I just finished reading Meatball Sundae, Seth Godin’s latest book. It is mainly an account of what happens when old school companies try to use social media to sell commodity products.
Commodity products (the meatballs) and social media (the frosting and the cherry) don’t mix very well and the result is a mess (a meatball […]

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This morning I was going through some small business feeds in Alltop and received the pleasant surprise that Shoestring Branding is now featured in Alltop’s Small Business section, next to the likes of Inc., Entrepreneur, Seth’s Blog, Fast Company, Duct Tape Marketing and Escape from Cubicle Nation.

Alltop, as you may already know, is Guy Kawasaki’s […]

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For quite some time, I have been using Gmail as my email program. Recently, I discovered a great Gmail feature that lets you brand your email address. For example, if you have a Gmail account and your email address is johnsmith@gmail.com, you can now use your own domain to create an email address […]

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Photo Credits: jared
Avatars and favicons are two very important branding elements common on the web and social media. Used properly they will make your blogs and social media profiles more memorable and easier to recognize.
What is a favicon?
A favicon is a small graphic element that identifies your site or blog in a web browser’s […]

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In the wake of Microsoft’s recent $44 billion unsolicited bid for Yahoo!, bloggers of all walks of life have been quick to write the beleaguered Internet portal’s obituary. Most of the articles I’ve read blame Yahoo!’s demise on an out of control brand extension strategy and the ensuing lack of focus.
I think […]

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This is a great example of how to generate effective buzz. Nike will launch its Air Jordan XX3 shoe to the general public by mid-February, and these are some highlights of their effective PR campaign:
For this, the 23rd version of the Air Jordan (the shoe endorsed by the former Chicago Bull’s #23 star) a […]

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Photo Credits: linnybinnypix
Last weekend I rented a car for a day. I stopped to have a cup of coffee and, fiddling with my rental papers I noticed a blue sticky note attached to the envelope with something written on it. It was a disclaimer that said something like this:
If you drive less than […]

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Photo Credits: mystereys
Florida’s primary elections will take place in two weeks. Yesterday on TV, I saw some ordinary Floridians being interviewed about how would they vote on Amendment 1 , an important proposition to change the state constitution to rein in real estate taxes.
Surprisingly (or perhaps, not so surprisingly) many of them said that […]

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Photo Credits: laruth

submit_url = “http://www.shoestringbranding.com/2008/01/12/personal-brandin-job-hunting/”;

The traditional job-hunting approach advocated by human resources pundits (make a one-page résumé, don’t talk about personal stuff, make your experience look “broad” to appeal to many different industries, etc.) is basically flawed: by making your résumé look “standard”, and by rounding off the edges to try to be all things […]

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Photo Credit: webguy94301
Feature creep is the unfortunate consequence of companies constantly changing perfectly adequate products for “bigger and better” or “new and improved” ones. By adding features that customers don’t need or don’t particularly care for, products become bulkier, confusing and difficult to use.
Why does feature creep happen?
Feature creep can happen for many […]

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