The other thing that I admit I consider is the number of people they are following vs. the number of people following them. In my opinion, there are three potential warning flags in those numbers.

First is the kind of person who doesn’t follow any one back. I don’t get that. To me, the idea of Twitter and other Social Media is networking. It’s two-way communication. So if they don’t follow, they don’t want to have a conversation, I don’t want to follow them.

The second warning I look for is someone who is following or being followed by a large number of people, 25,000 to 50,000 people. Come on. Really? You are going to have meaningful conversations with that many people? I’m out.

The third warning sign, and this one is a bit selfish I admit, is someone who is following a lot more people than are following them. They reek a bit of desperation. Casting a wide net but not catching much. Maybe they are not that interesting. I don’t know and I don’t want to spend the time to find out.

It is with all of these warning signs in mind, but particularly the 3rd one, that I occasionally vet my Twitter following list. Because I am like number 3, I just don’t want people to know it. I spread a net (but always a relevant one), and see who wants to network. If you don’t scrape the non-followers off your list, like gum off a shoe with a Popsicle stick, well it can get pretty messy after a while.

I work hard at keeping the appearance of my popularity up. (It might be easier to Tweet better content but…) I tediously go through the list of people I am following and say goodbye to those who didn’t have the courtesy to follow me back. It’s not really a courtesy. It’s a personal decision on their part. Some say proper Twitter etiquette is to follow back automatically. But if you don’t see the value, I can’t blame you for saying no.

So I found myself saying goodbye to people that I had been following for a while, felt a kinship with, only to see their name on my blackball list. I am not going to lie. It hurt to say goodbye. But I guess I barely knew them after all. Tomorrow I’ll throw another net and meet a new batch of friends. Maybe this time I’ll try not to get so attached so fast.

Zappos.

If you haven’t heard of Zappos you probably don’t do much online shopping. Founded in 1999 by Nick Swinmurn and early partner and now CEO, Tony Hsieh, it was almost ahead of its time even in Internet years. Consider that there was no such thing as search engine marketing and pay per click advertising in 1999. The only thing that they knew for sure was that shoes were a $40 billion industry, that there were no great online shoe stores at that time, and that they aimed to be the first.

Zappos is known as one of the bellweathers for outstanding customer service and much of their success is attributed to their extreme, almost maniacal passion for pleasing the customer. And while nobody denies that customer service played a role in their early success (and continues to play a role today), there were a lot of fortuitous events and great decisions as well.

What Nick & Tony did not foresee initially was that the shoe customer was a unique breed. They were very brand loyal, and they most often searched by brand name. And because of this brand loyalty, they were preeducated on the brand and didn’t need to be sold on it. The result was that Zappos didn’t need to spend a ton of money on advertising the Zappos brand (except to try to impress the shoe companies who were reticent to do business with the young start up), they could spend that money advertising the brands they carried, which gave them an immediate ROI on their advertising dollars.

When Search Engine Marketing was introduced shortly after Zappos start, they took early advantage of the ability to advertise shoe brands as key words. This made their marketing efforts truly pay off and the growth boom began.

But Zappos growth wasn’t all just fortuitous timing. Tony made a couple of key decisions along the way that paid big dividends. One is the insane return policy: 365 days! and free return shipping! Another was the idea of randomly upgrading shipping for returning customers to 2nd day air or even overnight. They realized that they were competing against the instant gratification of shoe shopping at the mall. In that same vein, they also made the decision that they had to warehouse all of the product themselves in order to better control fulfillment and handle returns. In other words, to be able to control the customer’s experience.

Whatever it is that has made Zappos great, I personally admire their core values and think any company would do well to adopt them as a core for a great business model.

1. Deliver WOW Through Service
2. Embrace and Drive Change
3. Create Fun And A Little Weirdness
4. Be Adventurous, Creative, and Open-Minded
5. Pursue Growth and Learning
6. Build Open and Honest Relationships With Communication
7. Build a Positive Team and Family Spirit
8. Do More With Less
9. Be Passionate and Determined
10. Be Humble

Most people that are familiar with the Zappos story know that Amazon bought them only recently after competing with them directly for years, never able to get much of a foothold against them.

Another great business model I suppose; if you can’t beat them, buy them.

Trade shows in general are known for the challenge of trying to stand out from all the other booths that surround you. But when the trade show is Comic-Con and the products are movies, video games and action heroes, well every booth was trying to drown out the others. And stuffed into every available space of every aisle were the geeks.

After and hour or so of wandering, of playing human bumper pool, of drowning in the over-stimulation, I did reach some less than startling conclusions. The busiest booths were giving away the coolest stuff. Whether it was an autograph from a comic book artist I never heard of or any of a number of promotional products, everyone lined up for the goodies. And the crowds attracted more crowds. Yes, startling conclusion; promotional products play an important role in bringing traffic to your booth.

But the biggest thing I brought away was the hottest (and smartest) giveaway. The gigantic tote bag. Tote bags have always been popular at trade shows but these things were enormous and enormously popular. And the appeal wasn’t just for the geeks, but everyone.

And the best part about the bags? They literally converted people into walking billboards. So for your next trade show, event or convention, don’t just think promotions. Think big promotions. Trust me, the geeks are right on this one.

I don’t claim to be a PR expert…

…but I do know a thing or two about branding, and clearly, PR & branding are tightly interwoven. And like all forms of marketing, the role of social media is changing the game. I think about social media a lot, and when I read the headlines in the paper the role that social media plays in that headline often jumps to mind.

There is no greater example of this than when I read in Saturday’s paper that Apple was giving away cell phone cases to every owner of the new iPhone 4. Surely you have been following this story a little bit? What I don’t understand is how a company like Apple, how a CEO like Jobs, could have screwed this up so badly. Not the bringing a phone to market that has reception problems (Apple’s been pretty good about that since the 1st iPhone), but trying to sweep the issue under the rug. No company the size of Apple is ever going to be able to sweep a PR issue under the rug again. In these days of social media, the dirt spreads so fast you don’t stand a chance. You would think a forward-looking company like Apple would understand that. [full disclosure: I'm a big Apple fan and I own the 3GS and a Mac Book Pro]

Let’s review the time line: Apple receives complaints about reception problem and denies they exist. Apple admits there’s a problem but says its a software issue regarding number of bars being displayed. Apple admits that if the antenna in the lower back corner of the phone is covered by your hand, it can lose reception but Apple says that’s true of a lot of phones. Apple instructs its customer service staff via a memo outlining how to handle complaint calls that free cell phone cases should not be offered to complaining customers. The memo is leaked to the press. This past Friday, Jobs appears in a rare press conference, continues to deny that there is any issue and offers free cases to customers.

Could anybody but BP screw this up any worse? Jobs seems to be taking this thing on a personal level. He claims the media is attacking Apple because of their success! Well, Steve, open your eyes and take a look around. That coffee you smell isn’t the bitter aroma of the attack of giant media, it’s the sweet aroma of today’s social media keeping companies honest.

Dustin and I were talking about how you try to do the right thing, teach your children what they need to know, teach them morals and values. If you are a parent, you know what I’m talking about. We lamented the fact that after they get to about junior high school or by their freshman year at the latest, it feels like we lose control. Their friends and peers are suddenly the greatest influence in their life, and getting their peers approval dictates their actions more than what we do as parents.

Now think about a brand. You’ve spent your last 12 years telling people who you are, what they can expect. You did this through mass media in a series of one-way communications that has spanned more than a decade. Message received, right?

Maybe then, but not now. That teenage daughter of Moe’s is a microcosm of social media. Her personality (read: personal brand) was being shaped by a single authoritative voice (Dad’s). But suddenly she finds herself in a world where that one-way, authoritative voice  is being drowned out by the dozens of voices of her social circle. That’s the same role social media is playing on today’s brands. It is drowning out your one-way, mass media marketing message.

So what do we do? An incredible amount has been written about leveraging social media as a part of your marketing. But what we are talking about here is BRANDING. We have to change our thinking and realize that building our brand means that the brand is going to be formed as much as, if not more, by peoples’ experience with your brand and their shared communications of that experience. A part of a brand has always been defined by user experience. The difference is now the user’s experience spreads across the social media landscape like a tsunami across low-lying lands.

So let’s go back to the basics, only let’s put 100% more effort on controlling that user experience. Make sure that your customers’ physical interaction with your brand (whether it’s a product or a service) is everything you say your brand stands for. Only then will good things come from social media.

And sorry, Dustin. I don’t have an answer for you (or me) when it comes to raising teenage daughters.

I decided to start over with the basics. When I looked at the site in Google’s Webmaster Tools, I was shocked to see how Google saw my site. My keywords that I was focused on barely registered. What Google saw was a bunch of keywords around the company name and not enough keywords about what that brand stood for.

And that got me thinking about personal brands and small company brands. If you could put your personal brand through some sort of “Brandmaster Tools”, would it kick out a keyword cloud that represents what you think you stand for? Or would it show that you’re really all about you? Are you about your features or user benefits? Do your words and actions consistently reflect what you are all about?

A brand is a summation of all the things a company is. But in these days of mass social media, it’s not just what the company says it stands for, it’s what the masses say it stands for. A personal brand works the same way. It’s not just what you say you are, it’s what those that interact with you (your brand) say.

So ask yourself what you stand for. Then ask those around you. How does you personal keyword cloud look? If it was a Google search would you be coming out on top or is it time to get back to the basics?

Whenever I eat out, being a former restaurant manager I love to look in the corners and other obscure places to see how clean it really is. And when I don’t find anything, I have to tip my hat to the management team because good managers understand that their view can get stale, and they need to take a fresh look at their surroundings on a regular basis. Some even ask others to give their place a good looking over just like any customer would.

And maybe, not surprisingly, we see the same thing in online stores too. Not necessarily e-commerce stores but any website that represents you, your brand, your business. Like their brick and mortar counterparts, your online storefront can begin to look dated. Links might not work, no new content has been added in months, you still haven’t added those social media buttons that you’ve been meaning to for the past year…

It happens. It happens to all of us. Some people discount that their website hardly gets seen. And maybe that’s true but it’s not an excuse. Maybe it’s on your to do list but you’re always too busy to get to your to do list. Or maybe it’s not in your budget to have your web guy updating your site. All great excuses but every day you put it off, your putting off another customer who is turned off by what she’s seeing.

So whether it’s your physical presence or your virtual one, make the commitment that great restaurant managers make to make sure your customers don’t find any dirt. Put it on your calendar. Book time with yourself and just get it done. Your customers and your bottom line will thank you for it.

Let’s take a closer look at each of these areas. Smaller companies tend to take a lot more creative license with their logo and related imagery. They don’t realize by changing colors, fonts, shapes, etc. that they are making it difficult, if not impossible for that image to stick in a customer’s mind. If your vehicle graphics show one image and your business card shows another and your website yet a 3rd visual, how it the consumer supposed to connect these? If you look at large (presumably successful) companies, they hold their brand’s image and presentation sacred. Almost every Fortune 500 company has a branding guideline book that is as thick as a dictionary. That book is both for the internal staff as well as 3rd parties who may need to display the brand. It spells out every possible use of its logo and icons, by media type, by color type, etc. Your brand may not ever require such guidelines, but consider the reasoning behind it. Consistency is critical in successful branding.

And that is equally true for your brand’s voice. Do not change your tag line every six weeks as you search out what you like best. Define what your brand stands for upfront, and create a tagline that is hard wired to your logo. Also, your brand should communicate with potential customers in a consistent manner and personality. Is your company serious and professional? Then make sure it stays that way throughout every communication. Is it relaxed and laid back? Then make sure you present it consistently that way; on your website, on your Facebook page, on your Twitter page and in your tweets.

Finally, and this one may be the most difficult, make sure that the brand’s message is consistent with the user’s experience and vice-versa. If you tout a brand trait that doesn’t match the user’s experience, then all the other consistency isn’t going to make that customer put your brand at the top of their list. Brand equity ultimately begins and ends with the user’s experience. it needs to be tightly aligned with your core marketing message, no matter what your industry or how big or small your company.

In today’s splintered, multi media world, it’s more important than ever and more difficult than ever to be consistent in every customer interaction.

On the EZ Brand Site, we don’t sell products directly (but you can quickly link to our other EZ sites using the navigation on the left). EZ Brand Site is more of a social site, an idea site and a site where we can share experiences and all learn a little bit about better branding.

People come to our EZ Sites for a variety of different reasons. Some are looking for T-Shirts for a promotion. Some are looking for Polos for their workwear. Some are looking for Hats to give away to their good customers. And others maybe looking for Mugs as a way to keep their name in front of their customers. But the one thing that we are all shopping for is a better way to promote our brand.

So if you are here like we are, because branding is our thing. Then follow us via our newsfeed, Facebook or Twitter, or just stop back by to see what’s new. We know your time is valuable. We’ll work hard to make sure your visits are worthwhile.