What’s Your Credibility Factor?

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As part of my series of guest posts from colleagues here is contribution from Kim Foley, president of Professional Image Strategies. Kim teaches credibility workshops for organizations, as well as being a television stylist and author. In a world filled with casual Friday attire, I though she could shed some light on the relationship between branding and credibility.

Everyday my challenge is to help my clients be seen as the credible experts they are. Whether my client is on the cover of a magazine or professional journal, being interviewed on television, or executing a presentation or speech, it is critical that their visual message supports and enhances their verbal message. Think about it – have you ever been watching a TV interview and wondered, “Where in the heck did they dig this person up?”

Your credentials and reputation are only part of the story when it comes to credibility and branding. It is far too easy to dismiss those who do not conform to the picture we carry in our heads of a credible person. All societies and tribes have cultural, unspoken rules about what communicates integrity, and garners trust from those around us. Everyday we all have the opportunity to either enhance or to sabotage our personal brand. The hard truth is – it is impossible to inspire or persuade others if they do not see us as having credibility.

The fight or flight reaction is still part of our primal response. The result of this response in modern times is to either confront or disengage from those whom we do not trust. Everyday in the workplace there are lost opportunities and derailed dreams all because of a person’s credibility. Those with questionable credibility will not get the job promotion they are seeking; those running for office will not get elected; and those trying to sell, persuade or lead will be left feeling confused about why they are powerless.

So how do you assess your own credibility factor, or the credibility factor of those who are representing your organization? Here are some questions to ask yourself:

  1. What is driving your ‘look’? Is it style? Comfort? Or is it (as it should be) credibility. Successful people are intentional about their choice of clothes, shoes, hairstyle and accessories, and credibility is their motivator.
  2. What are the cultural expectations for your profession or position? When you are introduced to a person of influence, do you fit their view of what a “_____” should look like? Is your look too casual? Is your wardrobe up to date?
  3. Do you understand the subliminal statements of color? Everything from the color of your tie to the color of your organization’s logo should be chosen with care. They are making impressions on the minds of those you meet, visit your websites and receive your brochures. What is the message you want to communicate? Is it strength and power? Is it reliability and trust? The color and design you choose will either support or negate that message.
  4. Do you know what your clothing is saying? Your outward appearance is like the frame on an artist’s masterpiece. It should be complementary, without distracting the eye of the viewer. You want them to remember you, not what you were wearing. Your visual message must support your verbal message.

The assumptions that people make about us when we are first introduced are critically important. These assumptions, or stories, that are constructed in people’s minds, strongly influence whom they do business with, whom they take seriously and whom they desire to build a relationship with. We need to take control of that story. We need to carefully craft the message that we project.

If we want people to perceive us as a person or an organization of value and integrity, someone they can trust, then we need to understand the value of appearance when we are planning and implementing branding. When we don’t take the time and effort to create the visuals that match the message we desire to portray, we make a subliminal statement to everyone around us about how little value we place on ourselves and the organization that we represent.  When we acknowledge the role appearance plays, we can support our personal and professional brand.

–Kim Foley

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The Metrics of You: Can We Really Measure Social Influence?

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Generations of social scientists have measured “social influence”—often in connection with studies of public health and education in underserved communities.  Now this term is being bandied about by social media mavens.  With new sites like Klout and Peerindex, along with the older Twitalyzer and a host of other metrics measurement tools, we’re told that each of us can be represented by a number. That number supposedly tells just how many people we reach and whose decisions we influence.  Online, that is.

I’m sure these tools are useful for those who embrace social media as a full-time pursuit, whether as part of their jobs or for personal connectivity, or both.  But I’m a skeptic.  What kind of scores are you going to get for Barack Obama, who’s not even allowed to use a Blackberry? What about Warren Buffet? Recently International Business Times came up with  its list of the Most Influential Women in the world. There are some influencers on the list whom I’m sure have high scores—Lady Gaga and Oprah being two of them (although how much of their own typing on social media they actually do is arguable). But topping the list is Michelle Obama, who presumably is under the same Secret Service orders as her husband to stay off the internet. Also on there: German Chancellor Angela Merkel, CEO of Pepsico Indra Nooyi, and Burmese Democracy activist Aung San Suu Kyi.  These women are changing the world, but probably score pretty low as influencers on social media.

To argue with myself a moment–blogger’s perogative!–major pro-democracy movements such as the one Suu Kyi has led have taken to social media as an agent of change.  Arguably even if she doesn’t register a number on social media (she’s spent a large part of her life imprisoned), her followers may be there. Arguing back to myself, no they aren’t. Burma’s population isn’t as well-educated as their pro-democracy counterparts in Egypt.  Out 60 million citizens, only about 400,000 use the internet (Foreign Policy Association).  So they’re being influenced in other ways not measurable through social media metrics.

My point is these personal metrics numbers are just getting started.  I’m not saying in certain instances they aren’t useful as part of a larger scheme of metrics. But right now I think they’re a long way from measuring true influence.  So, for those who remember The Prisoner TV series (oldsters, you know who you are), I feel confident in shouting “I am not a number!”

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Pay Attention to Your Employment Brand

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It’s easy to forget that your Employment Brand matters. But it affects your overall brand perception significantly. How people perceive your organization as an employer affects staff morale, customer service, and your ability to achieve results. Companies like Walmart learned quickly back in 2005, when their poor healthcare coverage was revealed, that they ignored employee needs at the peril of their brand. In addition to health coverage, your employment brand includes policies like flex-time and maternity/paternity/parental care leave.

And the impact of the choices you make towards employees extends beyond them to their family members–your company’s extended family.  I worked with a 50-year-old corporation on a branding and marketing project, and as part of the process polled and interviewed many of the staff. One of the founders shared his concern that the company was losing its reputation as family-friendly. He recalled how they used to invite families to an annual picnic, go to ballgames together, and invite the wives (back then!) to special company dinners and recognition events.  He acknowledged the firm needed to find new ways to involve families. I pointed out the firm could become more family-friendly by also acknowledging its people needed time away from the company.

With a Blackberry in every pocket, setting boundaries that allow employees to have “off limits” time is difficult, but in my view essential to creating a positive employment brand. But let’s face it: when you burn people out, they don’t perform at their best for you or your customers.  Calvert Investments has repeatedly won awards as a great place to work largely because it supports work-life balance and good health for its team. Some of their non-traditional benefits include paying 100% towards health club membership, paying 100% towards public transportation, helping employees pay for a bike or walking shoes if they use them to get to work, paid parental leave—to see school plays, chaperone a field trip, etc.

So what can you do to ensure that you create a culture of a great employer?

  • Focus on your mission and let staff do the same. Empl0yees get very frustrated when they are side-tracked from job goals by things like excessive meetings or unproductive reviews.
  • Offer routes to advancement and professional development. People need to feel they can improve and learn.
  • Offer feedback loops. If staff get additional training or educational experiences, give them the opportunity to share back to the group.
  • Consider non-traditional benefits that don’t cost a lot but encourage good behaviors–time to work out, time to volunteer in the community.
  • Consider how much time “on” you are really expecting from employees and assess staffing. If you’re expecting one person to respond to customers 16 hours a day, that job probably needs to be split up among more people.
  • Assess what flex-time and telecommuting options you can offer that reduce employee stress and time on crowded roads.
  • Look at the companies that repeatedly win top employer awards and see how they have developed a positive employment culture

An often overlooked component of employment brand is the perception of your company from the outside–from those applying for jobs. A job applicant today could be a staff leader tomorrow. Or a customer.  Or a donor or volunteer. Except when that person is completely turned off by your job application process. Today, job applicants are faced with a “buyer’s market.”  So employers may think it’s acceptable to not be responsive to applicants. I have a friend who’s an executive and has been in the job market for many months and it’s shocking how many corporations have had high level managers interview her face to face as a finalist for a job, but then not made the effort to even send an email if she is not selected.  Don’t think that I’m not influenced by this treatment when I consider doing business with these entities.

What should you consider about  your job application process as it relates to your brand?

  • Who is receiving applications and responding to applicants? This person is now the “face” of your organization. Make it clear they should be courteous and prompt in their responses.
  • What is the process by which you notify applicants you have received their application? At a minimum, send applicants a brief, polite email acknowledging the application. This will save time and frustration handling phone calls.
  • What is the timeline for your process? Let applicants know what to expect.
  • If an applicant doesn’t succeed, you should notify them–again a brief email will do.

These aren’t difficult steps, but they can make a difference in how well your company competes in the marketplace–both for excellent employees and for satisfied customers.

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Two Words to Remember When it Comes to Crisis PR: Be Prepared

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Periodically, I offer guest posts by colleagues.  Here’s one on crisis communications by Evan Nierman, founder of Red Banyan Group, a public relations and crisis management firm that provides integrated strategic communications counsel to organizations and individuals across a variety of industries.

The famous motto of the Boy Scouts is “be prepared.”  It’s good advice for everyone, but especially for companies looking to avoid dealing with a crisis that could damage their reputation and impact the bottom line.

In this day and age, thanks in part to a 24-hour news cycle and the way social media enables stories (especially negative ones) to spread like wildfire, it is more important than ever that organizations be prepared to face the inevitable crisis which could be just around the corner.  There is no reason to wait for a full-blown crisis to erupt–by the time trouble strikes it is almost too late.

Clearly, some crises are impossible to forecast.  I can recall one past client where the company’s senior executives were blindsided by very naughty personal behavior by the CEO which became instantly public thanks to a spurned wife who was tired of his philandering and drug abuse.  In that case, the company was forced to undertake a strategy emphasizing how capable senior managers would shoulder the workload while the CEO was away addressing his personal issues, and assuring shareholders that the impact on the company would be minimal.

Most companies can predict with some degree of accuracy what kind of challenges they might face in the future.  Government agencies charged with oversight will inevitably make a mistake somewhere along the line, and most nonprofit organizations will at some point face heavy scrutiny and perhaps strident criticism for how they spend their budgets.

Having a good crisis communications plan in place means that the organization can invest time during a calm period where cooler heads prevail to make well-reasoned, strategic decisions without the intense pressure and time constraints for decision-making that are brought on by a crisis.

Who Should Review Your Crisis PR Plan?

  • The person who oversees communications for the organization
  • The organization’s top executive
  • Legal counsel
  • Someone outside the organization with an expertise in crisis PR

For those companies who have not yet developed a crisis plan, having one in place is money well-spent.  It can help provide peace of mind to the organization while eliminating the ramp-up time required by crisis PR experts brought in to fight the fire once it is underway.

Companies which already have a plan in place should update it periodically and may want to have it reviewed by experts in order to ensure that it’s as effective and comprehensive as possible.  At the end of the day, a crisis communications plan is like a strong insurance policy: you never want to be without it when the day comes that you need it. The bottom line: be prepared.

–Evan Nierman

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Are You in the Cloud?

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It’s a little disconcerting to find Steve Jobs behind the curve. But that’s what Apple’s announcement of its cloud computing services yesterday seemed to be. In case you missed it: cloud computing is the ability to store your data on someone else’s larger digital storage units, instead of inside your own PC or other mobile device, thus allowing you to access it as you need it, to/from multiple devices.

What’s so useful about cloud computing?

Whether we know it or not, we’ve all been in the cloud for some time.  The books on the Kindle are housed in the cloud.  Your Gmail account is on the cloud.  Facebook and Twitter? Yep, the cloud.  I wouldn’t consider myself in the avante-guarde of technology, but I’ve been using the cloud for a long time. Since I work in multimedia, email is not a good way to send around cumbersome photo and video files.  So my clients, vendors and I use YouSendIt, DropBox, and Basecamp to share files and messages housed on the cloud.  I’ve also stored music on my Amazon cloud account, which preceded Apple’s newly announced music-sharing option.

What concerns should we have about relying on the cloud?

Recently I was cleaning up my DropBox folder in between projects and noticed that in my upgraded account I can now delete files and later restore them.  So even when they appear to be gone from the cloud, they’re not.  Comforting. Or disturbing. And this is the essence of the dilemma posed by the cloud for both individual or corporate users.  On the cloud, our file-accessing habits, keystrokes, time spent reading a particular page, membership in groups, and uploaded photos are all living outside of our own devices, making them easy targets for those culling marketing data or having more nefarious intentions (as Congressman Weiner recently learned). Earlier this year, the federal government released a cloud computing strategy and The Washington Post today published that the Office of Management and Budget reports 25 federal agencies have listed 78 applications to move to the cloud this year.  With that quantity of data moving to cloud storage, it’s pretty easy to fathom the national security impact.  And the personal impact. Whether we have moved there ourselves or not, every American–in one way or another–will be in the cloud.

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Brand Mentoring

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Organizations who want to maximize their marketing communications need to consider two major assets they already have in-house: younger people with knowledge of social media and mobile web and more seasoned employees who understand the organizational brand, the marketplace, and the clients.  Together they could communicate like gangbusters.  But for many reasons, they often don’t connect.

Consider changing that by offering a mentoring program in your work community.  And not just around the areas of primary market or mission.

So for example, while many law firms have a mentoring program related to practice areas, what they could really use is pairing younger and more experienced attorneys for the purposes of marketing the practice groups.  The older attorneys have loads of contacts and knowledge about client needs. They have been involved with local charities and chambers of commerce for years and have a personal brand in the community. They can make introductions and give the lay of the land to newer attorneys.

Younger members of the firm are on Facebook and Twitter. They know how to download apps for mobile web.  They have good ideas about how to make your website more useful. They may understand more about online communities and how to engage them. They may also be involved with charities, but in a different way through groups like www.crowdrise.org.

The most successful organizations–and also nonprofit boards–pair these groups together both formally and informally to get the best of both worlds.  Consider a retreat where pairs consider ways to reach new clients/donors.  Send them out together to social functions on behalf of the firm.  Offer them seats together at conferences and workshops and encourage the cross-pollinization. Have a younger staffer help a seasoned one with Twitter or Facebook posts on behalf of the organization.  Let the more experienced team member coach a younger one on how to engage a new client or donor.

In talking about diversity, we often forget how age-ist our corporate cultures can be. It’s time for a change!

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What I Learned At My Reunion

This year I attended major milestone reunions for both college and high school.  Here’s what I learned:

1. Almost all the women look really good and have clearly been working hard at it. You go, girls.

2. Some of my classmates do really interesting things. Shout-outs to David Pogue, the tech guru for the New York Times who keeps the world informed and amused about the ever-changing landscape of new gadgets, Lydia Vagts, who conserves some of humanity’s most important paintings for future generations to enjoy, and Barney Schecter, whose new book on George Washington’s travels is just plain awesome.

3. Facebook has been an amazing tool for re-uniting and updating a dispersed set of classmates, and bringing together people who never would have hung out in the lunchroom or the dorm.

4. The most important thing we learned how to do in high school was write.

5. The most important thing we learned how to do in college was research.

6. I don’t know how we could have done items 4 and 5 if item 3 had existed when we were in school. I pity the kids who are now managing their Facebook profiles and Twitter feeds while trying to do real thinking.

7. Luckily, they can get caught up on the latest tools or gather a new artistic perspective or get a totally new insight into our first president thanks to the people in item 2.

8. And if they are women, they will look great when they’re my age.

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Social Media: What’s the ROI?

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Social media has been around for awhile now.  Everyone’s had a chance to wade in.  And the question of return on investment continues to rankle. But there have been a few positive developments.

Counting the number of hits is out. Understanding who the hits come from is in. And putting some kind of value on social media interactions is useful. Both David Berkowitz at agency 360i and the folks at Razorfish have tried to quantify this data and look at what it takes to create influence and affect decision-making.  A lot of this is just a new technology take on the psychology of human cognitive behavior published by Albert Bandura in the 1960’s and 70’s and still a guidepost for those of us who work in fields where we need to understand how people react to internal and external influences.

So what can we measure?

That’s the wrong question. We need to first think of how we measure. The key is understanding no one buys your services or donates to your cause after just one interaction–whether that’s through social media or traditional media.   It’s cumulative.  So an ROI equation might put a value on these different elements: one personal interest PLUS multiple personal connections/referrals PLUS multiple social media interactions PLUS traditional media/email/direct mail influences PLUS internal influences (I want a car that looks like that; I think the world needs clean water) PLUS a triggering event (click here to get info on this car; click here to donate to clean water) = one Transaction That Can Be Measured.  You need to be pro-active on every front.  More and more, the fronts intersect through customer-driven social media.

Who can we look to for best practices?

One group that is ahead of the pack on social media ROI is nonprofits. They’ve been early adopters, partly because of the low cost of entry and partly I think because a large percentage of their staff are young and grew up with this technology.  Also, nonprofits have always had to get creative about raising dollars and being effective on mission.  NTEN, Blackbaud and Common Knowledge just put out their 3rd Annual Nonprofit Social Networking Benchmark Report and it’s loaded with some interesting data in this sector.  The survey of 11, 196 nonprofit professionals asked about both professional social networks (i.e. Facebook, Linked In, YouTube, etc.) and “in-house” social networks being built through their own websites.

If a key ROI metric is engagement, then nonprofits can check off the community-building box. 89% of nonprofits have a presence on Facebook, with the average community size up 161% since the prior year’s report (6,376 members), and YouTube up 504% to 2,702.  And those in the super-charged fundraising category (see below) have communities of almost 100,000 members.

Peer-to-peer sites like CrowdRise, FirstGiving, Razoo and Causes are also getting traction as places to build engagement.

If a key ROI of nonprofits is money raised, then social networks are evolving in this regard.  The survey identified 27 “master fundraiser” organization who raised at least $100,000 on Facebook over the last year.  While more than half of these were large organizations with $51M to more than $250M budgets, almost a third were small organizations with $1-5M budgets.

Environmental, animal welfare and international groups lead the pack in terms of largest communities, most tweets, etc. as measures of engagement. This is not surprising. I frequently use advocacy organizations as examples of best practices in my social media workshops because they have been in the vanguard for years (including when direct mail was just getting its start as the “new” way to advocate for causes.)

What’s new in social media with real impact?

According to the Benchmark Report I noted above, one of the interesting developments in the nonprofit sphere is the use of “in-house” social networks — i.e. those who register users through the organization’s website. The ROI equation is flipped on its head as the benefit is to the user: by registering, he or she gets the benefit of curricula, best practices information, advocacy or health content.  The benefit to the organization is clearly a more engaged user community connected directly to the mission of the organization.

For-profit organizations could take a page from the nonprofit sector by looking at what makes social engagement effective: a fulfilling user experience, a community with purpose, and tools that build customer loyalty–whether that’s to a brand of car or a way of changing the world for the better.

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Government Closure Could Help Its Brand

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I’m not a big fan of bloated government. Lord knows I pay too much in taxes (as a self-employed person–nearly twice what you company folks pay for social security and medicare taxes!).  But I also know plenty of hard-working federal employees whose jobs make our lives and communities better and stronger every day.  If they’re gone for a few weeks we might learn to like them a little more.  And maybe the US Government brand will get a nudge in the positive direction.

For example:

3 million visitors are expected to descend on the nation’s many free Smithsonian Museums during Spring Break next week. Hundreds of these museum employees preserve our national heritage. They maintain specimens and artworks, provide educational opportunities for our school children, and welcome visitors from around the world.

The US Department of Agriculture, USDA, is our largest federal agency outside the Pentagon, and works on everything from school nutrition to soil conservation. At the Agricultural Research Service, part of the USDA, librarians maintain the National National Agricultural Library (NAL) that serves as our nation’s resource on everything from food safety to rural development projects.

At the Department of Commerce,  staff are busy promoting U.S. business interests around the world, but also here at home. They recently launched an initiative to promote businesses in the southwest, along the US-Mexico border. They also have their eye on future leaders, and with a host of volunteers who help them run the Presidential Classroom program for top students to study issues like the current financial crisis, hunger and poverty, and human rights.

Meanwhile, at the Centers for Disease Control, I have friends who are scientists at its National Institutes of Health where they are unlocking cures for cancer, lupus and Parkinson’s, among many many others.  The CDC is also tasked with protecting our public health through immunization programs, emergency response preparedness, and initiatives on fighting obesity in children–which is costing us plenty with rising rates of heart disease and diabetes in kids.

The US Army Corps of Engineers is in almost every state working on projects related to emergency management, flood risk management, the environment, hydropower, and water supply.

And these are just a few. I know, everyone loves to trash talk The Government (as if it were a monolithic entity that lolls about on the couch watching TV all day).  But if it shuts down, I’m hoping some of my fellow citizens and I will learn more about what many of my neighbors here in Washington (and across the country) do for the nation on a daily basis.

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Is (Re-)Branding a Waste of Resources?

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Lately I’ve worked with several law firms who are upping the ante in terms of their brand presence.  But with the recent demise of Howrey (who changed to the fashionable one-name brand as part of its re-branding campaign a few years back, not so many months before going belly-up), many may wonder if re-branding is not only a waste of money but also a portent of impending corporate doom.

I’d like to make the case that it’s not re-branding that’s the problem, but what goes on behind it.

The motivation for re-branding is the key to its success. If the goal is to put new packaging on an old product (The Gap), then it probably won’t work. If the goal is to re-present an old brand to new audiences (“it’s not your father’s Oldsmobile”) it can work, but needs to be thoughtfully designed. And if the goal is rolling out a new brand, then the success lies in whether that product or service really has an audience in the first place.

In the case of Howrey, the re-brand was preceded by a decision to streamline the firm’s business lines into several key areas: anti-trust, litigation, and intellectual property. The problem with that strategy–it became clear in hindsight–was that Howrey could no longer be an all-purpose corporate law firm.  When times were flush, that worked. But as the firm expanded and swallowed up competitors, it became more and more likely to have conflicts of interest and have to turn down work. Enter the recession, and the whole thing was over.  So it wasn’t the re-brand that killed Howrey, it was the strategy behind it.

So what kinds of strategies can support a re-brand? I believe in an integrated approach:

1. Use social media. Still frightening to many corporate and nonprofit leaders, social media allows organizations to engage clients and members with a personalized voice. It also gives them a way to receive feedback from clients, and tools for mining existing contacts for prospects. But social media requires having internal guidelines and teaching staff how to use it most effectively. It remains a task that is often foisted on the newest/youngest members of a team, rather than its most seasoned players, who are often your best brand ambassadors.

2. Advertising. Placing the right ad in the right venue can support other marketing initiatives and enhance name and brand recognition. One of my colleagues in the nonprofit space says her organization gets some of its top hits from a tiny, 1 inch sidebar ad in The New Yorker magazine. Knowing more about your target audience (which you can do through social media!) really helps in making an advertising strategy effective.

3. Logos, names and taglines. Re-brands tend to come with new identity packages and tag lines. Some are great (“Take your ideas to the world.”–Baker & Botts). Some are so generic you wouldn’t know what a company does  (“A tradition of innovation”–you know who you are, or do you?).  The key with logos, names and tag lines is not that you have them, but what you do with them. If your strategy is to put them on your new web page and sit back, waiting for clients to arrive, then they probably won’t make a difference. If you can position them in ways to grab attention and re-enforce market position, then they can help put you ahead of the competition.  Frankly, even The Gap gained loads of attention and a good read on customer loyalty to its original brand identity when it got negative reviews of its new logo.

4.  Web 2.0. Many organizations are still somewhere around 1.6, while some in the commercial world are fast approaching 3.0. Web 2.0 simply means the death of the web page as road-side billboard, with more interactivity,  more opportunities to refresh content, a recognition of the role of search engines, and the integration of tools like comments and video.  It is now what consumers expect of their vendors and non-profits.

5. PR Matters. This is where the softer touch of public relations comes into play. Buying sponsorships at your local AA ball park or supporting a local food drive could be just the right places to roll out your new brand, and provide better visibility and more targeted market segmenting than pure advertising.  Closing the gap between “hard” and “soft” marketing can also be accomplished with educational tools like a podcast series, that helps prospective clients see your expertise and talent in action, then link back to your products and services.  PR is also essential when something goes wrong with your brand–such as the recent debacle over the high-priced pre-term birth drug rolled out by KV Pharma.  Trying to drag out the PR hoses once the barn is already on fire is harder than having a strategy in place to begin with.

6. Use Real ROI. Counting the number of hits is out. Understanding who the hits come from  is in. Whether you use analytics tools from Google,  Lithium or Radian, you still have to decide what it is you are measuring and why. And since most service industry and non-profit marketing is cumulative, putting a value on the quality as well as quantity of your social media interactions is key.  (more on this in a future ROI post)

Takeaways: Re-branding isn’t perilous in of itself. It just must be accompanied by a strong strategy and an organization whose actions and words are consistent with its mission.

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