One of my first bosses in B2B Marketing told me why she had chosen to pursue a career in B2B as opposed to the (at the time) more glamorous world of FMCG Marketing “I didn’t find the idea of marketing nappies or tampax that challenging or interesting”.

Her words have stuck with me since and I was reflecting on this when I saw the recent Andrex campaign which asked the nation whether they “scrunch or fold” when using their market-leading product:

Admittedly, there’s only so much you can do with loo roll (literally and creatively) – especially one that’s been market leader since 1961 according to the Superbrands Annual 2012. But there’s a reason for that. I may be an old-fashioned prude, but behind closed doors up and down the country, how we wipe our backside is our business.

Yet I couldn’t resist taking a peek at the results:

A staggering 14,728 people voted, although it is not clear how many others spoiled their paper.

Perhaps I’m missing the point and all will be revealed in a forthcoming awards submission for Andrex which will show results that during the campaign, the PCEI rose by 243% (Paper:Cheek Engagement Index – a standard measure across the industry).

Or maybe it was a test marketing exercise to feed into the new product development process? Was Andrex about to launch “pre scrunched” Andrex, one wonders, and have these landslide results flushed that idea down the pan.

I know it’s not possible to stick to the classic “soft, strong and very very long” for every campaign, but loo roll is loo roll. Use the full marketing mix to innovate and tell me about the features that make Andrex superior to the competition. I don’t need selling on the ‘benefits’ and certainly don’t want to segment myself as a ‘scruncher’ or ‘folder’ as some sort of lifestyle statement with deep emotional engagement to the brand!

All of this reinforces that, like my boss all those years ago, I am very, very happy to have spent the last 15 years as a B2B Marketer.

But how about you? Do you love or loathe this campaign? Does it make you proud to be a B2B or FMCG marketer? I’d love to hear your thoughts (about this campaign, not your toilet preferences please).

Promoting the ‘Time Shift’ functionality of the new Z10, the ad appears on the face of it to be a standard full-page press ad…

…until it becomes clear that there is a half page covering a second part of the 1.5 page spread, which reveals as below:

There’s no doubt that Blackberry have a huge task ahead of them to catch up with the likes of Apple and Samsung when it comes to smartphone market share, but with innovative ways of promoting innovative features such as this, I wouldn’t write them off just yet.

Nice work.

If you’re in B2B Marketing and not already a subscriber, I’d strongly recommend checking out the benefits of B2B Marketing membership. The article is also now live on the B2B Marketing Knowledge Bank, where you can see lots of other useful articles.

What’s your career game plan for 2013? How will you drive your career forward by implementing a personal action plan? What have you found to be effective in your own career to date? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

If we’re honest, we’ve all done it.

Some call it the “vanity search” or even “ego surfing”. Whatever you call it, it makes good sense to regularly ‘Google yourself’ in order to proactively manage your Digital Personal Brand.

In an increasingly digital world, many people’s first impression of you will be formed as a result of your online profile, so putting your name into Google and seeing who it thinks you are makes sense for anyone serious about managing their online professional reputation.

So what sorts of things should you be looking out for? Here are a few things you should consider when looking at your name search results:

• Do you have any namesakes that appear high in the rankings?
• How visible are your personal social media profiles, and would you be happy for a prospective employer or client to see them?
• How easy is it to find the ‘professional you’?

You wouldn’t go to a business meeting or interview without clean shoes, a freshly ironed shirt and sharp suit, so why not pay as much attention to your online appearance?

Here are three simple things you can do to boost your online search visibility and make sure the ‘professional you’ is projected in search results for your name:

1) Make sure you have a complete and search-friendly LinkedIn profile

I’m assuming that many readers of this blog will have a LinkedIn profile, but not everyone will have a custom URL containing their name, like www.linkedin.com/in/steverevill. Not only does this look more professional than the default LinkedIn profile URL, it will also help your profile to be displayed in Google searches for your name.

I’ve created this short video to show you how to do it…

2) Secure your name URL, and publish a basic website or blog

Building and hosting a professional looking website is easier than ever thanks to platforms such as WordPress. Even if you have no plans to start blogging, you can still secure your name URL, like www.steverevill.net, and build a site with a static homepage to use as a gateway into your professional online profiles. This will also help to get you up the Google results page.

You can easily check if your name URL is available and get it hosted on WordPress.com. Here’s a couple of screen grabs to show you how to check this without having to sign up.

• Go to www.wordpress.com
• Click on ‘get started’

• Then enter your name into the ‘blog address’ field to see if your name URL is available. If it’s taken, you’ll see suggestions that are available. Make sure it contains your full name though- ‘steverevill71.net’ would be better than ‘stevierev.net’.
• Clicking on the drop down tab will show the domain name extensions available along with their annual cost. This can be a very cost-effective way of establishing an online presence.

3) Register your name on key social media sites

As well as LinkedIn, I’d recommend that you set up accounts on both Google Plus and Twitter in order to help get you up the first page of Google search results for your name.

Google Plus is a long, long way off being the ‘Facebook killer’ some hinted it may be at launch, but you’d be crazy to ignore it as the vast majority of search traffic in the UK is via Google. It also has other advantages over Facebook through its ‘circles’ functionality, which allows you to create lots of bespoke segments for sharing your updates across different aspects of your network according to the relationship you have with them - friends, family, colleagues, people you play cricket with etc.

Although Google announced in August 2012 that ‘Custom URLs’ were being rolled out to selected brands and celebrities, they are not yet [as at Jan 2013] widely available to general Google Plus users.

Registering a real name twitter account such as www.twitter.com/steve_revill will not only help establish your presence in Google results but will be a small (140 characters at a time) glimpse into the sorts of things you’re interested in and want to share with your network. You can also tweet updates from your LinkedIn account (but not the other way round) so don’t feel you need to have an onerous publishing schedule of content.

Do you Google yourself? Have you found anything that surprised you? What tools have you used to get your name up the  search results? I’d love to hear your experiences.

If you need any help or advice in brushing up your digital personal brand, please drop me a line.

Here’s an excerpt:

600 people reached the top of Mt. Everest in 2012. This blog got about 2,300 views in 2012. If every person who reached the top of Mt. Everest viewed this blog, it would have taken 4 years to get that many views.

Click here to see the complete report.

I’m happy that this represents a c. 30% increase in views from 2011, especially as I didn’t write any new posts between June and December. In total, the site’s had over 4,200 views since mid 2010 when I first started blogging.

In 2013, I’m committing to publishing posts far more frequently than in 2012, so I hope you find them useful. I’d love to hear your feedback, so feel free to leave a comment on any post or drop me a line.

In the meantime, thanks for following my blog and I wish you and your loved ones a healthy, happy and successful 2013.

The complex relationship between God, cancer and Spongebob Squarepants must have passed me by, but it illustrates the beauty and the curse of socially referred, user-generated content- quality control is only as strong as the weakest link in your network.

It’s annoying when spam appears in your timeline from large brands, but this is no more annoying than an ad and you tolerate it because of the huge benefits that ‘free’ access to a tool like Facebook brings. Plus, you know it’s an algorithm’s ‘opinion’ rather than one of your nearest and dearest actively engaging with the content by clicking ‘like’.

I can’t help contrast this with my LinkedIn timeline. No doubt helped by the removal of automated twitter feeds into LinkedIn, the stream of updates from my professional network of over 550 contacts on LinkedIn (some of whom are also Facebook friends) doesn’t suffer the same pollution of ‘like spam’.

Accepting it’s not in any way scientific, there appears to be a clear difference in behaviour by the same people on Facebook as on LinkedIn. Hardly ‘hold the front page’ stuff, I know, but with more and more talk of the drive from “B2B” (business-to-business) to “P2P” (person-to-person) communications being fuelled by social media, there’s clear evidence to me that people do fluctuate between their “work” and “personal” self, and use separate social media platforms to power these dual personas. For this reason, I struggle to see how Facebook will ever evolve into a truly valuable social media tool for engaging B2B audiences.

Maybe 2013 will be the year Google+ really starts to take off. The segmentation possibilities that its ‘circles’ functionality give you help alleviate some of the issues I’ve touched upon above.

How do you use social media tools? Do you have different platforms for your ‘work’ and ‘personal’ self? In what ways do you manage your digital personal brand using social media?

The excitement starts to build. You count down the number of ‘sleeps’ until the big day. You know you’ve been good all year, but has this been noticed and will it be rewarded?

Don’t worry, your annual performance review meeting will be here before you know it!

Now, there are some excellent line managers out there who take the annual review process extremely seriously, really taking time to consider your contribution to the team and wider business objectives throughout the year. But they’re only human. They’re likely to have a number of annual reviews to do, so you need to make it as easy as possible for them to see and understand the impact you’ve had on the business over the past 12 months. It’s your career, after all.

I’ve illustrated my top 3 tips using a legal metaphor, not to suggest that your career is ‘on trial’ during the annual review meeting, but it’s certainly a ‘hearing’, and needs approaching with preparation, structure and care. This post is intended to help you get your annual performance message heard.

Gather your evidence

Ideally, and most likely according to your company’s HR policy, you’ll be regularly reviewing your objectives and progress towards them with your manager throughout the year. In the real world, however, this can sometimes get lost amongst the day to day pressures of working life.

It’s vital, though, to keep a note of your achievements in whatever way works best for you. One of my former team members had a ‘brag file’ where they’d accumulated positive feedback from project stakeholders as the year had progressed, along with detailed metrics and results from the projects they had worked on.

Don’t just focus on the ‘whats’, though. Are there any behavioural or attitudinal ‘hows’ that you’ve consciously worked on in the past year? What did you commit to in your personal development plan, and what successes or challenges have you had? How have you adapted these development goals as the year has progressed?

Ask the 10-15 stakeholders that have the biggest impact on your ability to succeed in your job (peers, subordinates and superiors) for their open and honest feedback about your performance over the past year. You can use simple frameworks like Stop/Start/Continue or even ask for some candid feedback over an informal coffee.

Present your case

Even if you do have a significant ‘brag file’, don’t be lazy and include it all. If your firm has a template, use it. Be guided but not constrained by its structure, ensuring you address the key elements of the process. Be prepared to add selective supplementary documentation only where it helps illustrate your achievements.

Tackle your shortcomings head on. If any parts of your year haven’t gone so well, or you’ve missed one or more of your key objectives, it’s best to acknowledge these and demonstrate that you understand why they happened, what you’ve learned from the process and what you’d do differently next time. If it’s highlighted a particular skill that you need to brush up on, now’s a great time to enlist your manager’s support in developing it.

Most importantly, consider the needs of your manager at this time of year. Sending a 14 page document is more likely to enrage than enthuse. And as for timing, I’d suggest you send the paperwork and accompanying evidence to them at least 1 week in advance of the review meeting- that is, assuming you want them to actually read and reflect on it ahead of your review.

Be prepared for cross-examination

This doesn’t mean that your review meeting should be in any way confrontational!

I’m simply suggesting that reading around your specialist subject (you and your performance) means you will be able to talk confidently and with structure around how you feel the past 12 months have gone. Be honest with yourself about the highs and lows- your stakeholder feedback will help inform this if you’ve asked a truly representative sample of those you work with.

Really take the time away from your desk to prepare for your review meeting. Step back from the process and the paperwork to reflect on the previous year and what you’ve contributed to the business (and to your CV). What are your goals and ambitions for the coming year? Share them with your manager- contrary to popular belief, they are not a mind reader!

Well managed performance review meetings are a two way process, so make sure you take this opportunity to ask your manager for their thoughts on your performance and to get any further support you need in setting and achieving your personal and organisational objectives for the coming year.

How do you communicate your achievements to your boss? Do you have a ‘brag file’, and what sort of things do you keep in it? What other ways have you seen to proactively manage the annual performance review? I’d love to hear your comments.

But, with the growing number of mobile apps and platforms, it is easy to forget exactly how it’s all connected.

So I welcome yesterday’s news that tweets will no longer be displayed on LinkedIn- as should everyone that hasn’t appreciated the impact that automated cross-posting can have on their digital personal brand.

I use LinkedIn for professional networking. I’m ‘virtually’ suited and booted whenever I’m on the platform and am certainly in ‘work mode’. Yet I’m sure I’m not the only one who’s seen a tweet appear in their LinkedIn timeline and thought, ‘why are you sharing this with me?’.

The way I look at it, most people wouldn’t dream of bursting into a business networking event in their shorts and running vest and shouting “I’VE JUST COMPLETED A THREE MILE RUN IN 26MINS 19SECS”. So either they’ve forgotten these tools are connected or they simply aren’t thinking about the impact of the updates on their audience.

Although this automatic link from twitter has now been broken, it serves as a timely reminder to take a look at the what, why and how to manage your digital personal brand using social media.

• WHAT tools do you currently use? Make a ‘map’ of how they’re all connected and ensure you understand what automated cross-posting is happening as a result.
• WHY are you using them? Ask yourself about your audience on each of these platforms and how your updates impact their perception of you.
• HOW can you effectively add value to your audiences using automation tools, but only once you’ve defined your ‘digital publishing strategy’- what will you send, to whom, how often and why?

There’s a number of tools that are out there that can help you to schedule and automate updates across a number of platforms. Personally, I’m a fan of TweetDeck, but the tool to use first is the one you have between your ears to make sure your digital publishing strategy adds value to your audience and fully aligns to your digital personal brand.

What do you think about Twitter’s move? Are there any downsides for users? Do you have a digital publishing strategy or any digital personal brand guidelines?

First off, Lesley Everett talked about how a personal brand builds over time, like a pearl, constantly adding layers with every interaction on and offline. I particularly liked the way she described the importance of finding your ‘authentic self’, built around your key beliefs and value drivers. She then made the case for personal branding by attributing the following ingredients in building a successful career:

• 10% doing your job
• 30% attitude and behaviour
• 60% visibility and exposure

I’m sure the proportions might cause some debate, but I agree completely that the importance of having a visible personal brand (on and offline) has never been more vital than it is today.

Next up, Mike Berry gave his insights into the most important elements of building a personal brand:

• Creating great content
• Getting in front of your target audience
• Developing a big ego and a thick skin (not everyone will like you, some will hate you!)
• Transparency at all times
• Working hard at self promotion

He urged us to think as we would with any brand – know who you’re targeting, offer value as well as being visible and show you’re the solution to the problem they have.

Dr Dave Chaffey needs no introduction as anyone who has studied digital marketing over the last dozen or so years will have read one of Dave’s books. It was great to meet him in person and hear his ten steps to creating digital strategy for your personal brand:

1) Commit to having a strategy and resourcing it. 62.73% of businesses don’t have a strategy. Think of yourself as a publisher- who are you competing against? Peers? Other news sources? Other consultants?

2) Know what you want...your brand goals. You can’t build a credible personal brand without developing long form content. Therefore you must have a blog to develop a personal brand online.

3) Find your audience and specialism tools such as Ubersuggest and Tweetlevel will help you to find topics on which you can develop content.

4) Create your target personas. Develop 2 or 3 personas for people you’re writing your blog for. Be more understanding of the pain points facing your users.

5) Define your personality. It’s worth investing in the template for your blog, helping you to stand out and be more credible, rather than standard WordPress themes.

6) Define your online value proposition. Define your core brand proposition first…what can you offer? What you do? Where you do it? What makes you different? Have this in a side bar visible on EVERY PAGE.

7) Create your content publishing approach. Have a contract with yourself on how often you’ll update your blog.

8) Growing your footprint through Social Media - resources such as the CIM’s Social Media Benchmark will help you keep up to date on latest trends in adoption and usage.

9) Growing your footprint through SEO

10) Define your publishing platforms - define what you’ll do on which platform. Be aware that marketers often chase the latest new thing, and be careful how much time you commit to anything other than the established networks.

Annmarie Hanlon was up next with some great LinkedIn tips and urged delegates to ensure their profile was 100% complete. Her recommendations for action for your professional online network were:

• Fix the fundamentals (e.g. 100% profile completeness)
• Organise your content plan
• Schedule updates
• Have useful, interesting conversations
• Tag your connections on LinkedIn
• Share knowledge, events and ideas
• ACTIVATE your network

Following lunch, David James kicked off the afternoon session with “Marketing Me: the truth told better”. This involved eating cat food, as he used to be known as “the cat food man”.

A high impact (albeit slightly bizarre) way to kick off the afternoon but he had the audience hanging on his every word as he talked of his experience of ‘being different’ in order to stand out and build his own personal brand. He built a strong argument for standing out in a crowded market – by being different. He has talked about the management styles of drug dealers and Osama Bin Laden- making him different and enabling him to stand out. Very thought-provoking stuff. Diving into and absorbing his deck from the day will be well worth half an hour of your time.

After another session from Dave Chaffey on 21 ideas for effective blogging (check out the deck), Peter Rees called on marketers to “cull the dull” in thought leadership and innovate to be something different and better than the competition. Become a deep expert in your field- thought provoking, maybe even contentious- but not lists of ’5 this’ or ’10 that’. Be in it for the long haul and commit to updating/maintaining on a regular basis.

Kevin Read at Bell Pottinger Business & Brand gave the PR agency perspective of having planned communications across a wide range of global clients and sectors. Reputation as an issue is now owned by the board, which wasn’t the case 10-20 years ago. Digital media has caused us to think differently about reputation management, but there’s no single, correct answer, according to Kevin. Whether or not digital and traditional communications teams would/should merge is a subject of much debate, but Kevin advocates that synergy comes from the best of both.

Finally, but by no means least, Marialena Zinopoulou discussed her 10 most inspirational online influencers. Once again, the deck is well worth a look and in many ways this session might have worked better in the morning as the content links so strongly to Lesley and Mike’s- these are the guys who have been there and done it!

Overall, I thought the day was extremely valuable and thought provoking and I’d highly recommend you look out for DECon2013…by which time I may have had chance to implement some of this best practice advice!

I’d be interested to hear any thoughts or reactions from readers, whether or not you were at the conference. How important do you feel developing your personal brand is? What are the barriers to you achieving this (real or perceived)? Do you have any examples of success stories you can share here?

One of the tasks I set the delegates was to look at the risk of new market entrants from firms in highly trusted sectors and that had excellent customer service. Marks & Spencer was one of the companies I used in this scenario planning exercise to demonstrate the need to ‘look for competitive threats in unusual places’ and to ‘regularly review and update market response plans’.

So Friday’s news that Marks & Spencer is to launch M&S Bank in the summer came as no great surprise to me, with the intention to offer a current account from the autumn and mortgages ‘at a later date’. With over 3 million customers already using M&S Money, the near immediate cross-sales potential of the current account is massive. Add in the fact that M&S has 21 million customers and the business case writes itself.

What did surprise me was the rebrand from M&S Money to M&S Bank. The word ‘bank’ has developed negative connotations in some quarters and the move shows clear confidence that the strength of both the M&S brand and the M&S Bank proposition is materially different (and better) to that offered by ‘traditional’ banks. It certainly looks compelling, as customers will have access to branches that are ‘open twice as long as high street banks, seven days a week’, and will have 24 hour access to online banking.

This is all made possible thanks to a joint venture with HSBC, who describe this as “our most significant innovation in retail banking since we launched First Direct”. Nothing to be worried about there, then.

What do you think about M&S’ move? Do the high street banks have anything to worry about? Or will customer apathy and a renewed focus on increasing customer service levels be enough to hold onto their customer base?

Here’s the slide deck from my workshop last month.