DISQUS

I maintain several brands with personal connections. I have only recently begun branding my name as part of a personal brand strategy. However each of my businesses have their own unique and separate brands.

Our agency, as a collective, is very competent, creative and experienced in credit union marketing. That is our brand. "Andermahr & Company - The Credit Union Marketing Agency".

My personal brand is more laid back. I want people to know that I am here to help, I am approachable, I have experience and a track record of internet marketing, social media and consumer advocacy. These are all good things for my company to be known for - but sometimes I can be a little irreverent. I don't want my personal brand to overlap the company brand and vice-versa. Basically, I don't want to be a dork and have people think that the company is dorky too.

The other benefit to running separate and parallel brands is that if my brand is solid, and the company brand is solid it makes a sale easier or I get extra credibility. Plus it allows me to align my personal brand to another endeavor without compromising my company brand.

Those are my thoughts

Ok, here is my cast

Ginger - Alicia Witt (or Marcia Cross if you think Ginger should be older)
Mary Anne - Rachel Bilson (maybe Amanda Bynes)
Mr Howell - Leslie Nielsen (could be a role that he wouldnt suck in - maybe)
Lovey - Holland Taylor (From two and a half men)
Professor - Hugh Laurie (The Professor was always the straight man. My first thought was Anderson Cooper but he isnt much of an actor.)
Gilligan - Andy Samberg (maybe DJ Qualls if you like your gilligan extra geeky or Michael Cera if you like him young)
The Skipper - David Koechner (Maybe Jim Belushi)

But the question is... who would be the surprise celebrity guest? I hear the Harlem Globetrotters have an opening on their schedule.

Wow, I was pretty grumpy the day I posted that.

Facebook is trying to generate more income by courting sponsers and advertisers. Those third party applications do have ads and yes, they do irritate me.

I am sure that there is a backend income model to facebook that we might not know about - so I doubt that their hands are clean. Much the way that Craigslist charges for certain kinds of posts (jobs and realestate in certain markets). Some people have to pay so that others may enjoy.

As for the whole social media/marketing tool debate.

Marketers will use any popular emerging trend as a way to promote their clients. It was marketers who created the X-Games because so many people were participating in skating and motorcross etc. Wherever people congregate, marketers will follow with pen and pad in hand.

For the same reason men go to bars on "Ladies Noght". They are just going where they have the best odds of "Getting Lucky".

@Charlie

You are right, social media is a communication medium. But so is marketing. In that way they are related.

I run several blogs (technically considered social media). I also run several businesses. I rarely promote the businesses on the blogs. When I do it, it is usually because it is relevent to the discussion. I do it to illustrate the origin of a point of view or something like that.

I think you are a bit hard on facebook and myspace. They provide a service that is free for the users. Someone has to pay for the bandwidth, upgrades, innovation and maintenance - big, evil, invasive advertisers do this. You could always write myspace a check every month. I am sure that they would be happy to charge everyone for the service and remove the ads from your page.

If you dont want to write them a check, then deal with the ads. You may hate the parasites but they also create jobs and help to facilitate the creation of the sites you like to visit. You can consider them a necessary evil or a tolerable pest.

As for me... I hate bees but I love honey. I guess I can put up with the stings to get the good stuff.

Wow, it really would have been better i they had not said anything at all.

Now Target has incredible market share and probably do not NEED to deal with bloggers, there are blogs ou there that get more hits, views and subscribers than the San Fran Chronicle. However I doubt they would slam the good old Chron (I am thinking Consumerist for one example).

As for their PR department, being in marketing myself I can tell you that it took just as much energy to write "We don't talk to snotty and insignificant bloggers" as it would have "Thank you for bringing that to our attention. We will forward this to Marketing with your contact information. Thank you for being a Target customer." It admitted no malice and showed that all complaints will be directed to the appropriate people.

Even if nothing came of it, it would be marked as "Target had not responded directly to our questions as of yet."

Then again it may have been just as relevent for Target to say "We appreciate you advertising our stores for free on your web site. We will be happy to continue to produce sexually ambiguous ads in hopes that you will continue to draw attention to them."

:)