Brand U by Wendy Marx by Wendy Marx

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Careers: Branding and The Future of Media From NBC's Digital Top Gun

 

 

I had the privilege this week to enter the media future – or at least a very smart person’s view of it – and learn that the future is all about personalization.

“The future of local TV (and seemingly everything else digital) is personal,” was the rousing cry of NBC Universal Chief Digital Officer George Kliavkoff who spoke this week at NY:MIEG's holiday breakfast as part of a Q&A session with Limor Schafman, president of The KeystoneTech Group. “Think about all your favorite news and information websites. With any of them 90 to 96% of the pixels are wasted on you,” said Kliavkoff. Instead, using the smarts of technology, you will be able to get served content and advertising that you want. Kliavkoff’s takeaway: The online future includes a lot more personalized products and services.

The prognostication was made at the ultra slick, electronic showcase of The Samsung Experience at the TimeWarner Center, which gleamed with electronic high tech before a sold-out crowd of the media upper crust, along with a few wannabes.

Overseeing this media blitz was Bill Sobel, a middle-aged, rumpled, down-to earth guy who is anything but high-tech in style. However, don’t let his appearance fool you. Sobel, who conceived and runs MY Mieg, is Mr. Media, a master connector and media impresario, who could be an electronic gizmo himself since he radiates enough energy and enthusiasm to light up the Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center.

The Q&A covered what’s happening and will happen in digital. Among some interesting points made:

• Online media leads to more TV consumption. Forget the fear of cannibalization when you put TV clips online. NBC found that online streaming of the Beijing Olympics actually drove viewers to watch more TV than they would have if they were only TV viewers.

• Easy does it. Hulu, a joint venture of NBC and Fox, allows viewers to search CBS and ABC content even though it doesn’t have licensing agreements with ABC or CBS. “It’s easier to search on Hulu than on CBS or ABC,” said Kliavkoff.

• Digital all the way. We haven’t seen anything yet, according to Kliavkoff, who said that behavioral marketing and other forms of personalization will transform the digital experience.

So, as personal branders, what does all this mean?

I think it means that we need to be sure we’re on the digital forefront in everything we do. That, we need to make everything we do as easy as possible for folks and to insure that we not just put our personal stamp on what we do but that it speaks directly to the person we’re doing it for.

What do you think? I’d love to hear from you.

Wendy Marx, PR and Personal Branding Specialist, Marx Communications

public relations
media
NY:MIEG
George Kliavkoff
Bill Sobel

personal branding

 

 

07:40 am | 0 recommendations | Be the first to comment

Careers: Personal Branding and Reinventing Yourself for the Digital Age

If you’re over 35, more than likely you’re a geezer digitally speaking. Or in the inimitable words of media wunderkind Shelly Palmer, you’re a “digital immigrant.”

Counting myself among the endangered species, I was delighted to find that there is still hope for us. Just because we were born on the wrong side of the technology divide, there is a bridge to get us across. Enter Palmer, who’s 50 but somehow managed to morph into a “digital native,” and is now sharing his trade secrets in a course, “Reinventing Yourself and Your Career for the New Digital Economy.”

You’d have to be living in a cave of course not to know that we’re experiencing seismic economic changes with entire portions of industries like newspapers, recorded music, and advertising in flux. “Nothing is where it’s supposed to be anymore,” says Palmer. “You can either adapt or become obsolete.”

Whichever side of the digital schism you sit on, Palmer’s own story offers inspiration. Two years ago, he had a weekly newsletter on the media industry with about 300 subscribers. Today MediaBytes, an instant summary of the day’s most important technology and entertainment news. arrives in the digital inboxes of 175,000 subscribers to provide in Palmer’s words “a crib sheet on your BlackBerry every morning.”

About 18 months ago, Palmer and his team realizing MediaBytes could be transported to video, began offering a daily videocast along with a weekly podcast. Today MediaBytes is syndicated on 26 different websites, TiVo, the HuffingtonPost and YouTube among others. Which means that 50,000 people a day get their Shelly Palmer fix.

Now, Palmer, of course, is not your typical media consultant. His resume puts us mortals to shame. An awarding-winning writer, director, producer and composer he is also a technologist, an inventor and a leading expert on the forces that are shaping the future of technology, media and entertainment. He is president of the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, New York — the organization that bestows the coveted Emmy Award. Believe me that’s just for the starters.

However, Palmer assures us that we too with a little hand holding can begin to cross the digital divide. Here is some of his advice:

Work daily to  maintain the value of your brand. We are constantly evolving. Shelly Palmer “the person” is different from Shelly Palmer “the brand.” The brand stands for excellence in thought leadership at the intersection of technology media and entertainment businesses.

Have a consistent brand message. Everyone today can be a brand. With this much digital access, there is no excuse if you don’t have a digital brand thanks to social media like Facebook and MySpace, blogs and websites. The key is having all your messages tell the same story.

Protect you online brand just as you do your offline brand. Don’t put anything online that you don’t want to see on the front page of a newspaper.

Have the right digital image. Just as you’re careful of your offline image and take pains to wear the right outfit, have the right haircut, drive a particular car, so should you take care with your digital image.  Carry a current PDA and laptop. Have a real live email address and domain as opposed to joey.spaz1234. Be in the current culture.

Wendy Marx, Personal Branding and Marketing Specialist, Marx Communications

 

Technorati tags personal branding, personal brand, public relations, careers, Shelly Palmer

02:08 pm | 1 recommendation | 1 comment

The Sound of Personal Branding

Some websites need to be arrested for audial assault. You know the ones I mean. No sooner do you click on a URL but the site blasts out some atrocious music that has absolutely nothing to do with the brand.

If marketer and music extraordinaire Martin Pazzani has his way that will change. The former CEO of Elias Arts, the world’s largest music company for advertising, TV and film, Pazzani is now CEO in Residence with Bluestone Partners, where he is creating a music agency to redefine how corporations use music.

A pioneer in audio branding, Pazzani is on a mission to put audio identity on the same footing as visual identity.

“Most companies don’t have a consistent, integrated audio identity the way they have a visual identity,” Pazzani explains. “A company may use one type of music on TV, another for radio, a third for hold music and yet another sound for the actual product. The result is a schizophrenic brand that does nothing to reinforce a brand identify. It’s plain and simple noise.”

Not that all companies have been tone deaf. Think, Pazzani, says, of the once ubiquitous Yahoo yodel. For a reminder, click the dot of the exclamation point on the logo.

Music, of course, is probably as old as Adam and Eve. Certainly, the movies are no stranger to the power of music. And what self-respecting presidential contender would campaign without his or her theme music. Hillary Clinton even ran a contest to pick her theme song.

Pazzani, however, is taking this one step further. He advocates original music for brands, not just a reuse of existing music. His point is that companies create their own logos, so why not evolve and create music that exemplifies the brand? What better differentiator, he says, than to have a unique sound.

Obviously, as personal branders, we don’t need to have our own music…or do we? Pazzani for example knows a CEO of a technology company (Pazzani is keeping the person’s name to himself) who has his own walk-on music. Not to mention the company’s having a unique sound for TV, in-store, its products and a theme for its sales meetings. Let’s be clear. Pazzani doesn’t suggest that a company use the same music for everything. That could be musical monotony. But he advocates that a company’s music all be integrated and consistent.

I don’t suggest that you run out and get your own theme music. Though it could make for some funny scenarios. Instead of greeting someone with “hello,” you could toot your favorite song. But I do suggest that you not forget about sound as you think about your personal brand or your company’s brand. To paraphrase, Pazzani, do you know what your brand sounds like?

Wendy Marx, Personal Branding and Marketing Specialist, Marx Communications, Inc.

tag technorati:
self promotion
careers
public relations
personal branding
personal brand
branding
audio identity
Martin Pazzani

 

08:15 am | 0 recommendations | Be the first to comment

Personal Branding and Corporate Politicians

Many corporate executives in their eagerness to get on the Web 2.0 bandwagon remind me of waffling politicians. Sure they are beginning to spout the right lingo but when it comes to follow through, beware.

The latest case in point is Hewlett Packard. Here is the company’s SVP and CMO Mike Mendenhall speaking at the recent Association of National Advertisers’ (ANA)annual Masters of Marketing Conference. Thanks to Media Post’s Karl Greenberg for capturing the conversation:

“‘How do we engage customers while effectively controlling brand reputation?’" asked Mendenhall at the ANA meeting. “Marketers must not only monitor blogs and news sites constantly, he says--they need to go one step further. ‘You want to look at building your own forums to engage customers and critics who are one and the same. You can't afford to miss it.’”

Sounds great, right? Sorry, Mr. Mendenahall. At least in this customer’s case, you're falling far short. A few weeks ago I blogged about your company, directly emailed your CEO and pasted my blog feed on Twitter and Facebook about the seemingly never ending problems I have experienced – and am still experiencing –with your customer service. Meanwhile, I’m still waiting for someone to reach out to me. And here I am blogging for a second time about your company when if someone took a moment to respond, HP instead could have been singled out as an exemplar of social media engagement, not a ne’re-do-well.

What did I get for my troubles? Not a lot. Finally, after a number of emails back and forth with an HP PR person, I got a call back from someone in corporate support who referred me to someone else. That person attempted to solve my printer and desktop problems but couldn’t fix the printer. He assured me someone in the printer department would get back to me. That was four days ago. And I’m still waiting. And now four weeks, count them four weeks, my problem still has not been corrected. So much for trying to get the attention of HP via social media.

Contrast that with the online shoe powerhouse Zappos, recently selected by Ad Age as a marketer of the year. Awhile back I blogged about Zapos and seemingly one second after I posted, the CEO of Zappos was following me on Twitter. Now, the CEO himself may not be personally following me but someone on his staff at least has the smarts to monitor what is being said about the company.

Despite all the problems with HP, which I’m sure will eventually find its footing, the company is still further along than totally clueless 1and1. Every other day I receive a survey form asking me to rate the Internet hosting company’s customer service. I sometimes think these forms are generated to create busywork for someone since I have rarely (Lexus being one exception) had a company contact me in response to anything I wrote. I rapped 1and1 on its survey since my email has not worked properly since I transferred my domain to its servers a few months ago. What is the response to my survey answers? A few days later I receive another survey asking for my opinion.

Meanwhile, is the company monitoring cyberspace? Type into Google corporate address of 1and1 and a blog appears detailing people’s negative experiences (including mine) with the company. Has anyone received a response? You know the answer to that. Don't bother emaling the company's complaint department at complaints@1and1.com. I've tried several times and never received the courtesy of a response.

Now, I don’t mean to unfairly single out these companies. I’m sure many others are doing the same things if not worse. Somehow most companies haven’t realized that instead of simply pouring money into advertising they should be pouring money into what’s happening on the ground, day-to-day in consumers’ lives. With the Internet’s democratization of the consumer, companies can no longer afford to spout the lingo without following through. Now let’s see if anyone is reading this! I’d love to hear your experiences. What do you think?

Wendy Marx, PR and Personal Branding Specialist, Marx Communications

tag technorati: self promotion, careers, public relations, personal branding, personal brand, Hewlett Packard, 1and1, Zappos

06:52 am | 1 recommendation | Be the first to comment

Careers: Personal Branding Imposters and Big Companies

Why are so many large companies branding imposters?

On the hand, they spend zillions trying to brand themselves through advertising? On the other hand, they provide far too little oversight or dollars to customer service. They fail to realize that most active customers interact with a brand through customer service rather than advertising. And somehow, few seem to have taken to heart that in today’s interconnected world, consumers finally have a voice.

Meanwhile, too many big companies remain faceless impenetrable bureaucracies with no personality as Rohit Bhargava points out in his brilliant book, Personality not included.

In the spirit of exercising my consumer rights and I hope piercing a tiny crack on the corporate “keep consumers out” shield, here is an open letter to the CEO of Hewlett Packard. I will publish one to the CEO of 1and1.com in Part Two of this post, to be published separately.

Mr. Mark Hurd
Chairman of the Board
Chief Executive Officer and President
Hewlett-Packard Company

Dear Mr. Hurd:

I was once a big fan of Hewlett-Packard’s customer service when you truly stood behind your products and customers. But that seems to have gone by the boards as you have relentlessly outsourced your customer service to people who don’t care about your brand.

I have now spent 16 hours, count that 16 hours, with three different HP technical support people, not to mention one technical support supervisor, one case manager, one would be case manager and one executive customer service person. What do I have to show for my efforts? A printer that only works manually, not from the computer, and a broken Windows Installer? Both were working prior to my calling HP. I also have two Service Ticket Numbers, 801-599-4173, 801-667-5327 and a Transaction Number, 7500-631-029.

How has HP let me down and tarnished its brand in my eyes? I was promised callbacks by two different tech support people who after each to their credit spent hours trying to get my printer to work promised to call me back to finish the job. Neither ever called me back.

I asked to speak to a boss in your case manager’s office and was told: “My boss doesn’t talk on the phone.”

I asked a person in your executive customer service to schedule a tech support call for me and was told, “I can’t do anything because they are in another country.”

Pardon me, but is HP a 21st century technology company?

I complained to a case manager at your corporate headquarters about my problems and she assured me that a technical support person would call me back the next evening and that she would call me back that very same evening to insure everything had been taken care of.

At that point, I was about to give HP the Customer Service Merit Award. But not only did the tech support person not call me back but the case manager didn’t call that night either. The case manager did mean well but she just seemed to get her tasks wrong. She eventually got back to me (48 hours later) but seemed to be oblivious to the fact that a tech person was to have called me the day before as was she and that I couldn’t solve the problem myself. She too told me she couldn’t schedule a tech call.

I am hoping that this letter forces you to take a good look at your company’s customer service – or rather non-service – and how it is hurting your brand.

Sincerely yours,

Wendy Marx

Wendy Marx, PR and Personal Branding Specialist, Marx Communications

 

tag technorati: Hewlett Packard, careers, public relations, networking, marketing, personal branding, branding

07:41 am | 1 recommendation | Be the first to comment

Careers: WOM and Personal Branding

Word of mouth marketing, the power of everyday citizens to talk up – or down – a brand is on a roll.

 If you ever doubted its power and reach, take a step back for a minute to April of this year when a no-name blogger outed Sen. Barack Obama for his now infamous “bitter remarks.” The bittergate story changed the political landscape and for a time upended Obama’s campaign.

While word of mouth is certainly not new, smart brands, agencies and personal branders, not to mention politicians, are taking up the WOM cudgel as never before and making it a strategic part of marketing.

That’s because the Internet has spiked WOM’s reach. Call it the power of everyday folks to help make or break a brand.

Or as branding expert Adam Kleinberg,  CEO of advertising and marketing agency Traction puts it, “Marketing is not just a conversation between a brand and consumer but between individual consumers. It’s no longer just one-way communication but two-way communication.”

In the old days, if you had an opinion, you told your friends. Then came the Internet and social media, and suddenly anyone had access to a worldwide megaphone to air his or her opinion. Smart marketers are recognizing that ordinary consumers want to express their thought and passions – and enabling that.

“Social media,” says Kleinberg, “is all about giving people a chance to realize that ‘what I say’ matters.”

Kleinberg’s company, for example, created a Facebook community for a new product called Livescribe, an audio pen gizmo geared to students. A case study in how to grow a successful brand online, Livescribe’s Facebook page grew to more than 10,000 people in just 45 days. The secret? An adroit combination of new and old media, including a clever viral video to encourage students to identify with the brand, a promotional giveaway for joining the Livescribe community and an opportunity for community members to talk about themselves and the product.

“We’re allowing people to interact with a brand,” says Kleinberg. “In a sense we’ve created a ‘circle of life’ for a brand. People enter the community and see how excited others are about the product and these new members in turn inspire others.” The proof of course is ultimately in the numbers.  Livescribe had 9,000 people get on the pre-order list before their pens were even on sale.

“At the end of the day, social media is about allowing people to create their own content online,” says Kleinberg. “Social media’s greatest strength is to get people who are passionate about your brand interacting with it. The operative word is interactive.”

What are you doing to get people to interact with your brand? I’d love to hear from you.

Wendy Marx, Peronal Branding and PR Specialist, Marx Communications, Inc.

tag technorati: self-promotion, careers, public relations, personal branding, personal brand, branding, word of mouth, social media

06:51 am | 1 recommendation | 2 comments

Careers: Sarah Palin's Personal Branding Bonanza

What hasn’t been remarked all that much about in the Sarah Palin phenomenon, is that in some respects her candidacy, ironically, is very much of a piece with the Web 2.0 culture of personality. While she’s certainly not Twittering away or using other social networking tools (though her future son-in-law, 18-year-old Levi Johnson is on MySpace though the page is now private so we can’t link to it), she has distinguished herself by sheer force of personality.

By referring to herself as a hockey Mom and her down-home speaking style, she’s made herself human and accessible. Even her 17-year-old daughter’s pregnancy, is something that makes her “just folks.” In fact, she’s the perfect example of the power of personal branding, lacing her professional story with a compelling personal story that has instantly turned her into a celebrity of the sort the McCain campaign was poking fun at in Obama when the tables were turned.

Now you can argue that her personal brand won’t withstand scrutiny, that it’s all carefully crafted image and not reality. And, for that, we’ll just have to wait and see.

But, regardless of the final outcome and your political persuasions, you have to hand it to the Republicans for at least momentarily trumping the Democrats in their own attempts at personal branding.

Certainly, Barack Obama, has been a master at this, making himself open and accessible on Twitter, Facebook and other social media. But lately, he has been too focused on reacting to the Republicans’ attacks rather than continuing to promote his own brand.

I was reminded of all of this talking with Aaron Strout, VP, Social Media, Mzinga, a maestro of personal branding, who understands that it’s no longer enough just to have a corporate or professional brand; you also need to have a personal brand.

“People don’t want to have a conversation with a coke bottle,” says Strout, quoting social media guru Shel Israel.

Strout makes the spot on point that companies have mastered just half of the branding equation. Most get high marks on the content side, skillfully using white papers, conference calls and webinars. Where they fall short, according to Strout, is on the conversation side. “Most companies are not yet good at engaging customers,” he says. “They don’t make themselves accessible or human, let alone making it easy for people to interact.

Or as Rohit Bhargava put it in his insightful book, Personality Not Included, “Personality is the unique, authentic and talkable sould of your brand that people can get passionate about.”

Of course, you can’t be personable and accessible in a vacuum. For companies and individuals to create living and breathing brands, Strout underscores the importance of using multi-channel communications. That means establishing a real presence on YouTube, Flickr Picasso, Twitter, and Utterz for starters.

“The more you can reinforce your personality across personal and professional channels, the more people know you and get closer to you,” says Strout, who practices what he preaches penning a personal blog, along with a company blog.

How are you establishing your personal brand across multi-channels? I’d love to hear from you.

Wendy Marx, PR and Personal Branding Specialist, Marx Communications, Inc.

tag technorati: apple, careers, public relations, networking, marketing, personal branding, branding, Sarah Palin, Mzinga, Barack Obama, Aaron Strout

08:38 am | 0 recommendations | Be the first to comment

Carreers: How to Improve Your Social Media IQ (reposting)

This was posted prevously but because of the vagaries of technology was formatted incorrectly and I thought it was worth reposting correctly.

 

I'm live blogging today at a BullDog Reporter bootcamp with social media pros Sally Falkow and Doug Hay of Expansion+. Hmm. Well actually this series of posts began as a live blog. However, when I reread what I wrote I realized I needed to hang up my live blogging shingle. So here is an edited version, which I hope is a little clearer. In any case, hats off to folks who can live blog coherently while they are participating in a conference.

The Bulldog workshop is to help public relations pros get up to speed on social media. Most of the 60 or attendees were women, which shouldn't be surprising since public relations is a female-dominated field. Now, why that's the case, could be the subject of an article or book, let alone a post. Meanwhile, back to the workshop. I

t kicked off with a great definition of a social media campaign: **A successful social media campaign must establish and sustain conversations online that shape perceptions.**

Sally and Doug then laid out how, in case anyone had blinders on, that it is becoming a social media-driven world.

• 1 out of 20 users go to a social network when they go online. And 22 percent of US consumers use social networking sites, up from 17 percent in 2006.

• The old media world is shriveling: consider the LA Times recently laid off 250 folks; the Baltimore Sun and The New York Times each terminated 100 employees.

• The PR dynamic has changed from Push PR to Pull PR. Instead of thrusting press releases into media's hands with the hope that they will write something, PR people need to write copy that naturally pulls people in. Interestingly, we actually have more control today than in the old days.

Think about it for a minute. If you ever sent out a press release, pre-Web 2.0, you never knew if it would see the light of day. While today, if you send out a press release through a press release distribution service, you know it will end up on Yahoo News and Google. Similarly, PR people need to recognize that the goal posts have changed. Instead of just aiming for The New York Times or any traditional media to write about you or your company, you need to get into the search engines.

Google, as Sally put it, has become the new home page. It's where anyone looking for a product or service typically begins. And, to insure you're on Google -- and high up, not in the low rent back pages, you need to optimize your press releases with the right keywords. More about that in Part Two.

Meanwhile, if you want to start promoting yourself online, here are a few steps:

• Step Number One, according to Sally, is to listen. All the rules of polite conversation apply. Sounds simple but how many people start spouting without engaging. •

Step Number Two, Uncover what communities you should target. Get to know the power users of those communities.

Wendy Marx, Personal Branding and PR Specialist, Marx Communications

tag technorati: self-promotion, careers, public-relations, personal branding, personal brand, branding, social media

07:48 am | 1 recommendation | Be the first to comment

Careers: How to Improve Your Social Media IQ: Part Two

I'm continuing to live blog -- well as I confessed in Part One -- edit my rambling live blogging at last week's BullDog Reporter bootcamp with social media pros Sally Falkow and Doug Hay of Expansion+. As I mentioned, I have no talent for participating in a workshop and blogging at the same time -- call me multi-tasking-disabled.

Sally and Doug, besides being social media experts extraordinaire, are wonderful teachers and evangelists. Any PR person listening to them and still doing PR the old way should be immediately condemned to reading boring press releases for the rest of his/her life.

If you are still exclusively focused on traditional media in getting the word out, consider that the Number One Financial News Sites is Yahoo Finance, and the Number Two, MSN Money. These rank above traditional media sites, Dow Jones, Reuters and Forbes.com, Number 5, 6, and 7 respectively.

Beginning a social media campaign can be daunting if you've never done it before. Sally and Doug laid out a helpful roadmap:

• Use blog(s) and website to help participate in existing web conversations
• Identify as much social media exposure as possible, on as many appropriate niche and high-traffic areas
• Find online communities to establish alliances and help spread the word.
• Provide those interested with current, relevant information that's valuable to them.
• Provide dialogue capabilities with customers and prospects.
• Enhance branding and positioning.
• Identify influential bloggers/user communities
• Create a linking strategy to increase SEO results
• Generate prospect interest leading to increased sales

Here is Doug and Sally's Rule Number One: You really need to be listening. The recent "brandjacking" of Exxon Mobil is an object lesson. The oil giant was "brandjacked" by a woman named "Janet," who has been tweeting about the company while claiming to be an Exxon employee. Meanwhile, Exxon claims it has nothing to do with this and that it had no idea it was occurring until brought to its attention by a newspaper reporter. What a shame. Instead of using this as a great opportunity to embrace social media itself -- why not start tweeting itself? -- Exxon is apparently remaining on the sidelines. Meanwhile, Janet continues to post. Talk about an old media response to a new media problem.

In the new age of unending conversation, it's important to remember that everyone is a publisher. All you need is engaging content and a little social media savvy. Here are some ways to promote yourself and/or company online:

• Optimized press releases & articles
• Blogs
• Micro blogging (Twitter)
• Podcasts
• Videocasts
• RSS
• Socialize your web content -- let people tag it in sites like Delicious.
• Social Networks
• Social Media Sites

If you're intent on monitoring the social media space, here are some tools (most are not free) to help you do so:

• Radian6
• BrandsEye
• BlogPulse
• BuzzLogic

If there’s any major mantra for social media practitioners, it’s “Don't sell them, tell them.” Video is a great way to do that. Check out Intercontinental Hotels, which has done a super job telling their story through video, according to Sally.

And here's a great resource for social networking sites. What are your thoughts/recommendations on social media and promotion? I'd love to hear from you.

Wendy Marx, Personal Branding & PR Specialist, Marx Communications

tag technorati: apple, careers, public-relations, networking, marketing, personal branding, branding, social media,expansion+

08:18 am | 2 recommendations | Be the first to comment

Careers: Personal Branding Warrior

When most of us lose our job, we don’t uncork the champagne. But when Lewis Green was laid off from his VP of marketing job six years ago, he and his wife didn’t waste a moment to start celebrating.

Meet Lewis Green, a communications specialist and self-described “adventurer,” who over the course of a 40+ career, has worked as an executive editor, publisher, free-lance writer, and communications manager for big companies. For the last 4+ years, he’s run L-G Solutions, an Avon, CT-based communications company that helps small- to mid-size businesses grow.

I recently had the good fortune to chat with Lewis, whom I connected with thanks to positive WOM for a presentation he gave at a Connecticut networking function.

At age 62, Lewis is a game changer and maverick who has strategically made a name for himself online, unlike many of his fellow baby boomers who are still struggling to “get it.”

In the last year alone, his communications business has grown 60% through his strategic use of social media. Lewis blogs for Marketing Profs and at his own blog, Biz Solutions Plus, which in one year has become an Ad Age Top 150 blog.

Along the way he has managed to write five books, with his latest, Lead With Your Heart, published in November 2007.

He has also passionately embraced social media, working Twitter, Plurk and LinkedIn like a virtuoso, and in the process developing many online friends, who have turned into business associates and terrestrial friends.

Most of all Lewis has the right attitude. Where many of us fear change, Lewis welcomes it, which is why he was able to view losing his job as an “opportunity to do something bigger and better.”

All of which made me think of the classic line from Don Juan in Carlos Casteneda’s A Separate Peace.

"The difference between a warrior and an ordinary man is that a warrior sees everything as a challenge, while an ordinary mans sees everything as either a blessing or a curse.”

Here is Lewis’advice to help us become warriors:

• “Recognize that people don’t buy products or services. They buy us. They want to buy from people who are credible and who can be trusted.”

• “We must realize that our first and last job is to put people first.”

• “We differentiate ourselves by creating great experiences for our employees and customers.”

Wendy Marx, Personal Branding and PR Specialist, Marx Communications

tag technorati: self promotion, careers, public relations, personal branding, personal brand, branding, lewis green,