By Renee Sylvestre-Williams

It’s been a busy week on the Small Business and Sysomos blogs.

Tannette Johnson-Elie took a look at how mentors can help small business entrepreneurs while Kelli Korducki wondered how companies can establish a corporate dress code.

Bad names happen all the time but a kids’ store named after an overblown, overwrought book about imprisonment and death? If you’re of a certain demographic, you may have read Flowers in the Attic. Angelica Moreno shows us why you really need to do some market research.

Entrepreneur and Dragons’ Den Arlene Dickinson launched Arlene Dickinson Enterprises this week for entrepreneurs.

On the Sysomos blog, Sheldon Levine looks at baseball’s 2012 World Series. If you’re not into sports but love politics, take a look at who won the three presidential debates and what Canadians think of the US elections (a lot).

Plus there’s all the great content on this blog. Like we said, it’s been a busy week!

By Karen Geier

Last week, we talked about getting your visual elements of branding off the ground. This week, I’m going to help you find your brand’s voice, and develop your ‘Tone and Manner’ document. (more…)

With its highly engaging environment and 800 million-plus user base, Facebook represents unlimited opportunity for companies looking to establish brand presence and develop long-standing relationships with customers and fans.  Many public relations and marketing professionals have found success in building communities around their brands (and their clients’ brands) and adapted their communication strategies to be more “Facebook-friendly.”  In this week’s Pulse, see if you can glean some tips from these world PR agency leaders who also lead in connecting, contributing and communicating online. We think you’ll find plenty to learn from here, and even more to “like.”

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In case you missed it, yesterday marked episode No. 3 of Marketwire and HubSpot’s  free 6-part webinar series, “How to Supercharge Your PR Program with Social Media,” hosted by the always-engaging and thought-provoking Rebecca Lieb,  globally recognized expert on digital media and content strategy.

For anyone involved in public relations, marketing or digital communications, “content” has become more than just collateral and web pages; it’s become a strategy in and of itself.  But what kind of content should we create, how much and on what channels do we publish it?  How can we best ensure it finds and resonates with the audiences that matter to us, and doesn’t just fall flat or get lost in cyberspace?  Like any other corporate strategy, content creation requires thoughtful planning and execution.  (more…)

We decided it’s no different than dating. Not speed dating, although it does include some of the same elements like responding in real time and managing short attention spans. But the real, old-fashioned, “getting to know you,” courting kind of dating.

Who is the “we” and what is the “it” I’m talking about? The “we” included a roundtable of like-minds who joined me at one of the IABC 2011 World Conference early morning sessions: Amanda Brittain of Vancity; Dawneen MacKenzie of Livingston International; Steve Hogle of Edmonton Arena District; Beth Boswell of Fleishman-Hillard; Kathleen Vincent of BC Housing; Christopher Swan of Avery Dennison; Susi Maclean of Glass Tower Ltd.; and Erika Ruiz Ramos of Boehringer Ingelheim. The “it” had everything to do with best practices on how to build brand by engaging influencers. (more…)

Branding is important.  The perceptions that customers have about a company, and its products and services, play a big part in how they make purchasing decisions.  Personas are important, too.  Social media has changed how brands are defined online and enabled companies to create more robust, almost lifelike, personalities.  Increased brand loyalty, customer acquisition and retention are high on the list of goals for marketers, and branding efforts, be they online or offline, and through digital, social and traditional channels, play a critical role in helping to achieve those goals.   (more…)

As a marketer, I hear my fair share of four-letter words. In fact, I utter many of them myself. But there’s one word in particular that has come to dominate my (professional) conversations, thoughts and planning more than any other word: lead. Web-to-lead, lead generation, lead nurturing, lead scoring, qualified lead, lead management…the list goes on. (more…)