In branding, there is more to it than just simply looking good. A powerful web presence has become a vital ingredient of your branding strategy since we are in the Internet era, which is why the key to building powerful brand equity is developing the right media mix.

This would mean that a right media mix is:

Creative design solutions (the design, color, and content of your ads, marketing collateral and website enhance your brand equity, attract customers, and generate sales)

In web development, every service or product worth its name has a web presence these days and to encourage customer involvement, some are truly interactive and animated sites.

Viral marketing is very important today because it is the age of social networking, tagging, podcasting, blogs, forums, wikis, etc.

Television commercial production and print media advertising (traditional media cannot be overlooked)

Strategic films (have become necessary elements of roadshows, exhibitions and other promotional campaigns)

Considered as a very important tool for branding your corporate identity is corporate video production.

Direct marketing (marketing collaterals need to be just as effective and resonant with the overall branding scheme as the communicate directly with the customer)

Don’t forget outdoor advertising such as roadshows, hoardings, participations in business fairs, and exhibitions.

There are some interactive advertising agencies that have recognized the need of the hour – developing creative design solutions that employ user-centric investigation and involve critical and systematic thinking. Understanding of needs and priorities of end user such as the clients’ customers, their users, channel partners, and brand communities is what user-centric means.

So if you want to register your brand as one that is synonymous with customer loyalty, you must develop a complete package, keeping the customer as the prime objective and organizing product stories around the way they prefer to learn about, compare, select and confirm purchases, connecting brands and their experiences.

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Tweeting is not just for big businesses and the famous. There are thousands of small businesses and individuals that tweet everyday. I question how effective it really is for business, big or small, to tweet. How do you measure your success on Twitter?

One benefit to Twitter is that there is a number count that is updated in real time. If you want proof on how well your Twitter account is doing you can point to the number of followers you have. The conventional wisdom is the higher the number of followers you have the better you are doing.

In fact there are self-proclaimed social media consultants that have identified strategies for getting followers. If you have an existing clientele then let them know that they can now follow you on Twitter. Offer them coupons or other incentives to get them to follow. If you don’t have an existing client base then you can start following others on Twitter who will in return follow you back. These consultants have even identified the best times to follow others, the best time to tweet and the approximate number of tweets to tweet, all designed to maximize the number of followers.

The end goal is to get followers. The more followers you have the more people you can reach. Is that really true? Are people really paying attention to all of those tweets? The other number on a Twitter account is following. There are people who follow thousands of people. So it is difficult to believe that they are paying attention to thousands of tweets a day.

Even if followers are paying attention, you have to wonder if they are the right followers. Are all followers equal? Are all followers in a position to benefit from what you are tweeting? Is one follower more influential then another? Can one follower sway others followers to take advantage of what you are tweeting? What about the follower that increases your exposure by re-tweeting you?

If the measure of success on Twitter is the number of followers you have then you are missing the potential opportunity that seems to exist. You can offer discounts, prizes, and giveaways and you will get followers. That shouldn’t be the only goal. You have to consider your business objective and find a way to measure that.

I am not suggesting that getting followers is not important, but I am saying that you need to establish a measurable business objective. The objective will vary depending on your business. You could count the number of people opting in on your landing page, the number of clicks to a website or actual sign-ups. Determine your objective and find away to measure or track it don’t just rely on the number of followers you have.

Bruce Holmes is a successful marketer who has trained others to achieve their income goals using the power of the internet. Working with top people in Network Marketing he has produced a free marketing system for struggling network marketers.

In 2007, Old Spice (a Proctor & Gamble brand) made a daring move that shook up Madison Ave when they hired the Wieden & Kennedy Agency. The smaller collective was best known for their assertive, daring ads -amongst which were Nike’s iconic “Just do it.” campaign.

As a product based company, Proctor and Gamble has long capitalized on the efficacy of it’s products, and used the old-school idea of straight comparison (my brand is better than brand X) to convince consumers their product is the best to buy. The Internet entrepreneur is a product based company as well. Except that product is not detergent or deodorant, it’s YOU Inc.

Back to the Old Spice ad. So what is it about this commercial that has resonated so astoundingly with consumers all across the globe? As I type this, the commercial has received over 4.4 million views on YouTube (talk about going viral). One could argue it’s the pure comedic quality of the commercial, but I would argue it’s something much more simplistic than that.

1. Consumers want you to: “Talk with them, not at them” The character is constantly speaking directly to the audience. Engaging and prompting even your very movements at home (look down, now up…where are you?). This type of conversation keeps the audience attentive, relaxed, and psychologically establishes an immediate bond.

2. Invention of Personality You are what you present. Authenticity stems from an unbridled presentation of your personality. It does no one any good to be overly reverential about yourself, take yourself too seriously, or worse be obviously reverential and taking yourself too seriously! If you want people to know your product or service is fun, rewarding and simple. Be fun, rewarding and simple in your ads!

3. Brand Building Laboratory Brand building is always an experiment. No profitable company, in the history of the modern world, has maintained the exact same marketing or advertising strategy from start to finish. Break rules, try new things, let your imagination guide your experimentation and most importantly of all, be yourself! Who knows what you might come up with!

By the way, I’m on a horse. Have a great weekend.

To connect or learn more about Jay, go here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jay_Kubassek