Andrea Trapani

In a recent post, we wrote about driving brand consistency and the challenges of keeping harmonious color throughout your entire brand in print. But, how do we achieve consistency when presenting digitally?

We all know that great feeling when we see our name or our company’s name in print or on TV. In that moment, we think of all of the important people reading or watching with us — and the deep impact the story could have — but do we know who’s really paying attention?

Lately, many of our early-stage social media discussions with companies have revolved around one particular topic:

Any company focused on delivering a consistent brand experience develops and maintains a set of brand standards that help regulate its exposure. The most basic concept of branding involves communicating the essence of an organization through every touch point with its audience.

Corporate annual meetings are a great opportunity for executives to share important messages that are part of their overall communications strategy. All too often, companies look at these meetings as solely an opportunity to update their employees about goals, numbers, and the fiscal focus for the year ahead, while communications is left in the dust.

Let’s do a quick run down: Kodak Imaging Network fined $32,000, YesMail fined $50,000, Jumpstart fined $900,000, and ValueClick fined $2.9 million.

It’s common for companies to develop and issue HR handbooks that detail acceptable and unacceptable work behavior or Internet usage. Unfortunately, many of these documents do not provide clear direction as to how employees should be representing themselves or the brand, especially when communicating online with friends, family, colleagues, clients, and vendors through social networks or posting information and media online.

The holidays are upon us. As companies begin creating custom holiday cards to send to their clients/customers, vendors, and other business partners, it’s important to keep in mind that there should be the right balance between looking like a holiday greeting and not offending recipients who are of different faiths.

Not too long ago, PR pros were convinced that the only effective way of proving results was through counting clips of media coverage and/or AVEs (advertising value equivalents).

You may have read at some point over the past few weeks about the slow unfolding of Netflix’s new brand direction and subsequent blow-up. The company raised its rates by 60 percent and created two separate companies (Quikster and Netflix). Public backlash was immediate, and the damage control ultimately led to a near reversal of the changes (save for the rate increase).