How to Create a Powerful Brand Story

Ongoing learning is critical these days, and I spend a couple of hours each week taking workshops and attending seminars/webinars from people I trust to keep me current and informed.

One of those companies is iStock.com. I buy most of my stock images from them, and rely on their website articles and webinars to stay current on the use of images in marketing and branding.  Their recent webinar on The Yin and Yang of Powerful Brand Stories was simply great. You can watch it also and learn "how to get your brand noticed using strong words and images together to create a consistent and compelling brand story."

It's hosted by the Head of Creative Planning at iStock, Rebecca Swift and the former VP of Brand for Virgin and Founder/CEO of BrandTwist, Julie Cottineau. They know their stuff, and I learned a lot. Whether you just post on Facebook occasionally or you have a long-term strategy for marketing your business, you will greatly benefit from this presentation. Oh, and it's free (and I don't get anything by recommending them, I just think they are stellar).

You will get:

• Tips and tools to help you create a cohesive brand identity.
• Info on how to combine your visual and verbal identities into one.
• Knowledge on how to identify your "brand tone" and why it's important.
• Skills to achieve word/image balance and make sure they are in sync.
• Knowledge on how to fix gaps between your promise and the experience.
• Examples of brands who have mastered it.
• Skills to search smarter for images, and how to decide which of your own images are best for you to use.

Duplicated Effort Makes Me C-R-A-Z-Y

I love our clients and the work we do for them. What I do NOT love having to set up a blog post and then recreate the same thing for our newsletter all over again. It makes me c-r-a-z-y.

Fortunately, I don't have to do that any more and neither do our clients who use the same system we now use (which is more every day, they love it).

With MailChimp's* "RSS-to-Email" feature I set up and schedule my blog posts (on my Squarespace website, natch) and when the blog post goes live (at the day/time I specify) the website sends it to my social media accounts. Then, a few hours later, MailChimp searches for any new blog posts on our website (on the schedule I tell it to), grabs them, drops them into our newsletter format, and sends out a newsletter.  Awesome. The image here is of our template. See the part with the RSS code? That's where the blog post gets dropped in. The other parts get changed whenever we want, or not.

Bonus: We can take a few days off and it all runs automatically.

It's also great because some people prefer to get news via email instead of having to check blogs or use an RSS reader. Win-win.

There are tons of other great features in MailChimp, check them out here.

If you have questions or need help getting it all set up let us know. Your mileage may vary depending on your website platform and your blog. We use Squarespace for almost all our website design. Absolutely awesome company. See our handiwork here.

* I don't get anything for loving MailChimp, they're just a great company and want you to know about them.

The Creative Life - What a Ride!

One of my favorite quotes:

I couldn't agree more. And for those of you who may not see the image above on your mobile device:

"Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather a skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming "Wow! What a Ride!.'" ~Hunter S. Thompson