When it comes to building your brand through marketing, it can be tough to stand out. To distinguish yourself from similar businesses and products while working under the looming notion that “it’s” already been done. The use of humor is a timeless approach for marketers to deliver a strong branded message that is memorable and effective.

Adding humor to advertising is an art and done right, you can have a viral video or ad campaign that skips across the World Wide Web in a matter of moments. Adding humor into your marketing campaign can be trickier than you think for many reasons. You don’t just want them to laugh at your ad; you want them to remember your message too.

Memory plays a big role in the effectiveness of a video marketing campaign and funny videos have a way of sticking with you. Humor triggers an emotional reaction to your brand’s message. This is what makes it so memorable for the viewer. It is this same emotion that inspires them to share your humorous advertisement with their friends and family.

True humor is often hard to hit squarely on the head and all too often attempts at being funny do more harm than good. There is a difference between invoking a smile and producing a laugh out loud response. So what makes funny, funny? One key ingredient is the element of surprise. The tough part is making that surprise relevant to your brand.

Humorous marketing can be used even for those industries that aren’t naturally funny. For example, most people don’t consider learning a foreign language fun or funny. For many high school students, learning Spanish is everything but funny. However, the commercials from Berlitz, less commonly known language instruction software, have added funny to their marketing vocabulary and are coming up with some very memorable campaigns.

In an industry where Rosetta Stone has become synonymous with learning a foreign language, Berlitz is using humor to catch up to the competition. While the videos produced by Berlitz are knee-slappers, each delivers the message of just how important it is to know a foreign language-even if that language is English. Not to mention how that language can help you out of some pretty serious situations.

Trying out humor can be a scary experience. There is nothing worse than going for funny and falling short. Some humor is thought-provoking and this is a positive effect to have on viewers. The opposite end of the scale is that some humor can be offensive and you definitely don’t want to take your marketing campaign there.

Remember it’s either funny or it’s not and if there is any doubt, better safe than sorry and try again.

Rafferty Pendery

There’s nothing more aggravating to an executive than to be surprised to find that something he thought was being done was not. How do you avoid such surprises?

Well, one way is to statisize on a piece of graph paper all important functions in the organization. Prepare the graph by listing time across the bottom of the graph and quantity up the left side. This gives the executive an instant visual idea of past and present production, if targets are being met and if the company is delivering valuable products that customers are willing to pay for.

Studio98 is in the business of internet marketing. We build and maintain websites; we do pay per click and SEO services, and we create systems for other marketing companies, to name a few. In our weekly staff meeting, Rafferty Pendery, the CEO of Studio98, wants to see the stats for that week. As an example, Gross Income (GI) is a stat that most companies keep. It’s a good one because it can tell you a lot about production and the quality of the products within the company at a glance. If the products of the business are moving through the various steps correctly, then they will come out the other end a product the customer is willing to pay for. A rising GI indicates that competent services are being performed by competent staff members. It also indicates that products are being finished on time.

But that’s not the only stat. Each employee has a job. He’s producing something or should be. He should have a stat graph to log his or her products. This has been found to tremendously help employee morale. His individual contributions to the overall goals of the company are there in black and white. It’s also a good defense against a crazy manager.

A graph showing the relative rises and falls is a bold visual representation of the condition in present time of any given area of the company. To a trained eye it can impart a wealth of information

For instance, if a statistic is higher this week than last, it indicates you are doing something right so don’t change anything just continue doing what you’re doing. If it’s down this week from last week it tells you something is awry so you need to act to reverse the statistic.

As obvious as this sounds, few companies know what to statisize or how to interpret the trends once statisized. The result is that the company is not doing as well as it could be and there are a lot of key personnel keeping a lot of data rattling around in their heads.

The statisizing of the various jobs within the company is one of the simplest ways to increase productivity that you’ve ever seen.

Try it out and let me know what happened.

Bob Cook
Co-founder Studio98, LLC

The rumors around the Facebook water cooler were all true and last night the games began as Facebook users could start claiming their very own vanity URLs. Choosing a username was first reserved for businesses and partners of Facebook with more than 1000 fans, but the doors were opened to Joe Public and as of midnight, the regular folks can claim a username that will become the URL for their Facebook profile.

Once again Facebook listened to its users and heard the high demand for the vanity URL request. The introduction of vanity URLs will make connecting on Facebook easier for individuals and businesses. Instead of having to search through hundreds of possible name matches or distribute the current numerical id used by Facebook, you can simply distribute your personal URL for the site. Usernames are being distributed on a first come, first serve basis and must be a minimum of five characters (they may include letters, numbers and periods only-no special characters). If you have the perfect username in mind for your account, you will want to move quickly to claim it.

What do vanity URLs mean for search engine marketing? Traffic via natural search for one thing. As Facebook is one of the largest networks on the web, when you do a name search, you will usually see a Facebook result in the top ten (if anyone by that name is a member of Facebook of course). With the inclusion of vanity URLs, Facebook will likely become one of the top two search results for any person or business. Not to mention the possibility of adding Facebooks high page rank value to your SEO campaign.

There are ground rules in effect. For starters, you should pick your username carefully, because it is for life. If you do change your mind about your username selection, your only option will be to start a new account. Unfortunately, Facebook is not letting new accounts select specific usernames. Or at least for the time being. So individuals should choose carefully and businesses should choose relevancy.

In addition, generic usernames will not be available. Generic usernames would include pizza or cheese as a username. Facebook is encouraging individuals and businesses to select a username that is specific and relevant to their own identity or business. This is the smartest choice for businesses if they want their vanity URL from Facebook to add value to their online marketing campaign. There is a form available to prevent trademark infringement as well.

Usernames are filling up fast and if you want to be part of the Username Land Rush and add even more value to your Facebook Business account. Log on today and claim your name.

I had written a blog post about branding your business through building a Ning community. For the beginner-level website owner, this is still a great option. Recently another option emerged which is by far the best free option for building a community.

BuddyPress.org. This is a plugin for the well known WordPress blog platform that turns your blog into a full social networking platform. Studio98 was recently hired by a client to build a Home Staging Community for them, we did this with BuddyPress. The system is 100% customizable (open source) and coded well for search engine optimization.

The plugin is newer so further developments are still needed, but it has a great base for a start. If someone wants the flexibility, I would definitely recommend BuddyPress over Ning.

Rafferty Pendery
CEO Studio98

The key to website success is getting found by the search engines. So why do so many people risk getting blacklisted by utilizing unethical search engine optimization tactics? Your site definitely can’t get found if Google has booted you from their index. The most surprising tactic that started over 10 years ago and still gets used by Black Hat SEOs today is the use of hidden text on your webpage.

Hidden text is textual content that visitors to your site cannot see, but is readable by the search engines. The idea is to load a page with keywords and phrases that would be unsightly to web users but would improve a page’s ranking in the search results. These keywords and phrases are invisible to searchers because they are usually in very small font and/or made the same color as the pages background or background image. It’s search spam and it’s a terrible optimization tactic that could cost your website ever being found again.

Search engines have been more than vigilant about fighting efforts to manipulate their results. Unethical techniques, like hiding keyword stuffed sentences on your page, may be able to trick the search engines for a brief moment of time, but once found, you run the risk of being permanently banned. If the welfare of the site matters to you at all, then don’t use spam methods at all.

Poor SEO practices can also be damaging to your reputation and brand. Your website, if your Black Hat practices are brought to any one’s attention and especially if you get blacklisted, will be perceived as untrustworthy. You are after all, presenting your site in one format to search engines while showing different information to a searcher. If your reputation or the reputation of your business and brand matters, then stick to ethical optimization results.

So remember, per Google themselves: “If your site is perceived to contain hidden text and links that are deceptive in intent, your site may be removed from the Google index, and will not appear in search results pages.” Make sure you know the team you hire to handle search engine optimization for your site. Don’t waste your time and money on spam tactics. Invest instead on a custom web design that uses ethical search engine optimization tactics like including keyword rich quality content and natural link building campaigns.

Rafferty Pendery
CEO Studio98

Please rest assured that HP is always striving to provide the best-possible user experience and can only do so with the type of valuable feedback you provided.

That’s probably what you would hear if you inquired with HP on why they are using annoying survey pop-ups on their website. Pop-ups are the irritation of Internet users everywhere. You have no options-you have to look at it to hopefully close it and move on with your intended mission.

How can such an irritating practice still be in use by so many?

The unfortunate truth is that pop-up ads have been successful in the past. As sad as it may be, countless brands have been transformed into household names with the use of pop-ups. They get consumers’ attention whether it be negative or, for a surprising few, positive. But if you wouldn’t consider telemarketing your customers for fear of what it might do to your brand, then why use pop-ups? These marketing techniques won’t build consumer confidence or help your brand reputation.

Here is a reality check before you jump on the pop-up, under, or over campaign. Forrester Research released a report indicating 64 percent of Internet users still find pop-ups “irritating”. That’s more than half of your target audience. At the same time, consumer usage of pop-up blocking software is on the rise, as well as the number of browsers offering the feature, making this irritating marketing campaign less effective with each day. Hopefully this will be enough to deter marketers from using this annoying technique.

One option is to have something where the user clicks on a link to see the pop up. For example, HP could create a non pop-up banner ad where on that site that said “Take our 2-minute survey and be entered to win $10,000″, then when the user clicked, it would open the pop-up survey. In doing it this way, they would be looking at a pop-up campaign that was a lot more effective with less irritation. And what is $10,000 to HP? A drop in the massive bucket.

If the above isn’t good enough to stop the pop-up urge, then consider your reputation. Pop-ups are extremely negative for your image and brand. Once your target market loses trust in your brand, you will have not only spent thousands on a damaging pop-up campaign, but now you will be spending thousands more to repair the dents in your reputation.

Rafferty Pendery
CEO Studio98

One of the keys of reputation management that many people overlook is honesty.

Unlike many businesses today, I am confident that today’s consumers have no problem seeing through false promises in advertising. I admire honest marketing and believe it to be the best marketing approach. It is surprising how many companies are still pumping out ambiguity and doubt in their advertising because they reveal no facts to back up their points.

Three cheers to companies like Progressive Insurance who is confident in their rates and service and in their customer’s ability to make their own informed decisions. They freely post the rates of their competitors right next to their own. Never claiming to have the very best rates for every one in the world and offering options for customers to find a policy that works best for them, thereby restoring consumers’ faith in their own decisions.

Dishonesty would obviously never fall under the category of “good marketing”, but all too often it slips in through the crack under the door. You can’t fake honesty. As a business or industry you must provide quality and content that are credible.

This all leads me to wonder, how might an inferior company then promote their product or service? The first step would be to start being honest with themselves and then with consumers. How would a company make the change to honest marketing? I suggest starting at “home”. Try asking your customers and employees for some honest anonymous feedback and build from there.

We can’t all be the best at everything all the time. Being honest in your marketing campaign is a start to developing quality customer relations and building a great reputation.

Studio98 develops full reputation management strategies for companies and individuals through a full integrated marketing campaign.