The Chameleon - Adaptive Marketing Ideas For Your Business

I'll remain objective here, and will in no way make this a political rant.

My sister-in-law sent me this screen shot from GMA this morning. The headline, "IS THE TRUMP BRAND DAMAGED". Her comment to me, "He could use your book".

At first, I laughed. I did not watch the segment, but my assumption is they were speaking about the corporate TRUMP brand. Regardless of your views on 'The Donald' or Hillary, there is no denying that both of their brands have been dragged through the mud - arguably, more so than any election before. Experiencing the Trump brand over the last few months has been interesting, and certainly revealing of his true character. So the questions posed:

This is the biggest week of the year in the triathlon world. KONA!

What is Kona? It is the home of The Ironman World Championship. The best triathletes - both pro and amateur - will compete in arguably the hardest single event in one of the most brutal locations. To understand just how tough this race is let's start at the beginning. A triathlon is a single race where you swim, then bike, and then run. The distances range from a "Sprint" all the way up to the "Iron" distance. An Ironman consists of:

• 2.4 mile swim
• 112 mile bike
• 26.2 mile run

Without stopping! Now imagine traveling 140.6 miles under your own power in one of the hottest, most humid, and windiest places on earth. Boom - that's Kona. This is not the best spectator sport, especially if you aren't a triathlete yourself. It's looooonnnnggggggg. Most of the pros finish around 9 hours, where mere mortals average about 12 hours. 

I recently stepped out from behind client accounts and created my personal Instagram. As usual, I'm typically way further behind when it comes to personal social media adoption. While I struggled with, "Do I need yet another platform to manage?", I finally caved. As I setup my account a question kept running through me head, "What is the difference between Facebook and Instagram?". My answer was weak at best. That inspired me to dive deeper into the platforms and give myself, as well as you, a good answer. 

First, as I've told clients for years, you don't have to be everywhere, but you need to at least understand what's available. No, not every company needs to be on Instagram, or Facebook, or even social media for that matter (very rare cases). However, you should at least explore emerging platforms to see if they could be viable for your business. Ok, let's dive deep...

During the writing of “Brand Aid”, we performed research to get an idea of how c-suite executives behave. We received over 6,000 responses to our survey on buying behaviors. The biggest takeaway from this survey was the fact that 78% of the respondents indicated that they looked up sales people before meeting with them. That’s powerful information! This tells us that your reputation does in fact precede you. What people find, or don’t find, when they look you up begins to form their opinion of you long before you meet with them.

What does it take to build a truly remarkable personal brand?

The concepts around personal branding have gained a lot of momentum recently, and for good reason. Taking control of your reputation before everyone else does is not only good practice, it is essential today. I have the good fortune of being inside the Millennial generation – I just squeaked in! I think this gives me a unique opportunity to understand older generations as well as my peer group. While personal branding is extremely important for seasoned professionals, it is typically a harder sell. The Millennial generation not only understands the importance, but we have the distinct advantage of growing up with technology and the social media aspects of life. While the aforementioned is certainly an advantage, it can also act as a huge hinderance in crafting a strong personal brand.

Charlottesville, VA: Today, Adaptive announced that it has reached HubSpot’s Gold Tier as a Certified Agency Partner. HubSpot, the world’s leading inbound marketing and sales platform, works hand-in-hand with Agency Partners like Adaptive to grow their businesses through inbound software, services, and support.

Chances are, your marketing & sales activity are 'ok'. People aren't busting down your doors to do business with you, but things are going 'ok'. You probably have some basic necessities like a website, social media and other outreach methods like email marketing. But, is 'ok' really 'ok'?

If you have just one social media account, then you have the opportunity to create a compelling professional bio. Every social network (LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, etc) has space for you to tell others a little about yourself. Every network has different ways to do so, but regardless of the 'where', you need to know the 'why' and 'how'.

Last evening, Jesse Williams took the stage at the BET Awards to accept the honor for humanitarian of the year. He accepted the award, not for himself, but as he stated in his politically charged speech:

I recently had a twitter conversation with Mark Sephton which got a bit of notice from our networks. Mark started off with,

“I do not understand why people unfollow lots of people to make themselves look good... You risk harming your brand.”

To which I responded,

“Agree! Drives me crazy. Hate when someone follows and unfollows within a day or two. How about trying to actually be social.”