Ifixit.com – One of the Ultimate BrandsThatShare™

The BrandsThatShare™ concept is simple. Evolving from the traditional “brands that promise” (whose purpose is to sell stuff), brands that share give stuff away – important stuff.

A case in point: ifixit.com. As the founders, Luke and Kyle, explain in the “background” part of their website, “We started out fixing an old iBook together. There were no instructions on how to do it, so we started the way everyone does: the hard way. We tinkered. We fiddled. We broke some tabs and lost a few screws. But we fixed it!”

Today the mission has grown bigger, but remains every bit as simple: “We want to fix the world.”

In the process of growing and helping, ifixit does a great deal of the latter. They start by providing information, information, information – repair manuals, user forums, articles, videos, interviews – just about everything a person might need in the process of fixing and repairing. For example, they could charge for the repair, but instead they show users how to fix an ipod. How cool is that?

They also sell stuff, but when they do it, they provide information as a bonus (like this 10 Favorite Gifts list).

Ifixit informs further by remaining open to the media explaining and being available.

Sharing doesn’t stop at information, though. It also involves building community.

Commitment to larger issues (in ifixit's case, the environment) comprises another facet of activity common to brands that share.

One of ifixit’s most likeable attributes is the companies willingness to eat its own dogfood – meaning that it both uses and sells recycled products.

The company commits to being part of – and, where possible – building networks  with other like-minded BrandsThatShare. (Activism is one hallmark of brands that share).

Finally, there’s my personal favorite, “The Self-Repair Manifesto.” It’s actually free for the cost of shipping (and we’re not talking about that $8.99 shipping charge that makes us choke, just that $3.19 shipping, in my case). 

So if you wondered what BrandsThatShare look like, take a look at ifixit.com.

--  a gift from BrandsThatShare, with gratitude to ifixit.com.

Call It "Brands That Share"™

A couple of weeks ago, the AMA sponsored a webcast featuring Chris Brogan,president of New Marketing Labs, and Pawan Deshpande, CEO of HiveFire.

Titled Content Curation Is The Secret To Becoming A Thought Leader, the webcast shed light on an evolving and still fluid conversation about content marketing and content curation.

Before I present the outline of Chris and Pawan’s comments, here’s an important point. This webcast and a host of blog posts and books over the last couple of years – the number of which is growing rapidly – are exposing a new marketing initiative that will evolve into “Brands That Share.”™ I’ll be blogging about this a lot in the months ahead, but – in short – I believe that businesses large and small will move to distinguish themselves from competitors by shifting from “Brands That Promise” [traditional marketing] to “Brands That Share" [evolved marketing].

Here’s what Chris and Pawan had to say about the role of content in establishing “thought-leadership” and becoming Brands That Share®.

What Is the Role of Thought Leadership?

• influencing a SPECIFIC audience

• talking about information both INSIDE and OUTSIDE your own company. Note: If you’re only talking, you’re not a thought leader. You must also understand what areothers saying.

What Are the Five Stages of the “Thought Leadership Cycle”?

• Topic identification and positioning
- follow the topic in general
- bring in 3^rd party case studies and research to bear
- develop your own content, either original or extrapolated or triangulated from others’ content (for example, this blog post)
- communicate outwards about other organizations and what they are doing right

• Research – see what others are saying

• Production – producing original content (blogging, video, social media, etc.)

• Repurposing – organizing and structuring content, repurposing 3^rd party content as well

• Distribution – delivering the information through appropriate channels

The Evolving Role of Content Marketing

• Marketers are struggling with providing content. They are called upon to publish white papers, blog posts, enewsletters, website content, etc. As technology evolves, marketers need to be on even more channels. Thus, the explosion of content marketing.

• Vicious cycle: more and more content demand, more and more time and resources committed to content development, more and more content created, more and more competition, more and more content created to meet more and more content demand ... etc.

• Information consumers have too many choices, so trust becomes a key factor in choosing content. For example, consumers go to Google for information because they trust that Google will produce the top 10 choices in their query. Consumers also trust Word of Mouth (in particular, a friend), so they also have begun to shift to the social channels for finding information.

• Consumers put trust in various channels, depending on the need: (Google for empirical information; The New York Times, for example, as an established, reliable source; social media for the “inside scoop.”

• Trust Development: Find the good stuff where it lies and share it, even if it’s competitors’ information.

The Blog Is Fundamental To A Thought-Leadership Strategy

• Do you have a blog? This is how webcast participants responded to that query (a “real time” survey):

-16% yes, and I’m happy with it
-30% yes, but not happy with it (amazing; 3 in 10 are not happy with their blog!)
-35% no, but are considering
-18% no, don’t know where to start

• 70 million blogs had already been tracked by technorati in 2007; the blogosphere is adding 120,000 blogs per day

How do you measure corporate blog performance? It depends.

• Brogan: Do not measure by the number of comments, or the number of hits or views. Rather, how many of your next-action steps have been taken? (e.g., how many ebooks have been ordered, how many items downloaded, etc.)

• Deshpande: the number of views is irrelevant; only “next-action” counts. Also, lead generation may not be your goal. Verne Global [see case in point, below] doesn’t even have a lead capture system; their goal is being in front of their audience every day (credibility and influence).

What Does Content Curation Involve? 

• Creates “actionable” content through aggregating and gathering (curation) plusdistilling
• Pulls sources from inside and outside the vertical market • Boiling down and sharing thoughts
• More than a news resource, curators provide an original, innovative perspective around issues
• Curators become a trusted, go-to source
• You create a community to which people come to meet other people. Curating content is a great way to build a roster of content that will attract people.

Content Curation As A Thought-Leadership Strategy

Cases in Point:

• Huffington Post and Arianna Huffington: thought leadership as a content curator, sharing insights and her own perspectives, publishing her own original content, also sharing different points of view

• Verne Global: How does “expertise” relate to an increases in business? This company established themselves as a thought-leader in a specific green space.

• They set up a site called “green data center news”
- original blog content
- pulling in outside resources, too

• They receive queries and also "inbound PR" (that is, interest from major media outlets for opinion and industry thought leadership.

• They have experienced growth in lead generation and customer interest.

• They have saved $100,000 in traditional marketing expertise.

Questions To Ask About Your Role As A Content Marketer

1. Is your brand or industry focused on a particular issue and does your company have an innovative perspective on this?

2. Do your prospects already conduct extensive research in order to perform?

3. Do you already monitor a variety of sources?

4. How does this activity tie into your marketing plan

5. How might I do content curation with limited staff?

• Deshpande: It's time consuming, but with automation it can be done -- automatic identification, organization, sharing of content.
• Brogan: Sometimes it can be done by hand, using Google reader, but you must bring it all in; headlines become very important here for sorting. Note: Chris subscribes to 700 blogs.
• Brogan: It's a dedicated process. For me, it's a two-way street with one-hour of connecting with people to develop traction and acceptance; it's also a half-hour every day to create my own material.

6. What are the legal considerations in curating content?
• Curate content but never pirate contact
• Attribute sources

7. How Might B2B marketers deal with content curation?
• The buy-in process is different for B2B. With B2B, you need to connect with and convince multiple people in a single customer-setting, so you need more content, more variety of content, more reasons, more data, etc.
• The B2B process is more complex so all the touchpoints need to be addressed, which makes curation a natural fit.

-- A gift from Brands That Share, with gratitude to and admiration for Chris Brogan and Pawan Deshpande.