When required by local laws and regulations, Google has said they will remove content in a manner that impacts the smallest number of potential readers. The Google Blogger site says the following of the new change:

“Migrating to localized domains will allow us to continue promoting free expression and responsible publishing while providing greater flexibility in complying with valid removal requests pursuant to local law. By utilizing ccTLDs, content removals can be managed on a per country basis, which will limit their impact to the smallest number of readers.”

The changes, which are already live in India, Australia, and New Zealand, enable Google to easily remove content on a per-country basis by redirecting users to an address that utilizes a country-code top level domain. For example, if a U.S. blog’s address is http://name.blogspot.com and a user with an India-based IP attempts to visit the blog, Google will send the user to http://name.blogspot.in. However, if the blog’s readers would prefer to reach the U.S. (non-censored) version of the site, they can add “ncr/,” which stands for “No Country Redirect” to the end of the URL (i.e. http://name.blogspot.com/ncr/) and the user will no longer be served the country-specific (potentially censored) version of the blog.

The new Blogger policy does not currently affect blogs that use the custom domain feature.

Do you feel that the new Blogger policy is necessary to maintain the continued free flow of information while simultaneously complying with local regulations?

[Sources Include: Mashable, Economic Times, Google Blogger]

Article source: Mashable

Article source: Search Engine Journal

Successfully positioning a brand requires consumer insight. Brands are owned in the minds of consumers so unless you know how consumers perceive your brand and those of your competitors, you will not know which brand position (or unique value proposition – unique selling proposition) is going to be most advantageous for your brand. At a minimum, you should know which potential consumer values or benefits achieve ALL of the following:

• Relevant to the purchase of your brand’s products or services
• Unique among competitive alternatives
• Emotionally compelling
• Purchase motivating
• Protectable over the medium – to long-term

Brand owners can identify potentially advantageous brand values and benefits through qualitative research (focus groups, mini-groups and one-on-one depth interviews). Then, through quantitative research, they can evaluate the top brand positioning options against each of the evaluation criteria listed above to identify the most advantageous position to select.

Some clients error on the side of no consumer research, often because they do not think they can afford it and sometimes because of arrogance (“I know what our customers want.”). Occasionally, a brilliant entrepreneur with an excellent understanding of the consumer can arrive at a strong brand position without the help of research, however more often, the person just thinks he or she has an excellent understanding of the consumer and chooses an inferior position. Some organizations legitimately do not have the budget or cash flow to invest in consumer research. But can brand owners and marketers afford to not invest in something that could result in a significantly higher market share and profitability over the long term?

Article source: Branding Strategy Insider

Most companies publicize by regulating campaigns to enthuse consumers to buy in a moment. They use any series of proven techniques to get a courtesy of we a consumer. A series of these techniques have even taken on a life of their own. Ie: When something is new and improved, or there’s 50% some-more etc., we see these statements contained in a burst, or a banner, or a peeled behind page – these visible gimmicks are called violators in a industry. There are delinquent companies out there, who do zero though beget these cues. Color is used for a psychological effects, sound and smell are mostly brought into play. Tantalizing visuals are also used to stir those emotions. As this divide outlines, there are any series of attempted and loyal ways to publicize and they are consistently used by everybody who advertises.

The one thing that each advertisers does not use is positioning.

Why?

Because to position wisely, we contingency be a leader. As we see in life, not everybody is cut out to be a leader. There are vastly some-more supporters than leaders. Many businesses like a attempted and true. They don’t suffer going out of their comfort section and they compensate a high cost for this. It is most easier to do zero and be calm with what we have. A lot of people are fearful of “Leader” since they fear being called out on it. This is a only fear if they’re unequivocally not a leader, though are sanctimonious to be. It’s not adequate to contend we are a Leader, we contingency BE a leader. Act like one and win like one. Without meaningful it, we all lead in some way. It’s within all of us. Maybe it’s a ‘no gloat rule’ that a Mother’s instilled in many of us, or a childhood prudery we never utterly outgrew. If we pain for your code to lead, afterwards positioning should be a must-do in your business bucket-list.

This is where we typically come into a design in a purpose of Brand Consultant. we take heads of companies by a obstruction of their business sourroundings and broach an recognition of their brand. This clarity provides a fuel that satisfies their craving to lead. Often times, a positioning grown accurately reflects an area, they now browbeat though have not articulated effectively. we enthuse them to “bold-up” as it were. If we integrate a Leadership Positioning with normal marketing, afterwards we have a really absolute summary to ring with customers. Without positioning we are simply one of many. Your competitors are many as well. Without Positioning, everybody is observant a same thing in opposite ways. All a slogans while inspirational, don’t resonate. Leading gives a patron something to welcome and know your value.

As a difficulty leader, we contingency welcome a limb. That is to say, we have to stand out onto a prong first, afterwards with all certainty welcome it. To advantage from this unsafe plcae we have to put in place processes that inspire and means your leadership. Brands grow or decrease with time. Depending on a substructure laid out, your code will go in one of these directions. Establish a clever set of Brand values and hang with them. The care position we embrace, contingency where to these values as they are a substructure defined.

Article source: Small Business Branding

The private lawsuit, which was brought by various employees who claim they were harmed as a result of the anti-poaching policy, is similar to a case that was previously settled with the U.S. Justice Department. When the Justice Department investigated this same issue in 2010, the settlement stated that the technology firms had refrained from contacting each other’s employees and this agreement restrained competition and hurt the employees.

In 2007, a Google recruiter attempted to hire an Apple engineer, which resulted in Steve Jobs writing Eric Schmidt: “I would be very pleased if your recruiting department would stop doing this.” Following the email from Apple, Schmidt sent the following internal message to the staffing department:

“I believe we have a policy of no recruiting from Apple and this is a direct inbound request. Can you get this stopped and let me know why this is happening? I will need to send a response back to Apple quickly so please let me know as soon as you can.”

As a result of the recruiter breaching the anti-poaching agreement, Google immediately fired the employee. In addition, Google’s staffing director and promptly sent an apology to Steve Jobs and assured him the recruiter’s actions were an “isolated incident.”

The plaintiffs’ attorney, Joseph Saveri, has stated that he believes that thousands of employees were affected and that the damages could be hundreds of millions of dollars.

[Sources Include: Reuters CNet]

Article source: Mashable

Most advice focuses on creating a presence on Pinterest and pinning your own products or content. This is a mistake. The real strategic opportunity is in optimizing your content for Pinterest.

Pinterest Basics

The majority of Pinterest users use a browser bookmarklet when pinning new content, and when you click on most sites, you see an array of the pinnable images available and their sizes:

You choose the image you want, choose your board, add your notes and it’s pinned.

When Pinning Doesn’t Work

Problems arise when a site just isn’t optimized for pinning. You can’t pin anything from a Flash site, which is still a favorite of many high end retailers, so that is a completely missed opportunity.

“Unpinnable” Images

More subtle problems arise with product sites that offer nifty image preview tools. In this example on Schumacher, a provider of high end textiles and wallcoverings, they have a javascript image tool that prevents the images from being detected by the Pin It bookmarklet. If you are a savvy user, you can click on “switch to JPG view” and be able to pin that image, but most people will not know to take that extra step.

Some large blogs seems to have problems with structure and/or volume of images. On Pioneer Woman’s Tasty Kitchen, I tried to pin the image from Cookie Dough Dip. What I got was a barely functional browser, empty image slots, and a few images from a different post entirely:

Click to Enlarge

Optimizing Your Site

The best way to test how your site “pins” is to set up a Pinterest account, grab the bookmarklet tool, and try pinning a few of the things you would like to see pinned and review the results. This is also an opportunity to browse around and see what type of images are being pinned in your market sector or niche. Pinterest is an extremely visual medium, so pinners generally are looking for the largest and most appealing images possible.

If you are a blogger, does your post offer some type of featured or lead image? Many list/resource posts typically use many smaller images and lack a good featured image to pin. If you use WordPress, remember that you can create a featured image that is available but doesn’t actually have to be used in your post.

Using the “Pin It” Button

Pinterest offers a button that you can add to products, posts or pages that allows you to prepopulate the image, link and description of what is pinned. The button code on their site has you prefill this information one pin at a time, but with a little tweaking or a knowledgeable web developer you can modify this into a dynamic share type button.

If you are using WordPress, there are several articles and plugins to reference:

• How to Add a Pinterest Pin It Button In Your WordPress Blog
• So You Want a Pin It Button On Your WordPress Blog
• Pinterest Pin It Button
• Slick Social Share Button

If you are using the Genesis Framework, Brian Gardner has an excellent tutorial on how to add “Pin It” buttons to your theme: Genesis Framework Pin It Tutorial

For other content management systems, check your documentation and forums or talk to your web developer. (Sidenote: When researching tutorials for this, I found many tutorials that either don’t work or have you making individual buttons for each post. Read carefully as you embark and focus on tutorials that actually have a track record with WordPress or javascript. Poor or slow code is worse than no Pin It button)

If you are a content creator, success on Pinterest will mean making an investment in understanding Pinterest users, their tools, and how “pinnable” your sites actually are!

Article source: Search Engine Journal

Process is also the implicit undertone to the current Budweiser campaign, “Grab Some Buds.” It is more than the typical beer ad showing people having a good time in social situations. Rather, it is a salute to relationships. But note: not brand relationships; instead, interpersonal relationships. Consumers don’t want relationships with brands. They want relationships with other people, and so the brands they want are those that facilitate or celebrate interpersonal engagement. This is also the guiding principle of social media, to wit, sharing content is about the sharing not the content.

Finally, make people happy. Admittedly, this seems faddish, but it’s utterly serious, too. Social psychologists, macroeconomists and national governments the world over are trying to devise new metrics – measures beyond GDP – that add quality of life to economic outcomes. Maybe brands can’t improve someone’s overall sense of wellbeing, but brands can certainly do more than settle for customer satisfaction. Consumers are giving brands permission to tackle happiness, and so that’s what Coke, Zappo’s and UK retailer John Lewis are doing. Happy consumers make for loyal customers, not the other way around, a swap of priorities that defines the new zeitgeist of consumer connection.

Contributed to Branding Strategy Insider by: J. Walker Smith, Executive Chairman, The Futures Company

Sponsored by: The Brand Positioning Workshop 

Article source: Branding Strategy Insider