While down the Cape this weekend with a bunch of friends, we frequented this bar Harry’s on Main Street in Hyannis. (Fun place BTW.)

On one of our trips there, the bartender, Rick, was talking about Pandora. Hearing half of the conversation, my friend raised her wrist saying, “I have a Pandora.” Well, Rick wasn’t talking about the bracelet, he was talking about Pandora Radio. (On a side note, four of us at the bar had Motorola DROIDs, which is where the conversation spawned from.)

This got me thinking…

It’s essential to market your brand very carefully when a company has the same – or a similar name – as another brand, or you could cause a brand identity crisis.

While this was just the case of not hearing the brand Pandora in the right context, if not branded correctly, you could be sending your customers on a wild goose chase – causing them a lot of aggravation on the way.

Creating your company’s URL with the exact company could divert some of the confusion. Let’s take the above situation as an example: if you type in Pandora.com and you are looking for Pandora jewelry, you will be directed to Pandora Radio. Which would be a problem, if I was looking for Pandora Jewelry.

So what if you can’t brand a company’s URL to the exact name? Make sure your customers – or future customers – are aware of your actual homepage link when you market yourself. Try and get your link as similar as possible to your company name. Or, in the very least make sure your URL is easy to remember!

For example, I heard a radio ad for Volvo on the way to work today. They were advertising New England Volvo retailers and made sure to let listeners know that their website was http://www.nevolvo.com. Note the N-E to make sure listeners didn’t just visit the general Volvo site.

How’s your URL branded? Is it your company name? Something similar?

Share on Facebook

Technorati Tags: Branding, Pandora, URLs, Volvo

This week’s PRobecast, Alison Raymond, Amy Krigman, Ann Dalrymple and Renatta Siewert talk the evolution of social media and what’s to come, facebook’s “dislike button,” Buick’s new image and more. Here are the issues we covered:

Social Media Revolutionizing Business/Customer Relationships – In this economy, most businesses – in all industries – have changed their business models. The “social media revolution” that has happened really force businesses to take a step back and see not only who their messages are going to – but the need to analyze what kinds of messages they are sending. While you can promote your business (sell) via these online channels, you also need to offer information of value – so you giving your audience information they want so they’ll continue to look at you favorably.

The Future of Public Relations and Social Media – Mashable recently ran an article discussing how social media is changing the face of PR. Press releases are now incorporating a social element with more links, video and audio – making these releases more interactive and interesting to editors. Even social media platforms in general have changed the way PR pros are “doing” PR – offering new platforms for PR pros to reach out to journalists, etc. While, we are embracing social media the best we can, we should also expect to see adaptations to these platforms to make using social media even easier. This would include, finding the right audiences easier, knowing what data to accept or reject, more aggregation, etc. What do you foresee changing social media-wise?

The Facebook ‘Dislike Button’ is a Scam – If you’ve recently seen in your friends’ status’ that they have a “dislike” button – do not click through. It’s the latest Facebook scam and it’s spreading rapidly. If you do click though and follow the installation process, you grant the app permission and it’ll run the same status on your page – and it could be charging you.

Is the Buick the Fastest Growing Car Brand in America? – Buick recently has changed their design and marketing plans shifting to focus their efforts on a new younger audience. Incorporating new social media strategies and with the launched of momentoftruth.com, Buick is really stepping up and trying to step back from the “grandfather car” image it previously had. In doing so, General Motors Co. sold 137% more Buicks in July of 2010 than it did in July of 2009. What do you think of this recent marketing shift?

JetBlue Passenger Goes Whacky, Causes Plane to be Diverted – Just after last week’s JetBlue flight attendant incident, an incident occurred on the other end of the spectrum – the passenger. A passenger was having an “anxiety attack” and started acting out, hitting and even spitting on a flight attendant. She had to be tied down to a seat until she was calm. What a month JetBlue is having!

What are your thoughts on this week’s topics?

MP3 File

Share on Facebook

Technorati Tags: Buick, Facebook, JetBlue, Social Media

Recent active topics of discussion have been about content in blogs. It’s a question asked by many: how do you create important and relevant content?

1. Visit other blogs in your field and voice your opinion. According to SocialMouths, it provides feedback to the blogger, it gives visibility to your own blog and — most importantly — it creates a conversation. After all, dialogue is better than monologue!

While this may seem like a time consuming task, the creation of content, as well as the dialogue, will speak for itself.

2. PR-Squared pointed to a method called POST that Forrester uses, which is an acronym for people, objectives, strategies and tactics. After knowing your audience (which is the number one lesson they teach you in college), you start to understand which topics cause a stir, and then you begin to engage people in those very topics you know will get a response. Because you’ve engaged in conversation with them before, then you know you have a group of peers in dialogue about your field left and right, all through blogging.

Not so coincidentally, forming relationships yields the same results.

I think it’s also necessary to note that these conversations should stay within your field. Even if you’re talking to competitors, you’re still relaying important information that you’re knowledgeable about.

Share on Facebook