Poking staff with a hot iron isn't branding. (Give staff a voice! Part 10 of 10)

Branding your cattle is as simple as heating an iron and then applying to their skin leaving a permanent mark. So why is branding so hard for an org and it's staff?

I think it is because branding is misunderstood. I think Seth Godin says it best in this post:

define: Brand
Here's my definition: A brand is the set of expectations, memories, stories and relationships that, taken together, account for a consumer’s decision to choose one product or service over another. If the consumer (whether it’s a business, a buyer, a voter or a donor) doesn’t pay a premium, make a selection or spread the word, then no brand value exists for that consumer. A brand's value is merely the sum total of how much extra people will pay, or how often they choose, the expectations, memories, stories and relationships of one brand over the alternatives.
A brand used to be something else. It used to be a logo or a design or a wrapper. Today, that’s a shadow of the brand, something that might mark the brand’s existence. But just as it takes more than a hat to be a cowboy, it takes more than a designer prattling on about texture to make a brand. If you’ve never heard of it, if you wouldn’t choose it, if you don’t recommend it, then there is no brand, at least not for you.
If you hear a designer say this (believe it or not, I didn't make this quote up), “A TCHO Chocolate bar, with its algorithmic guilloche patterns, looks like a modern form of currency. “Modern” was always part of the brand brief — no faux traditionalism, but resolutely forward-looking for a new generation of chocolate enthusiasts...” then I wonder if there’s a vocabulary disconnect.
Design is essential but design is not brand.

Understanding branding is not enough. You have to create ways to influence each part of the brand that Seth defined: expectations, memories, stories and relationships.  

You have to work to balance your desire to control or manage your brand while enabling your staff to influence it. But your staff WILL influence your brand whether you help them do it or not. In many ways your staff are your brand.

I think back to some of rebranding that I have been a part of. I was told what the brand is. I was told what to say as a staff person. It was made clear to me that only the leadership team was smart enough to define our brand. My job was to only carry out the orders and stick to the company line.

Some of those things are necessary during a rebrand. But telling someone what the brand is won't change anything until they feel it, support it and become a part of it.

Sorta like a new recipe. You can tell everyone that it is good, even that it is the best. But how can you know until you try.  And even after you try, you may not agree.

Here are the basic steps that I would suggest (most of which you have already started if you read my other posts in this series)

1. Monitor all communications about your brand from your audience and from your staff
2. Publish a set of guidelines to direct brand communications, see this AWESOME article from NTEN about creating a philosophy!
3. Provide constructive feedback and positive encourage on all staff brand communications (as much as possible)
4. Create metrics to inform your efforts
5. Spend time reviewing, sharing and reflecting on the outcomes from the metrics.

Managing a brand is not a simple task, but it needs to be done.  Good luck!

For some further reading on this topic, here is a recent article from Mashable! (if you consider 2010 recent, but just shows this isn't new stuff)

Thanks for reading all of my posts in the series of giving staff a voice. (if you did)

Metrics are just numbers without context! (Give staff a voice! Part 3 of 10)

Metrics, here, metrics there. Metrics everywhere. Everywhere you look everyone is talking metrics.

But does these numbers even matter or mean anything?

Example: Our website had 11,000 visits last month.

What does that even mean? Is that high? Was that unique or total? Is that better than last month? What did they do while they were there? So many questions.

You need to provide context to your numbers.  Try to answer these questions to help people understand the numbers:

1. What do these numbers mean? (define the label of the metric)
2. How do these numbers impact our goals?
3. How does this compare to our history?
4. Is there a benchmark that we can compare this to?
5. How does this compare to peers?

Beyond providing a simple definition and some comparables though you also need to demonstrate how these metrics impact your organization's ability to meet the mission, operating goals and strategic plans. To do that you need to tie the metrics to the:

Business Objectives - Identify business objectives in your org that are impacted by your digital effors.

Engagement Goals - Set some goals for your reach and engagement in your digital channels based on those business objectives. This is an easy way to identify trends and set priorities.

Outcomes - Set up mechanisms and tools to track the objectives and goals above. Be sure to find a way to share these outcomes in a meaningful way with context.

Overall Marketing Strategy - Use your metrics to judge the outcomes of campaigns. But be sure to interpret them and apply those learnings. Help the business owners understand what worked and what didn't.

Example: We would like to increase online donations. We will use emails containing individual stories to drive traffic to our website. We hope to have an email open rate of 20%, which is 3% higher than past performance. However, our email open rate dropped for this campaign. That impacted our website visits because email is out top way to attract traffic. So our next plan should have a stronger email presence.


Anyway, if you only remember one thing, a metric is just a number until you know what question you are answering. 42.

Social Media Comments Gone Wild! What to do?

What if someone says something bad about us on social media? We cant do that!

Isnt that one of the bigger hesitations of orgs using social media? It is easy to think through what to do if the comments are just wrong, but what if the comments are bad but correct, just plain mean or pose a real risk?

I am a huge fan of the Air Force Blog Assessment chart! This is what we used to guide the discussion around how and when we should reply to comments on our social media sites.  This visual worked great to allow non-tech staff to think through and understand all of the options.  It also helped leadership to feel more comfortable with our ability to reply.

But what do you do when the same comments start to cross boundaries and exposure your participants, your members or your organization to real risk?

So in addition to the Air Force Blog Assessment we decided to create a comment escalation flow chart.  This is intended to help our social media authors decide what action to take in addition to the reply.  We wanted to have a documented process for our employees to use and to find a way to keep our Communications & Risk Management departments in the loop.  So here is what we came up with.  We are also working on documenting the actual steps they take but wanted a visual to make it understandable and simple.

What are your thoughts on this?  Do you have similar things in place?

Here is why I decided to share this.  Moderating comments may seem like just another task that has to be done by our authors.  But in this particular pilot launch the authors are working with Teens.  So when they take action on an inappropriate comment, they are actually working toward the goals of their program. By having a conversation with a program participant about responsible behavior online, they are reinforcing the program goal of strengthening self image and how you present yourself.

Communicate Online like a Kenyon (Part 9 of 11 on Managing Tech 2 Meet Mission)

"Imagine your online communications are kept attractive, accurate, coordinated, and up-to-date in only hours a month. Fresh, engaging content flows like water, bringing a steady stream of new and returning visitors. Your every fundraising, educational, or advocacy campaign's online components spark throngs to action. You are safe in the knowledge that you have a plan flexible enough to keep you nimble yet solid enough to keep you prepared and help you weather unexpected challenges."

"All this is achievable for nonprofits with the right planning--along with the knowledge, skills and will to improve."

I will buy a bazillion of whatever John Kenyon is selling! Seriously, did you read that opening from his chapter in the NTEN book? I usually try to start my blog post with a witty opening, but I learned never to enter a mind battle with John when death is on the line (oops started to slip into Princess Bride talk, do you have six fingers on your left hand?)

Anyway, I can honestly say that John has a skill in his writing and presenting that makes everything seem possible and is easy to understand.  And what I like most about John's chapter and everything he does, is that he doesnt get caught up in the hype of the latest craze or that cool tool. He focuses how to enable the organization, the mission and the people to make a difference.

I learned a lot from John about the four C's of a website (credibility, cultivation, clickability and content) and the cornerstones of an email campaign (personal, targeted, integrated and trackable). He lays out a very doable course of action for any nonprofit to have a successful online communication strategy.

My struggles coming from a large and long standing nonprofit come in many forms:

• Building a consensus on message - we offer so many different services in wide ranging neighborhoods, populations and sectors that it is hard to focus.
• Communicating internally first - it is hard to communicate to our fans when we dont always communicate well with each other
• Marketing, fundraising, emergency or public service - often our immediate needs of meeting budget and getting through today drive our messages, not our mission and vision
• Changes in leadership - in times of transition when short term stop gaps lead rather than long term strategic plans it is tough to build sustainable messages
• Creating urgency in messaging - how do you create urgency in a message when the things you fight (Diabetes, obesity, health) are all gradual in nature
• Changing a brand - our brand has many traditions, fans and stereotypes, only some of which are true, it seems harder to change someone's mind rather than show them something new

My partner in mission work is Judith Sol-Dyess and we are working in numerous ways to impact these challenges and we have a lot of ideas.  I have spent over a year building the foundation of a web strategy focused on the four C's and it is working overall. I have numerous strategies that I a rolling out and a few tricks up my sleeve, but those will have to wait for another post.

I know, usually a blog posting is more about a solution rather than listing challenges, but this is my blog so I can do what I want.  And here is what I want! I want John Kenyon to post a counter blog post and help me! So anyone that reads this should nudge John Kenyon to help out this poor blogger.

Over 11 weeks I am doing a themed series of blog posts. Each week I will write about a chapter of the book called Managing Technology to meet your Mission. This week is on the 9th chapter by By John Kenyon called Effective Online Communications. You should totally buy the book. (In case you are wondering, I am volunteering to do this, I am not getting paid or in any other way reimbursed for this. I just love NTEN and their events.)