So a few months have passed since my training at VCU BrandCenter, and I’m still sorting through all of my experiences I had there. It was a whirlwind tour of zealots, speakers, advice and homework. But I did learn one very important lesson. Documenting it here will help me define a very important detail about Launch Interactive.

The first night was the welcome reception. We all moved in small shifting pods of handshakes and introductions. As I made my way through nametags and small talk, I noticed a trend. You were no longer a name or from an agency. You were a representaton of the brands you worked on. So here I was in a room full of Chevy, Lexus, Frito Lay and Phillip Morris. Needless to say, I was a little humbled.

But over and over I introduced myself as the brands that no one knew. I found myself strangely uncomfortable about these new personifications. And I was ashamed that I was feeling somewhat less important. Why was I feeling this when I really share a personal connection with the brands I take care of?  I mean, I own four  STIHL power tools, and all family picnics have historically included Taste Unlimited’s sandwiches? Regardless of their public recognition, I carry a large amount of pride and ownership in the brands I work on. They are like family to me. So I truly felt like I had let my team, clients, and brands down. I was entrusted to care for and nurture, and although I did love them, I didn’t hold them up when faced with some of the other brands. I was a horrible babysitter and  Creative Director.

But I had a revelation a few days later.  Over and over my new cadre revealed insights on their struggles with babysitting the brand kings and queens. It seems that the larger the cultural impact and esteem, the larger the gap. They knew their brands and studied them, but rarely had the opportunity to interact with them on a more personal level. There voices were filtered through a line of upper managment. Regardless of the hours they put in, or the ideas they came up with, they were always on the other side of the red carpet.

It was from that moment on that I realized that the brands I took care should have just as much cultural impact because I believed in them. My fame and glory will never come from brand dropping, but from building the success of the brands who might be getting lost in the shuffle. Launch is a small agency, and we don’t always take care of the “popular” brands. But that’s who we are. We are the caretakers to every client that we have. And every member of our team works every day on building relationships and partnerships. There are no dividing lines or filters of management.

We are a personification of our clients and their brands.

Check out this sneak peak of the video we are shooting for The Roosevelt Hotel - New York, featuring comedian Frankie Hudak.

Think of all of the friends and family you have. Chances are you know interesting details about them and even play a character in their life story. We all share common interests, belief systems, and experiences. These are all pulled together into small historical snippets that we associate with every person we know.  The more information we can store, the closer we are to determining an opinion about them.

This same phenomenon happens with brands. The rules of marketing are changing at a rapid pace, and you’d better get your story straight if you want to survive. It used to be true that you had a good amount of control over the perception and the story. But in the digital shift, you don’t own your reputation. Do you really know what people are really saying about you? It’s your current, past and future consumers that have the helm. Terrifying thought? Not if you have a solid foundation and awareness. This is the perfect time to get back to basics and trim, sculpt and preen your brand.

So what makes a good story? Let’s think cave paintings. Some believe these prehistoric scribbles document the first records of visual communication. Several are similar in theme and tell a very clear story - Man hunts animal. What would your company’s cave painting be? I’m not talking mission statements here. I’m talking bones, foundations, and guts. What is your history? How do you survive? In a line up, how would you stand out? In most cases, companies THINK they know the answers, but reality is, they don’t.

So you really need to do some soul searching - several souls actually. It’s true the saying “There always two sides to a story”. In order to really examine your brand, you have to find out several sides - and directions. If you are a large company, you can invest a good budget into research. If you are a smaller company with smaller resources, you can do your own legwork. The below exercise is a good place to start.

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The weather was beautiful this past weekend, so on Sunday, my daughters (ages 8 and 6) and a friend decided to set up a lemonade stand on the sidewalk in front of our house.  I was all for this activity, so that they would stay outside and keep busy.  While they made signs, I ran to the store and bought cups, Country Time lemonade mix and ice. It was fun to watch my daughter and her friend sort out how to best arrange the table, where to put the ice, how to hang the signs, where to keep the money, etc. It reminded me of two business owners who wanted to make their mark on the business and end up squabbling over the little things.

What these girls really needed to focus on was drumming up some business and getting people to BUY their lemonade!  By the time they were set up it was after 3:00 and the pedestrian and bike activity on the street was dying down.  I explained to the girls that they couldn’t just sit there and wait for people to come to them — they needed to do some advertising to let people know about the lemonade stand.

So they made a some flyers and my daughter’s friend “Kate” had the idea of riding bikes around the neighborhood telling people to come by. “That’s great!” I said, “but make sure someone stays here to watch the stand in case a customer comes by.” Of course the six year old was left behind to conduct the real business, while my 8 year old and Kate rode off on their bikes. They came back shortly, and needed some lemonade — I said, “Don’t drink all of your product, or you won’t make any money.”

“We’re not,” said Kate, “we found some customers and we need to take them some lemonade.” Kate had determined the best way to get people to buy the product was to knock on doors. Which they did and actually sold lemonade door to door. While I’m not a big fan of door-to-door sales, this strategy seemed to be working for them. I made a few calls to neighbors and eventually some people made their way to the lemonade stand and the girls made a total of $6.75. Not bad.

As I reflected on the day, I realized my children had learned a good lesson that Sunday afternoon, a lesson many business owners struggle with. You can have a great product and a great location, but unless you market your product/service, what’s the point? You can’t wait around for customers to come to you. You can’t even shout your message out and expect people to hear it. You need to take the product to the customer. You need to make it convenient for your customer and you need to focus on SELLING your product to make money.

Next business lesson for my daughters: paying your suppliers for your product.

Starbucks has moved to the top of the “most popular brand” position ahead of Coca-Cola on Facebook – 3.8 million fans total. Brandweek recently did a great interview with Starbucks’ digital strategy director outlining how they gained their success and how they are using the information they receive to build a brand following. Taking from this and applying to your own brand is (of course) more difficult – but I think there are some real key items to take away from Starbucks’ success.

1)    Not Limited to Just Facebook
While Facebook has proved to be a great tool for Starbucks, their social media strategy doesn’t end there. They have a blog that incorporates ideas from customers, encourages voting, and actually shows how they are listening and changing the way they do things. Social marketing is only as effective if you actually take the time to listen to what your customers are saying. Pushing out a message and doing it because it’s the next big thing doesn’t cut it. Listen. Engage with your customers. Change you way of thinking.

2)    Meaningful Content is Key
It’s been said over and over but meaningful content is key with social marketing. Don’t just tell your consumers things because it’s scheduled and it makes you look like you’re engaging – give them key tips and information they can actually use.  Promoting yourself constantly will not only make them weary, but might even be more hurtful than helpful.  Use your blog to share news with your customers, use Facebook to offer deals and promotions, use Twitter for customer service or to answer questions. Social marketing is making your brand accessible to the public – it should make your customers feel as if they have a voice and that you, as the company, are listening.

3)    Twitter is a Great Q&A Tool
We all know and are aware of the Twitter explosion that happened this year.  From my personal point of view, the best use of Twitter for companies is customer service.  I’m a consumer and I have a question – instead of trying to search through billions of FAQs on a corporate site, wouldn’t it be great to type my question in 140 characters and receive an answer back? Let’s be honest – there are always going to be complainers in the world of customer service. Why not show them you’re listening and take an active approach to converting complainers into customers?  Best Buy has a great example of this. It’s innovative, direct, and to its core is the best use of social “marketing” on Twitter.

4)    Address the Public Perception
There is a vast public perception about every brand you can think of. While some companies don’t necessarily like to address the public perception, I think it’s a good talking point in your social media efforts. For example, public perception of Starbucks is that their coffee is way too expensive and they don’t give their coffee farmers enough compensation per cup. What does Starbucks do to change this way of thinking? They use social media platforms to share their story about AIDS research in their coffee origin locations and post tips and tricks on how to save a buck at your local store. Addressing the public perception shows consumers first, you know what it is and second, you acknowledge and listen to what they have to say and may even do something about it.

I don’t care how great the design is, I immediately hate a web site that misuses the title tag or uses a valuable home page space to say “Welcome” or worse.

Title tags are perhaps the single most important SEO element of a page.  If you get them wrong, you can kiss a top ranking in Google goodbye.

Page content has to have a point - and has to get to the point quickly - in order to bring visitors into your site and the narrative created to promote your goods, services, and people.

Which is why I hate barren homepages. I hate the waste. I hate the misuse of opportunity. I wonder who’s behind it. Did they accept payment for their work?

So what’s the right way to say welcome through site content? (I’ll get to title tags in a moment.)

• Provide facts, not adjectives
• Make a clearly communicated value statement on every page
• Have a simple, streamlined and functioning shopping cart
• Create page content, from title tag to page footer, that adds to understanding, rather than confusion

Give visitors value with clearly signed paths to your services, products and information.

Title tags are a little easier. After all, they’re usually just five to fifteen words that describe simply and specifically what you’re selling. They have to have substance and be relevant to revenue or visitor experience metrics.

Here are three quick examples of title tags. They’re written for a hypothetical plastic surgeon’s web site.

1. Look and Feel Fabulous! Welcome to our official practice website!
Title No. 1 has zero value to human visitors and to search engine bots. These ten words don’t say anything at all. No one searches for these things. And, even if someone has your URL and finds your page, they don’t tell them anything about you.

2. Marion Schwarzberg, MD - Cosmetic Plastic Surgery in Palm Beach
Title No. 2 takes a giant leap and improves on No. 1 by using the key phrases that bring traffic to a medical specialist’s site - physician name, surgical specialty, and location.

3. Breast Implants, Liposuction & Face Lifts by Palm Beach Cosmetic Surgeon Marion Schwarzberg, MD, FACS
No. 3 improves upon No. 2 by listing specific plastic surgery procedures by the names customers call them. In Google search results, the title will display as the actual text link to your page. So, a well written title tag improves the chances that your site will rank for specific key phrases, and it also could influence a search user to click through to your site, and not to one of the other nine sites that are shown on the search results page.

A word about using jargon or medical or technical speak when trying to reach your customer.

To a surgeon, augmentation mammaplasty is the right way to say breast implant. But the customer is in charge here - and the customer searches for “breast implants.”

Apply this principle to your own title tags. Use Google Analytics or Google Adwords to check how customers search for you. Use customer centric key phrases in your title tag.

Key points to remember about title tags. Ditch the adjectives. Be clear and concise. Create title tags that are appropriate to different pages on your site, and the content that is specific to those pages.

Remember. Nobody googles the word “welcome.”

It was only a matter of time before Facebook developed its own… currency? Yes, it’s true. Announced last Friday at the Social Good Conference, marketing and outreach director Randi Zukerberg explained how Facebook would open its new “credits” platform to four non-profit groups: Project Red, Toms Shoes, Kiva, and the World Wildlife Fund. These non-profits join the four other companies who have already started using this platform last week: American Greetings, GreetBeatz, Someecards, and Real Gifts.

The idea is to sell virtual gifts and allow users to test out socnet’s new “Pay with Facebook” virtual currency. Socnet has been testing this platform since June, and as of late July 1-800-Flowers made it possible for users to send flowers through Facebook. The main goal though, is to make is easier for these users to make purchases in turn causing vendors and Facebook to make money off of these purchases. In addition, making a payment system that is more global e-commerce friendly.

The new system will be in full effect next week.