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Life Lessons in Branding from Five Female Celebs

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By Diana Gomez

We’ve all heard the saying that there’s no such thing as bad publicity, but is it possible to go too far?

With information spreading farther and faster than ever, it can take just a few moments to tarnish a reputation, something countless celebrities have proven possible.

Here are five lessons we can learn from spotlight-seekers — and how to apply them to your own business.

artistic Marilyn Monroe face

Miley Cyrus: From Hannah Montana to Wrecking Ball

The baby-faced daughter of country star Billy Ray Cyrus won over our hearts as a Disney Channel star, but quickly grew into a magnet for scandal by getting high on camera, posing nude and engaging in X-rated antics onstage. While the star has alienated her loyal young fans and enraged protective parents, she’s whole-heartedly embraced her risky new image as a pop provocateur — going so far as orchestrating a fake storm of controversy surrounding her Bangerz tour.

Miley got the attention she wanted, but many fans have been left scratching their heads about what exactly she’s doing. Is she a marketing genius or just a hot mess? Either way, she’s standing on shaky ground.

Lesson learned: If you change your company’s image in a wholesale way, do it after careful consideration and full awareness of former customers you may alienate in favor of attracting new ones.

Sinead O’Connor: If you don’t have anything nice to say…

After being cited as an inspiration for Miley’s racy “Wrecking Ball” video, Irish singer Sinead O’Connor shot back with a series of open letters expressing her disapproval of the pop star’s actions. “You have enough talent that you don’t need to let the music business make a prostitute of you,” Sinead wrote in one letter. Miley responded by reposting a series of tweets Sinead had written two years earlier when she was seeking psychiatric help. Sinead followed up by demanding an apology and threatening Miley with legal action if she didn’t take down the tweets, saying she’d been subjected to media bullying.

This wasn’t Sinead’s first time in the hot seat. Most memorably, the buzz-cutted singer drew scorn for ripping up a photograph of the pope on Saturday Night Live in 1992. Her career fizzled out soon afterward, and her only headline appearances revolved around her personal life — most notably, a suicide attempt and a custody battle.

Lesson learned: Don’t start hurling criticisms unless you’re prepared to receive a few of your own.

Gwyneth Paltrow: Is honesty always the best policy?

When Gwyneth and her rock star hubby Chris Martin decided to separate, there was nothing quiet about it: The actress announced the split via her popular blog, GOOP. Gwyneth painted the divorce as a “conscious uncoupling,” then proceeded to explain their decision as a new, more progressive way of being in relationships. She may have been attempting to control the spin on the separation, but many people responded negatively, taking it as an example of how out-of-touch Gwyneth is.

Lesson learned: Tell the truth in times of crisis, but keep it simple. Spinning the story and adding details can dig your company into a hole.

Martha Stewart: Moving on

The world was shocked when domestic diva Martha Stewart was sentenced to five months in prison after lying to investigators about selling stocks. Ten years later, Martha’s media empire is still going strong — so strong, in fact, that it’s easy to forget about her prison stint altogether. Her magazines, books, TV shows and product lines are thriving. And while many doubted her ability to bounce back, Martha always knew she would.

“I was very confident,” she said in a rare interview with Matt Lauer last year. “When you know inside that you’re good, that you’ve done well, and that you are an honest person, you know you can live through disaster.”

Rather than focusing on the negative, Martha chose to remain confident and carry on with business as usual as soon as she’d served her term. And that approach has certainly worked out in her favor.

Lesson learned: If you suffer a setback, take the fall with grace and style, and your rebound will be that much easier.

Taylor Swift: The power of loyalty

Taylor Swift’s country-pop tunes dominate the airwaves, and it’s not just because they’re so darn catchy. The young star is frequently lauded as a marketing maven. For one, her ability to understand and cater to her massive fan base represents a valuable lesson in contact marketing.

And that connection with her fans is a huge part of her success.

Taylor is known for tracking down her most passionate followers and rewarding them with memorable experiences, and she’s extremely active on social media. When Taylor asks her army of fans to call in to radio stations and politely request her songs, you can bet that DJs across America are immediately bombarded.

Lesson learned: Know your audience, give them what they want and never take them for granted.

What other celebrities have stories with lessons that businesses can learn from?

Author’s Bio: Diana Gomez is the Marketing Coordinator at Lyoness America, where she is instrumental in the implementation of marketing and social media strategies for USA and Canada. Lyoness is an international shopping community and loyalty rewards program, where businesses and consumers benefit with free membership and money back with every purchase. Check out Lyoness on Twitter.

Photo Credit: kaneda99 via Compfight cc

Five Lessons Small Businesses Can Learn From Liz Strauss

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By Shonali Burke

Like many bloggers in the PR and marketing realm, I’ve been in awe of Liz Strauss ever since I became aware of the “name bloggers” in my professional world. When I started my own blogging journey, four years ago, Successful Blog was one of the first to become a regular stop; always for inspiration, and sometimes as I asked myself the question, “Will I ever be able tolike that?”

I met Liz fleetingly a few years ago, when she spoke at a DC-area event. Our meeting was brief. She was standing outside the event venue and, spying her in a rare moment of solitude, I couldn’t help but go up to her and tell her how much I admired her. She didn’t know me from Eve (probably still doesn’t), but that didn’t stop her from graciously thanking me. Later, she was kind enough to connect with me on various social platforms, even though the benefit was certainly skewed towards me.

As Liz recuperates from her illness, I couldn’t help but think of five lessons small businesses could learn from Liz Strauss.

1. You’re only a stranger once.

This is the tagline of Successful Blog, but is applicable to your business if you approach your customers as people first. Sure, customers come and go. But a successful business will convert first-timers into repeat buyers, and repeat buyers into evangelists. I don’t care how large or small your business is, this is possible and applicable…if you treat them as people first.

How do you start doing this? By using today’s myriad two- and multi-way communication channels to build relationships instead of email lists.

2. Building relationships takes time.

Especially with the number of (how many? I don’t know! Too many to count!) social media/self-help/gurus shilling their wares, I am not surprised at how many small businesses that think the way to use social media is this:

The path to social media failure

After all, once you have a presence, the rest will fall into place, right?

Wrong.

Connecting – i.e. following/being followed back – on a social network does not automatically translate into a relationship. All that that first connection means is that a door has been (slightly) opened to you; how you now conduct yourself will determine whether that door opens more fully or slams shut in your face.

How do you start doing this? Be a human super-collider. Find out what makes the people you meet, whether they are customers, or prospects, or business professionals you come across at networking events, tick.

3. When you build relationships, your community steps up when you most need it to.

Look at the way this blog has been running for the past several months. Liz’ health situation was announced at the beginning of 2013. The last post I read, as I drafted my own, was dated May 10, 2013. That’s a full five months later.

Had Liz not spent several years genuinely building her community via real relationships, do you think she would have had people like Rosemary O’Neill step up to manage the blog in her absence?

No way, Don Juan.

How do you start doing this? Part of the answer is in #2 above, so first I will say, “Read above, lather, rinse, and repeat.”

4. Educate and empower your community.

The second part of the answer is to educate and empower your community. Tell them, as you engage with them over time, what’s important to you… and why (and if your business is community-centric, chances are it’s what’s important to them too).

How do you start doing this? As you continue to engage with them, find people who can become your de facto or de jure community managers, and empower them with enough know-how – such as your engagement goals and guidelines, and your content needs – so that they can step into the breach if and when they need to.

The great thing about this approach is that you may never need them to fill a void in your absence… but if you do, they are ready and willing to do so.

5. Focus on what works.

A recent Constant Contact survey reported that 66% of small business owners use mobile technology. Continue reading, though, and you’ll see: “… it’s important to note that, of the 34 percent not using any mobile device or solution for their business, a resounding 65 percent have no plans to do so in the future, mainly citing a lack of customer demand.”

I don’t think this 65% of the 34% is necessarily behind the times. Being a small business owner myself, I know the conflicting demands placed on small businesses.

What will you pay attention to? When? How? Who’s going to do it?

It isn’t a question of never paying attention to technological advances, it’s a question of being attuned to the technologies your customers are using or expect, and providing the appropriate platforms, while planning for the future. Just as Liz does here on Successful Blog, by maintaining a framework visitors are familiar with, but by keeping an eye on what’s to come.

How do you start doing this? Stay on top of technological and industry developments. But don’t jump on the bandwagon until your business can sustain and recoup the additional investment… and don’t let anyone pressure you into doing so either.

I’m sure there are many other lessons you have gleaned, on a business level, from Liz’ incredible contribution to the blogosphere and our time. Would you share what you have learned, so that we can salute her collectively?

Author’s Bio: Shonali Burke takes your business communications from corporate codswallop to community cool™. She also blogs, teaches, and cooks. You can find her on Twitter as @shonali.

Thanks for the shout-out, Shonali! I was honored to be able to give back a tiny bit to Liz, who has shown her generosity and kindness to so many over the years. She is the nougaty goodness at the center of this amazing community.

Rosemary

How to Become a Psychic Blogger

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By Nathalie Lussier

How To Write The Blog Post Your Reader Really Needs From You Now

Are you a psychic bloggerIdeas. We all have them. Ideas for blog posts, new projects, and things we need to remember to buy at the grocery store.

Sometimes you get a flash of inspiration for a blog post, and if you have the time to sit down and write it, that blog post can turn out to be the exact thing your reader needed at that moment. Other times, you find yourself re-reading your piece and asking yourself what you were thinking when you penned that jumble of words.

It happens to all of us. In today’s post I’m going to talk about the tricks I’ve learned in my 10 years of blogging, that have allowed me to read the minds of my readers. I regularly get emails and comments from my audience telling me that my post came at just the right time for them, or that I must be psychic because that’s exactly what they were wondering about.

Do your blog posts currently hit the “psychic spot” for your reader? If not, keep reading to find out how you can hone your idea generating and selecting process, to deliver the best content on a consistent basis.

TRICK #1: Know Who You’re Talking To

When brainstorming for a blog or video post, can you think of a specific person, reader or client of yours who would benefit from what you’re writing about? Who is this reader? Whether you are writing for industry leaders or newbies, knowing exactly who you’re talking to and how they’re going to take action based on the information, stories, or advice you share with them is key.

For example, when I first started my blogging career as the Raw Foods Witch, I used to write to my peers. I just didn’t know any better, I thought that the world was full of raw foodists.

Silly? Absolutely.

It was only when I shifted my attention towards the everyday person who wanted to eat healthy but didn’t really know how, that I was able to capture my readers’ attention.

Today, at Nathalie Lussier Media, I talk a lot about technology, and I need to remember what my audiences’ burning questions are so I can share the most relevant new tech tools.

I would never do a video about a complex programming solution, because I know that my audience is not filled with not software engineers like myself and this information just won’t resonate with them. Instead, I talk about ‘done for you plug-ins’ and solutions that solve their problems easily with no coding required. By focusing on what my readers need to know, I can connect directly to them.

TRICK #2: Ask For Feedback

I often hear these statements. ‘I know there are people out there, but no one is reading my blog’ or ‘I’m not really sure who reads my blog.’ Does this sound familiar?

If you don’t have a large readership on your blog, simply asking your current readers to leave a comment should get the ball rolling. Alternatively, you can send out a survey and ask people what they need help with and what they wish they knew how to do better.

Beyond just asking, you also need to connect with people more than you might currently be doing.

TRICK #3: Connect With Your Current Readers

Before you build your castle in the sky, I highly recommend that you get in touch with your audience, the real people who are actually reading the words that you write and find out what they need from you the most.

Send the people who comment on your blog a quick e-mail asking them what you can do for them and what kind of content would really change their lives.

TRICK #4: Answer The Burning Qs

The benefit of blogging and creating great content is that you only have to do it once, and it lives on the Internet forever. If you find yourself getting the same question from your readers all the time, share the answer in a blog post.

Not only will this save you the time of answering this question over and over, you will actually attract more people who need that particular problem solved just like your original audience.

So here’s your filter question for the next time you sit down to write a blog post or create a video: Do I know a specific person in my audience who will benefit from me answering this question?

Follow these 4 tricks and get ready to have people showing up and telling you how amazing you are, because you’ve actually tapped into what they need from you the most.

Are you ready to join in the exclusive club of psychic bloggers who comes up with the best content all the time? Leave a comment below with any tips or tricks you’ve found for getting great blog post ideas.

Author’s Bio: Nathalie Lussier is a digital strategist for the ambitious business owner. She’s the creator of the Website Checkup Tool, a free tool that gives you specific steps to improve your site’s traffic and conversions, no matter stage of business you’re at right now.

Image via CC by Thomas Hawk

How to Speak or Write for Beginners, Experts and Forgetters Alike

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An airplane traveling from New York to Chicago is off course 98% of the time. Still it gets there. Why? The pilot is always adjusting with the destination in mind.

For a writer, a speaker, a teacher, or a presenter, the audience is the destination. Connect with your readers and you’ll be home free. It may sound obvious, but it’s worth stating — if you don’t know where you’re going, you’re not going to get there.

How to Speak or Write for Beginners, Experts and Forgetters Alike

Ever loved a blog one day and didn’t know why you went there the next? That’s a blogger who hasn’t picked an audience? Ever sit through a presentation in which the speaker brought a canned speech written widely and given to every group? That’s a speaker who doesn’t realize that different groups come to listen for different reasons.

It’s always important first to know what we want to say.
Without that, our ideas will be unfocused — like an airplane off its flight plan.

Equally important, we need to know who is tuning in what we’re saying.
Without that, the message sent may not be the message they receive.

So before you write, speak, teach, pr present, take time to reflect on the people who’ll be listening to what you have to say. Here are some questions to help with that. Take a shot at answering them all in a single sentence.

  • Who am I writing for?
  • What do they want to know?
  • Why are they tuning into what I have to say?

Write down your audience profile. Revisit it every now and then as you write. Revisit every time you speak to a group. Adjust it as your readership grows or as the group you’re speaking to grows and changes. Use it as a guide to choose your ideas, your presentation style, and the stories and examples you use.

See if you can describe your audience in one sentence every time. Fine tune the sentence by considering the group and how they’re like you.

Most audiences are mixed with beginners and experts. Most of us are beginners on some things and experts on others. And we have forgotten some of what we once knew.

Our audience is likely to be a lot like we are — people tend to be attracted to people whose minds work alike. (We think people who think as we do are intelligent and and to think of those who don’t ,as not so intelligent or being difficult.) So as think about your text or live audience — beginners, experts, and forgetters alike — see them as intelligent people who simply need a refresher on what you are sharing.

With a clear destination — a message and an audience in mind — the minor decisions of communicating get a whole lot easier. It’s a matter of adjusting direction and timing to land it safely where you want it to be.

How do you know when you write or speak that you’ve chosen right for the audience you’re trying to reach?

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Audience Is Everything – Do You Know Your Audience as Well as You Know Yourself?

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Content Isn’t Audience, But You Knew That

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When I gave a keynote at the EdNet conference, where I met with many old and new friends in the business of publishing. I ended up in the most interesting conversation with one in particular, a man who was connected to me from years ago when publishing in print was my life. We got to talking about how publishers were facing the need to move from shelves of books to information that moved across the Internet.

He said, “I love books. I love seeing them stand on the shelves. I understand why everyone wants to keep making them. But I also see why we need to move our thoughts and ideas to PDFs.”

First I winced, then I smiled, then I laughed.

“What?” was what he said.

“You’re thinking of the paper web. A PDF is just a digital form of a paper document and almost as much of a pain. It’s not really part of the web. It’s a gated and separate location. I have to leave where I am to click over to where it is, wait for it to load, and then I’m stuck inside it. Switching back and forth takes for ever. It’s like asking me to go to the corner to buy a book.”

“Ah, I suppose I should be saying content.”

“Content on a blog or a website is easier to access. Yep that’s for sure, but content isn’t the end.”

I asked him to tilt his head to consider this question, “How many books sit on library and living room shelves that were chosen with great intentions then never read?”

If your goal is to sell books or to sell content, then keep your eye on them.
That will happen is that you’ll grow your sales and find ways to get more books in peoples hands and more visitors to your content.

But all of the thoughts that writers worried to express and the reams of ideas that could be changing the world may become good piled in the good intentions of book shelves and feed readers — parts of collections that never get read.

The book, the pdf, the website, the content isn’t the destination the audience is.

Know Your Audience as Well As You Know Yourself

An airplane traveling from New York to Chicago is off course 98% of the time. Still it gets there. Why? The pilot is always adjusting with his destination in mind. Do you listen to your best audience and tweak what you do to keep your content in their sweet spot?

The audience is your destination. If you’re writing for yourself, you’ll head in a different direction than if you’re writing for people learning what you know. It may sound obvious, but it’s still worth stating — if you don’t know where you’re going, you’re not going to get there. If you think you’re going everywhere or writing for everyone, you’ll end up nowhere.

Too often authors and bloggers don’t think through who their readers will be. As a result a blog post or a book title gets our attention but doesn’t keep us interested. Don’t write for the fad or the lastest content trend, write for the people who are exploring the idea behind it. Then when they change their direction, you can change yours with them because your relationship is with the audience not with the content.

Have you really thought through who your audience is? Here are some questions to help you do that. Take a shot at answering them all in one sentence.

  • Who am I writing for?
  • How are they like me and how are they not?
  • What do they care about?
  • What will get their interest and keep it to the very end?

Write down your audience profile. Revisit it often. Adjust it as your readership grows and you get to know them better.
Use it to guide what you choose to write.

Now that you’ve got a clear destination. Other decisions get a whole lot easier.

Do you look at what you offer from the audience view? How does that work for you?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!

What Is the Most Crucial Element of Influence?

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The Outcomes We Achieve

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Every person has influence. What what we say, and how we act has an effect on how others think, feel, and behave. As a writer, an observer, and manager, I’ve watched and studied how people respond to what we do, what we say, and what they see.

As every parent and pet owner knows, sometimes the outcome we’re going for — a change in belief or behavior — isn’t the outcome we achieve. Our intent, our feelings toward an audience are only one side of the equation. How that audience interprets our words and deeds determines the change in belief or behavior that might result.

Our influence is highly affected by context.

  • The world view of the people we might influence. An individual’s emotional associations and beliefs can filter how people interpret our intentions, our words, and actions. A person who believes all learning must be their own experience will ignore a warning to avoid a dangerous part of town. A person who has only had bad experiences with people from our “group” may fight against any message we offer.
  • The value those people put on their relationship with us. Filters such as the halo effect and other cognitive biases, such as wishful thinking, can change how our message is processes and received.

We don’t control how other people think, what they feel, or how they interpret what they hear and see.

Though we may carefully consider and choose the most generous way to communicate and interact within those those contexts, the audience will choose their interpretation of that interaction. The same authentic, highly influential, collaborative message to one audience will be a disingenuous, controversial, alienating rebuff to another audience. We see that all of the time in the world of politics.

The most crucial element of influence is understanding what the audience and what the already believes. If we want to influence people, to move them to an important action, to change their core beliefs, we need to know the audience, listen to their world view, champion their cause, and honor their reality. Lasting influence is a trust relationship built through time and shared experience.

How do you champion the audience you want to reach?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!

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