We write a lot here about brands and branding, so I thought I’d pull together a compendium of some of our better pieces on the subject to make it easier for you to find.

Bad Marketer, Naughty Marketer

I’ve been in marketing communications since shortly after the earth cooled and I have seen a lot of poorly conceived advertising and marketing programs. But in today’s unstable market, I’m seeing some unstable marketing, too.

Creativity Boost #1 – Mindtrip

Creativity is one of the key topics we discuss here at THINKing. So, we decided to develop a series of posts that focuses on ways to boost your creativity. Today’s boost: the mindtrip.

Top 10 Posts To Improve Your Writing

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Top 10 Story Starter Tips For Blocked Bloggers - Are you blogged out? Got writer’s block big time? Never fear, your doctor of creativity is here. I have some big time block busters.

Creativity Boost #3 – Dictionary Excursion

Photo Courtesy of Morguefile

Today, we’re heading to the dictionary for a creativity boost. Here’s what I want you to do:

You’re going to select six words and use them to write a story of less than 250 words. You will select your six words from:

Creativity Boost

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We’ve been providing a series of creativity boosting exercises. I’m putting them all together here to make it easier for you to navigate to them.

Creativity Boost #1 - Creativity is one of the key topics we discuss here at THINKing. So, we decided to develop a series of posts that focuses on ways to boost your creativity. Today’s boost: the mindtrip.

Thinking About Thinking

I’ve been thinking a lot recently about thinking. Done some research on the topic as well. As a creative thinker, you are trying to generate new ideas. These ideas typically come when you put together two ideas which have not been paired previously. Sounds easy enough, right?

Creativity 2011 – Week #52

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It’s the last week of 2011 and we have had some good creativity links this year. I’ll be compiling home into pdf form shortly.  Happy New Year and enjoy this last installment in 2011.

Word

It is true that I am sometimes a grumpy curmudgeon, however, I also know a little about word usage. So, please let me help you so that you won’t look like an ignoramus when you attempt to create an act of literature.

Top 10 2011 Posts

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We’ve posted on a wide variety of topics in THINKing this year, and based on what you have been reading, you must like the variety. Let’s take a look at the Top 10 posts from 2011. You might find something on the list that you missed.

Is Everything Old New Again?

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OK, it’s 2012 and like a caterpillar, it seems, marketing is completing its metamorphosis. But really, it’s only the tactics that have changed. At least in my view. We’ve talked a lot about this. Back in 2009, we addressed this subject,

Calling All Guest Bloggers

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Here’s a shout out to all guest bloggers. This is a new year and I want new voices here on THINKing.

Are You Content With Your Content?

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Are you content with your content? Today’s post is a compilation of some good articles we have found in recent days on the subject of content development. Also, we have sprinkled a few of our top posts on content development in for good measure. Let’s get started.

How To Manage Issues Before They Become A Crisis

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About The Author: This is the first in a series of articles on issues management from our digital colleague, Rodger D. Johnson, who is a social media public relations counselor. He helps global companies, small businesses, and non-profits use public relations and social media strategies to strengthen brand equity. You can learn more about him at Get Social PR. 

Creativity 2012- Week #11

7 Habits Of Highly Creative People - Make a habit of these seven practices, and you will be highly creative in your field.

Make Yourself More Creative - Focus can be the enemy of creativity, and experiments back this up. Students whose attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder impairs their ability to focus perform better on creativity tests.

What Is The Life Cycle Of An Issue?

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About The Author: This is the second in a series of articles on issues management from our digital colleague, Rodger D. Johnson, who is a social media public relations counselor. He helps global companies, small businesses, and non-profits use public relations and social media strategies to strengthen brand equity. You can learn more about him at Get Social PR. 

What’s Up With QR Codes?

We’ve written several times about QR codes and the marketing possibilities for them. Recently, there has been a flurry of articles about QR codes, so I thought I’d bring you up to date on what is being said. Let’s get started.

What’s The Difference Between An Issue, A Crisis And An Emergency

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In the grand scheme of things knowing the difference between an issue, a crisis and an emergency can help you craft appropriate communication strategies to weather the storms.

Ways To Ensure That Everyone In Your Company Is Bought In

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Getting everyone on board for a project or campaign is essential in order to be successful.  But how can you inspire people to buy into a project when you can’t control how they think or feel?  The two most important factors are leading by example, and demonstrating excellent communication habits.

Employees: Your Most Ill-Informed Audience

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It’s not that Fortune 500 employees aren’t paying attention. It’s the company’s fault for not communicating. I’d be willing to bet that most Fortune 500s spend more on advertising than on communicating with employees.

How To Plan For Issue Management And Successfully Engage The Marketplace

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Earlier in this series we talked about the life cycle of and issue, which moves through four distinct stages.  Additionally, in our previous post, we defined an issue as a trend with the capacity to alter how your company operates as the trend  evolves. Here’s a prime example:

What To Expect in A Crisis

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Fred Baggs and Bob Dittmer, two seasoned public relations colleagues of mine, have managed many issues and crises over their careers. So the information I share with you isn’t mine exclusively; however, I learned much from these guys. And you will too.

Creativity 2012 – Week #16

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Can Creativity Be Taught? – In a word: yes!

What To Do When The Ideas Stop Coming - What do you do when you lose the motivation to create? When the ideas seemingly stop coming and any task feels like a burden?

Another QR Code Update

We like to pop into the world of QR Codes once and a while to see what’s happening. Many folks think the QR Code will go the route of the dinosaur. Others believe it is the end-all, be-all. I’ll let you decide. Below are a few recent articles we have found on QR Codes.

Creativity 2012 – Week #17

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10 Ideas For Thinking & Change – Here are a few thoughts to ponder that will stretch your mind.

Drive Innovation: Suggest Ideas, Don’t Propose Them – Your ideas get less resistance as suggestions rather than statements.