Open up your mind and say, ahh...

Guest post by Scott Forshay, creator and editor of mobi.luxe. Following him on Twitter @mobiluxe

Establishing consumer relationships through mobile marketing, as with any successful, productive relationship, inherently requires a mutual exchange of value. Whether consumers are opting-in for brand communications via SMS or engaging with the brand in a single instance through scanning a QR code, the onus is on the brand to deliver value in return for customers’ valuable time and information. Without the perception that value has been exchanged for value, the relationship becomes essentially one-sided and unrequited attempts at interaction on the part of the consumer will spell the end of the relationship – perhaps permanently.

In the early stages of mobile marketing, the value exchange was almost exclusively defined through promotional-based marketing. Consumers were asked to share their mobile numbers in exchange for coupons. While seemingly primitive by today’s standards, text back couponing remains an effective behavior stimulus for many brands and retailers, but for luxury brands discounting flies in the face of the intrinsic value of the brand. The challenge for innovative prestige brands is defining how best to create a true value exchange with their most loyal advocates while remaining true to themselves and not cheapening the brand in the process of attempting to deepen relationships.
Any value exchange requires the exchange of currency. Whether the currency is monetary, emotional, or informational, it establishes the parameters necessary to define a successful exchange and secures a commitment to future exchanges. With this in mind, an analysis of the efficacy of any value exchange must be measured by the mutually beneficial exchange of mobile currency.

Affluent loyalists of prestigious brands seek greater intimacy with, and priority access to, the brands they most covet. In exchange for priority access, the affluent consumer will exchange premium monetary currency. A mobile campaign touchpoint that directs the consumer to an optimized landing page or microsite featuring a product exclusive to mobile subscribers effectively plays marionette with the heartstrings of affluent consumers by exclusively engaging a prestigious audience with exclusivity and access to product available only to a select audience. Tactics such as these create a successful value exchange whereby a monetary commitment is made by the consumer in exchange for priority access to the brand and the prestige associated with exclusive ownership.

The essence of any coveted brand is the story it conveys. And as Brian Solis believes, “the aspiration it evokes.”

The rich heritage and tradition of the brand is infused with creative vision and continued innovation as the brand narrative unfolds across mediums to engage consumers and create a vision of a lifestyle to be aspired to and desired. Traditionally the brand narrative has been told in a unidirectional fashion through artfully produced photography and film, but the consumer was only capable of experiencing the story in a disconnected way. Mobile, as a medium, is innately transitive in nature, serving as a persistent interface for consumers to navigate an ever-evolving digital ecosystem of retail touchpoints and become, themselves, players in the storytelling experience. Strategically dissecting the brand narrative to take on an episodic form allows the brand to engage audiences in the on-going drama, create desire to see where the story will lead, and create deeper emotional connections in the process. Whether bringing still imagery to digital life through QR codes or augmented reality, targeting desired audiences and engaging them with rich mobile display advertising, or consistently communicating emotional currency via SMS marketing, the mobile value exchange is successful in the exchange of permission to communicate with highly-valued consumers in return for deeper levels of involvement and engagement with the brand.

Regardless the strategies or technologies employed, successful mobile marketing relies heavily on a fair and evenly balanced value exchange between consumer and brand. Given the intensely personal nature of smart devices, coupled with the fact that the device is nearly always within arm’s reach, it is more important in mobile marketing to avoid being intrusive and irrelevant. Consumers will not give up their valuable information in exchange for clutter or noise. Focus on an understanding of the currency of mobile marketing and utilize it to create an exchange that delights both the audience and the brand that value them.

Scott Forshay is a Luxury and Premium Brand Marketing Consultant and Mobile Strategist who’s been featured in PSFK, Luxury Daily, Fashion’s Collective, Business of Fashion, and The Wall Street Journal.

Image Credit: Shutterstock

Fast Company: Why was the decision made to reboot the entire comic line?

Jim Lee: A year ago right after New York Comic Con we had a gathering of all our top creators and we talked about what defines the DC Universe, what makes it special, how do we keep it relevant and interesting. Out of that discussion we started talking about some key characters, specifically Superman, ways to revitalize that character, and we identified some key elements of the DC universe that could use some updating. And out of that came this crazy idea of what if we did it across the entire line, and more importantly, what if we renumbered everything to really signal to readers and lapsed readers that we are doing something very significant. The desire was to get people talking about comics, specifically our books, get them excited about our characters, and really set the table for future decades of storytelling.

Dan DiDio: And I think also the other thing that was important was we were trying to expand our reach. One of the things we did is we went same day digital with all of our product because we felt that we were trying to reach a new audience, new styles of readers, so this allowed us to really try to get as broad an audience as possible. We have a very strong direct market, we have material in bookstores across the country, but the thing for us too is that we wanted to reach out in the digital form and see if we can attract new people that way too.

Was there one thing or one moment that made you say we need to reinvent ourselves?

DiDio: I’ve been using the expression “death by a thousand cuts.” There are a lot of things that we could have been doing better across the line: We could have been writing better, we could have been drawing better, we could have been editing better, we could have been marketing better. By doing the relaunch it allowed us to examine every aspect of our business and look at it from a point of view of if we were building a business today, how would we build it? How would we create characters? What types of stories would we tell? How would the world feel? And we changed the interior look of our books and we changed the exterior of our books. And by introducing the same day digital aspect, it forced us to rethink our production process. We were faced with a lot of delays. And we were losing loyal fans who were coming week in and week out because the books weren’t there. And we had to make a new commitment to deliver our product on time. People said to me, “How’d you let things get so out of control?” It’s like one day waking up and you’re 30 pounds overweight. You’re not exactly sure how you got 30 pounds overweight, but you know you didn’t eat 30 pounds of food the night before. It just happened. We’re trying to fix that: We identified where our weaknesses were and we attacked them on every level. And the response that we got to the first months of books shows that what we are doing were the right moves to make.

Lee: It wasn’t any specific moment, but I think that you’re reading the comic books and you get to a point where you go, “Wow, I didn’t get much of a charge out of this.” That’s a problem. Sometimes the stories would be so involved in their back history, that you would read it and go, “I kind of enjoyed it, but I’m not sure exactly what happened.” And the focus wasn’t on the main characters, it was more on continuity changes or other elements that were almost superfluous. And so I think that part of our desire was to kind of to get back in and readdress the art of storytelling. What makes for a great comic book? What can we do in comics that we can’t do in other mediums?

DiDio: I actually do have a moment where I thought that we would want to do it. The design of Superman that’s here is something similar that Jim had actually worked out for a game. And he pulled it out one day and showed it to me and I saw this fresh-looking take on Superman. At that point we were trying to figure out different ways to spin the character, make the character work, and I saw something brand new–something that felt very respectful of what he was before, but felt fresh. And I thought to myself, “Wow, if you can make Superman feel fresh and new then we have a chance to do this across the line.”

One great value of Google+ is that it makes a great platform for cultivating visibility. If your organization is hoping to “save a seat at the table” in between sales calls, one way to do this is to create compelling content that nurtures your business relationships by educating your community and by making them the hero in their own story. Said differently: If you want to nurture leads while they’re still at the wide end of the sales funnel, using Google+ is an effective addition to your content marketing strategies.

Using Google+ for Content Marketing

First, realize that Google+ indexes any post you submit to the “Public” sharing option, meaning that the information in such a post is searchable in Google (the search engine, not the social network) within a few hours. This means that if you wanted to write about being the “best restaurant for kids in Milwaukee,” as part of your post, it would become searchable content. So, let’s extend that.

It’s not enough to write a post that just says “AJ Bombers is the best restaurant for kids in Milwaukee.” I mean, you can say that, but it won’t be that interesting for people coming along to read it. Instead, you might consider writing a post about “7 Reasons AJ Bombers is the Best Restaurant for Kids in Milwaukee,” wherein which you talk about the features of the restaurant such that a parent would be able to recognize the value for themselves. Because you can include videos, I would do so. For instance, I’d show off the “P-Nut Delivery System”:

If you can’t see the video click here.

Why? Because any kid seeing that thing will immediately start pestering their parents that they MUST go to a place that delivers peanuts via a steel BOMB flying overhead and smashing into a target.

Mix It Up A Bit

You can post text, video, photos, links, and place information on Google+. Using a combination of those post types is probably the best way to get the most attention. For instance, in my tests, if I post only text, I get one level of response. If I add a photo to the post, I get almost 50% more engagement, every time.

You can’t post video and a photo, for instance, but if you post video, I’d include a few sentences about what the video is about, and/or maybe some useful search text. I’d also include a link to whatever might be pertinent, as well. If you do place data, be sure to include a photo, maybe something candid. This helps people engage a bit further, as well.

Build an Editorial Calendar

If you want to incorporate Google+ into your content marketing strategy, I’d consider building an editorial calendar, even if you use it just lightly. For instance, if you post something like the post above, that comes off as a bit heavy-handed in the self-promotion department, I might do an interview with a restaurant guest as my next post, or maybe something off-topic, or maybe a non-work-related video interview with a server or a chef. I don’t know about you, but wouldn’t it be a bit more interesting to know that the person who made your burger is also a competitive street luge racer?

You can build an editorial calendar in a spreadsheet, or on a Google calendar, or wherever. The point is, when you lay out the month in some kind of visual format, you’re less likely to overwhelm your audience with a specific kind of post. Would it be helpful to see a sample? Here’s something super simple:

Editorial Calendar – Sample

Monday 1: Post photo from weekend showing leaves changing.
Monday 2: Video clip from ESPN College Game Day coverage.
Monday 3: Article link to post about grass fed beef findings.
Monday 4: Re-share a community member’s post (pass it forward).
Tuesday 1: Write up new menu changes (w/photo of new fries).
Tuesday 2: Congratulate Tim on winning local “Best Of” award with link.
Tuesday 3: Video post about watching baseball at our bar.
Tuesday 4: Off-topic. Anything.

Break That Down

You’ll see that, in this example, I recommend 4 posts a day. That’s to cover a 24-hour community. Also, posts on a service like Google+ flow through the stream pretty quickly. It’s probably not overwhelming to your readers to see 4 posts from you a day, and judging by the content I mentioned above, it wouldn’t be that hard to get those kinds of posts up.

So, in my example, I’d map out at least a week worth of content, and maybe use that as a way to look at how this ties to the rest of my marketing efforts, too. For instance, if I’m trying to get more people onto my email newsletter, maybe I’d make that the “call to action” on one or two of the posts, and see if I could get more takers from my Google+ community. Also, if you’re having a seasonal event, you can spread content about that event between your email newsletter, your blog, and also your Google+.

Feel like too much? It might be, to start. But it depends on what you’re doing, your goals, and what you’re hoping to accomplish with Google+.

Does This Work for Your Industry?

Technically, yes. You can post content of whatever kind to whatever industry. If you’re selling storage to big tech companies, this works. If you’re selling legal advice, this works. If you’re selling education to students, this works.

But How Does This Get Me New Prospects?

However, what this doesn’t accomplish is that it doesn’t rustle up all kinds of new customers. This isn’t lead generation work at this point. This is community nurturing work. This is helping to cultivate visibility. However, when you have prospects, and when you have people looking around to better understand you, and wondering if they should do business with you, can you see how the above content might help the process?

Save Your Seat at the Table

In between sales activity, we have to have something to talk about. Sometimes, we use that time to seek referrals. Other times, we use that time to nurture our existing customers. Some times, we use it to help guide our prospects closer to a sale. It’s up to you what you want to do with it. But this is one way of building up that content.

Are you on Google+ yet? If not, it’s free. Swing by Google+ and claim your account.

And if you want to connect with me, you can find me here, or just follow me via this Widget:

I just tried out the “Hangout” feature for Google+. It’s a live video chat feature that permits up to 10 people at a time to talk to each other via web video. It’s a LOT less stuttery and latent than Skype, and it’s amazing how easily it allowed 10 people to chat without any fuss or trouble. I captured just a little bit of it for you to see. (When I exported it, I accidentally saved it as widescreen when it wasn’t, so I apologize for the “stretched out” nature, but it still shows what I want to show you.)

If you can’t see the video, click here.

Video for Business

There are a few ways you can do video conversations in business. There’s GoToMeeting HD Faces (which I intend to start using and testing shortly), there’s Skype, there’s ooVoo (which I talked about back in 2008), and probably a few others. You can also do G-Chat inside of the Google Apps suite, as a 1-1 video connection, if both parties have the tools enabled.

For business, I think Google+ ‘s Hangout feature is pretty useful. I realize that only 10 video feeds might not be enough for some companies, but I think that there are ways to make that work out. For the most part, for small team meetings (especially teams that workshift), I think this would be killer.

Beyond that, I think there are other ways businesses can be using video.

Some Uses for Video In Business

What I like about video is that it tells a story differently than text. You can do a lot of things with it. Business people often get really hung up on WHAT to do with video. Here’s a quick list:

• Shoot “behind the scenes” of what goes into making your product or service.
• Interview your best customers and ask them about THEIR success (not yours).
• Interview your employees who are the most passionate about your projects.
• Record screencasts if you have an online product, so that people know what they’re getting into.
• Create educational content that helps people better use your product/service, or that helps them with some not-related-to-you aspect of the job.

Those are just five potential things one can do with video inside business, six if you count the live chat feature I was talking about above. I’m very bullish on video in the coming years for business, and I think that if you’ve not yet done some investigating into how it can help your company reach people in different, more engaging ways, then now’s the time to get thinking about it.

What about you? Any success with video?

This post is part of Mashable’s Spark of Genius series, which highlights a unique feature of startups. The series is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details here.

Name: Storify

Quick Pitch: Pull content from social networks together to create a cohesive story with tweets, posts, photos and videos that maintain their original functionality.

Genius Idea: You can find information about almost any topic on social media, but it’s not necessarily easy to put that information together into a cohesive narrative. Storify looks to solve this problem by helping you curate stories from the social web.

Users can search for content on social networks and create stories by dragging-and-dropping components onto a workspace without leaving Storify. When they’re finished, they can either link to the story or embed it.

All of the tweets, Facebook posts, YouTube videos, Flickr images, and other bits of information in the completed story maintain their links and functionality. You can retweet someone’s tweet, for instance, the same way you would if you were viewing it on Twitter.

The company launched its private beta at the end of September. During its first month since the launch, the tool has been used by bloggers, public relations professionals and media outlets. The Washington Post recently used Storify to compile political candidates’ recession and concession tweets. Public relations professionals have used Storify to tell the story of a brand or report their social media efforts to their clients. Other people have used it to blog about everything from family trips to a riot. One man used it to tell the story of a poem he composed using submissions over social media.

Having defined some promising potential uses for its product, the company’s major uncertainty is the monetization factor. Storify is taking the “build a user base and monetize it later” approach, and at this point (admittedly only a month after product launch) it doesn’t have any distinct plans for actually making money. Some possibilities include selling advertising that publishers insert in stories or adding premium features.

While the “monetize later” approach has worked well for companies like Twitter and Tumblr it’s hard to maintain very long without funding — which the company is still seeking (they have raised about $30,000 from angel investors).

Bootstrapped status aside, we think Storify is on to something. Co-founder Burt Herman is a 12 year veteran of the Associated Press, and the storytelling aspect of Storify may be what ultimately sets it apart from the competition. Unlike similar social media curation tools like Curated.by and Keepstream, story creators that use Storify can add their own text to the stories. This could make it especially appealing to content providers who want to add analysis and context to social media stories.

250 Mashablereaders can try the private beta version of Storify by using the invite code “Mashable.”

Image courtesy of iStockphoto , jallfree

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Sponsored by Microsoft BizSpark

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BizSpark is a startup program that gives you three-year access to the latest Microsoft development tools, as well as connecting you to a nationwide network of investors and incubators. There are no upfront costs, so if your business is privately owned, less than three years old, and generates less than U.S.$1 million in annual revenue, you can sign up today.

Personal branding isn’t really my focus. It’s something that I do because it’s part of marketing and building out the new way that social business flows. It’s something we wrote about in Trust Agents in the “Make Your Own Game” part. But I’m asked about it often. Here are my thoughts for how to move the needle with your personal brand in 2011 (and yes, you should start planning now). Oh, and Batman is going to help me illustrate along the way.

Personal Branding Basics for 2011

Decide On Your Promise

A brand is a promise. Christopher S. Penn quotes Ze Frank often, saying that it’s an “emotional aftertaste.” Think about it. You buy Apple because you know it’s well-designed. You buy Coke because you prefer the taste. You take your kids to McDonalds because you know they’ll eat it without a fuss. Whatever the promise, good or bad, that’s why you align with the brands you choose.

Brands as part of identity is even bigger. If you’re into bicycling, you’re a cyclist. You think that way. You eat accordingly. You spend your extra time accordingly.

Batman is defined by the goal to seek never-ending vengeance on criminals. That’s his promise. You’re a bad guy? It’s going to hurt. Batman is vengeance. And if someone else started being Batman, they’d pretty much have to own up to that promise, as well, or the brand would dilute.

Decide what you’re going to promise and start there.

Decide How to Best Represent that Promise

First, for everyone who calls themselves something like “The Leadership Doctor” after their name, or in lieu of their name, I challenge you to find me a very big, very successful personal brand who did the same. Richard Branson is Richard Branson. Oprah is Oprah. Madonna. Lance Armstrong. Mother Theresa.

None of them were “the something someone.”

So, now that you’re a name, how do you represent the promise of that brand? I’m turning Human Business Works into a brand that promises to help grow sustainable, relationship-minded business through helpful education and community. That’s the brand promise of HBW. By extension, my promise is that I can deliver that and that becomes part of my brand.

Batman represents his promise by executing on it, all the time. Instead of talking, he does. He executes.

Brands DO Have Symbolism, However

Don’t doubt for a moment that brands use powerful symbolism. That yellow Livestrong band shows up at quite a distance, plus echoes the Maillot Jaune (the yellow jersey) that signifies the leader and winner of the Tour De France. All good brands have symbolism. I changed the logo here at chrisbrogan.com to a “B” not only to represent my last name but to represent business, which is at the heart of all my projects. That “B” will show up in a lot of places coming up.

Batman’s symbol, the bat, started as a way to add to people’s fear, and then grew from there.

Promises and Symbols Require Repetition

One way that brands build and grow is by being there, and being there repeatably. When people ask me about my success and how I got to where I am now, I always answer that I was everywhere and I was helpful. Not only did I pay every dollar I could afford to show up to places, but I paid more dollars that I couldn’t afford. What was the result? (Besides ruining my credit) I was everywhere, and people started to know that I’d be there, and they knew that I’d be helpful when I was there, and that my speeches would be useful, and I built relationships that mattered. I built connections to thousands of the who’s who in my field (look at some snaps of them all here), and by that, I really mean most of the up and comers who are stars-in-the-making.

Batman showed up every time the signal was lit. He seemed to be everywhere to stop crime and to build momentum on the fact that crime wasn’t a good idea in Gotham City.

How do you repeat your promises? Live them. Be there. Be useful. Put out good media. Be at every event that you need to be at to grow your industry. Help as many up-and-comers as you can. Group and gather and cluster to build a team of helpful people. (Batman had Robin, Batgirl, and a whole cast of people you wouldn’t know the names of, unless you were as geeky as me).

Grow And Adapt

Madonna stayed on top of the heap of female musical performers for quite some time by adjusting and adapting and growing with the times. She’d morph her style but keep her Madonna-ness as she moved into new phases in her career. In every case, she’d bridge. She wouldn’t swing wildly from one style to another, but instead, she’d let her capabilities overlap into new areas, and we’d be left with the sense that she’d acquired a new style to her collection, instead of seeing her as some kind of wishy washy switcher.

Batman has been in the media since the 1930s. Back in the old days, he would slap people and use guns and do all kinds of quasi-vampire things. Then we had Adam West in the crazy 60s. Then we had Michael Keaton showing that you didn’t have to be crazy. Most recently, we have Christian Bale in the movies and all kinds of crazy stories in the comics. In all cases, the storylines get a little more modern, and keep us in the right mindset to accept that this man dresses up in personal armor and beats people all night long.

How will you grow and adapt your brand? For instance, if your branding is all around “social media” right now, what are you going to do in 2011 when that phrase starts to fall from grace? How will you vector your branding accordingly to keep it fresh and current? To quote friend Aaron Strout, “I’m in fax marketing.” See how silly that sounds? Well, in the 1990s, someone was saying that.

The Tools Are the Afterthought

Your branding isn’t a logo, the same profile pic everywhere, a catch phrase, a theme song. Your branding isn’t a clever little ploy. It’s a whole package, a whole storyline, a promise and symbols. Who cares which tools you’re using? Use the tools that let you tell that story best. If you’re looking for which tools to use, answer these questions:

• Which tools let you tell the story the best?
• Where is your audience?
• What do you want them to do with your promise?
• Are the tools you’re choosing serving this or no?
• How much effort is it to maintain your presence and your promise?

That’s a reasonable way to look at the tools, right?

Finally: Focus On Experimentation, Execution, and Storytelling

You want to crush it in branding? Focus on experimenting to improve your abilities, executing to bring your promise into the real world, and telling stories by making useful media to build relationships with your buyers and supporters. That’s the real formula. That’s where you’ll see your rewards. Repeat, repeat, repeat.

It’s the best advice I can offer you. For now.