denise lee yohn: brand as business bites™ /

This month I’m honored to feature an interview with Michael Tchong.  Michael is a trend analyst who shares with his audiences insights into the present and future which can fuel breakthrough innovation.  Ever since I met Michael at a CMO Council summit a couple of years ago, I have enjoyed learning from him and really value his perspectives.

In our talk, Michael shares about the trends taking shape which are characterized by consumers’ TBD (too busy disorder) and DWT (driving while texting — the “new DWI”) and how marketers are rendering themselves control-less — but there are countless opportunities for marketers to reinvent themselves and their categories if they are willing to listen to consumers and put their minds to it.

On his site, Ubercool you can learn more about Michael and get a sneak peak at his new book, Social Engagement Marketing, which is due out this summer. Also be sure to check out his blog, Ubertrends .

Enjoy this inspirational and provocative interview!

Listen to this post as a podcast:

Right-click here to download the podcast

other interviews:

• jeanne bliss on beloved companies
• scott goodson on cultural movements
• ben mcconnell on employees as brand evangelists
• andy beal on the social web and brand-building

Andy Beal, an internet marketing consultant, award-winning blogger, professional speaker, and co-author of the critically-acclaimed book Radically Transparent: Monitoring & Managing Reputations Online, was kind enough to share a few moments with me earlier this week. 

Our talk covers topics like:

• how the social web is changing search
• the difference between brand and online reputation management
• noteworthy points about marketers and this year’s Super Bowl

We also discuss a cool company Andy founded, Trackur.  Trackur is an online reputation monitoring service that tracks what is said about you on the internet. Trackur scans hundreds of millions of web pages–including news, blogs, video, images, and forums–and lets you know if it discovers anything that matches the keywords you’ve indicated.  Fortune 500 companies, as well as small businesses, agencies, PR firms, etc. currently use Trackur as their “reputation guardian” and I think we’ll see even more uses and applications of the service going forward.  Check it out here.

You can reach Andy through his website:  www.andybeal.com .

I enjoyed talking shop with Andy and hope you enjoy listening in our conversation in the podcast below.

Listen to this post as a podcast:

Right-click here to download the podcast

Right before the holidays, MarketingSherpa released its “2010 Social Media Marketing Benchmark Report.”  The report indicated that “improving brand or product reputation” and “increasing brand or product awareness” did not rank highly in the list of social media objectives targeted and measured by U.S. marketers.  This confirms my own findings that companies are overlooking the importance of using social media tools for strategic, proactive brand-building. (more…)

Happy New Year! I hope you had a great holiday and you are as excited as I am about kicking off 2010!

After the long hard haul of 2009, I’m eager to see business get off to a fresh start this year. It’s impossible to know exactly what the New Year will bring, but I’m confident more attention will be paid to brands and brand-building.  That’s because there are at least three key areas that I see brands having an immediate and significant impact in: (more…)

The following is a guest post from Dan Phillips, the co-founder of Skybend, a design and brand company focused on helping businesses navigate the gauntlet of electronic media. A classically trained artist turned graphics designer turned entrepreneur, Dan brings his unique perspective to branding efforts for businesses around the country. Contact Dan through his website at http://skybend.com or on Twitter via @ruqus.

Today I heard a story about the immediate impact of Twitter, or Twitimpact (that’s right you read it here first, Twitimpact). The story goes like this: (more…)

This is one in a series of posts about brands have failed to live up to their potential — from Jonathan Salem Baskin, author of Branding Only Works on Cattle, the “dim bulb” blog, and Ad Age/CMO Strategy column.  (more…)

Before we quickly toss aside 2008 with the carelessness due a former lover, I thought it might be enlightening to look back on the predictions that were made at this time last year — (more…)

Here’s another download from last week’s Digital Symposium which I spoke at and attended (see express vs. operationalize for a synopsis of my talk) — this is from Mike Moran‘s presentation.

Mike is the (more…)

Yesterday while attending Richmond Event’s Digital Symposium for a speaking engagement (see express vs. operationalize), I had the opportunity to (more…)