 
In order to keep up with the fast paced world you need to constantly upgrade yourself. At times a company does so by increasing its current product line, exploring new ventures or by divesting etc. Same goes with a logo design. To just redesign a logo is not an issue but to design it in a way that it incorporates all its aspects i.e. company services, identity, values etc is a difficult task. While collecting all the top companies, that have successfully redesigned their logo, I noticed that they didn’t totally change their logo but modified it in a way that not only created a fresh look but also maintained their corporate identity.  BMW Logo Bavarian Motor Works (BMW) Logo: BMW, a German Company is the leading manufacturer of the automobiles and motorcycles in the world. The existing BMW logo contains a black ring containing the text “BMW”, the gap in the ring is equally divided in four parts with blue and white quarters.Dixi was the first vehicle to carry BMW logo in 1929. With minimal changes in the BMW logo, it has maintained its original look throughout the company’s history.  Coca Cola Logo Coca Cola: Coca cola, started its operations in the ...
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“It takes many good deeds to build a good reputation, and only one bad one to lose it”
Benjamin Franklin The first and foremost thing about branding which most business owners don’t emphasize on (unfortunate for them) is the creation and preservation of a unique business identity. Business identity is a sum of a number of factors including your logo, tag line, business card, brochure, website Etc. The idea is not to surprise yourself or the customers but to perfectly represent the brand. There has to be something different about your brand if you want your business to be viewed and reviewed online. A PERSONAL EXPERIENCE A couple of years back I was called in for an interview by a firm. I thought I should go online and see the company’s profile before I show up for the interview so I Googled their business name in order to go to their website but there were a number of companies with the same name providing different kind of services. So in the end I had to scan every single website thinking it could be anyone of those. When I appeared for the interview I was asked if I had done some preliminary research about the company and what they do and if it interests me or not. ...
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I’m a big fan of Social Media. You probably know that if we are connected on LinkedIn, Twitter, or Facebook. I recently stumbled upon Drew McLellan’s Social Media Cheat Sheet (see to the right) and had a few thoughts on it as it relates to business. Drew is a public speaker and gets questions from his audiences on which social media networks should be used for business. His response to that question is prefaced with:  Social Media Cheat Sheet there is no single, magic or easy answer to that question. It all depends on your goals, your overall marketing strategy, your resources and your industry. It’s not a cookie cutter sort of thing. I agree. Goals must be defined, marketing strategy, target audience, time and resources are all factors that must be taken into consideration prior to identifying which social media networks should be used for business. Drew then took the next step and created “The CMO’s Guide To THE SOCIAL LANDSCAPE,” describing the business value of 10 social media networks. Today is March 21, 2010 (and the first day of golf season-totally unrelated side-note). If a CMO has not ...
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Randy Farmer (@frandallfarmer) and Bryce Glass (@soldierant) share some insightful tips on designing web reputation, or karma, systems: - Karma is user reputation within a context
- Karma is useful for building trust between users, and between a user and the site
- Karma can be an incentive for participation and contributions
- Karma is contextual and has limited utility globally. [A chessmaster is not a good eBay Seller]
- Karma comes in several flavors – Participation, Quality and Robust (combined)
- Karma should be complex and the result of indirect evaluations, and the formulation is often opaque
- Personal karma is displayed only to the owner, and is good for measuring progress
- Corporate karma is used by the site operator to find the very best and very worst users
- Public karma is displayed to other users, which is what makes it the hardest to get right
- Public karma should be used sparingly – it is hard to understand, isn’t expected, and is easily confused with content ratings
- Negative public karma should be avoided all together. In karma-math -1 is not the same magnitude as +1, and information loss is too expensive.
- Public karma often encourages ...
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 Friend lists are an often overlooked feature of Facebook, but they can be really useful for isolating key influencers in your industry from the rest of your contacts, filtering out “noise,” customizing your status updates and privacy settings and more.
In this video tutorial I walk you through how to create a new list, add contacts to it, filter your News Feed by it and customize your settings and updates with it. If you are still getting used to the layout changes Facebook rolled out a few weeks back, then this might be helpful for you since the location of the lists is slightly different. Post from: communicate value
Video Post: How to Create Facebook Friend Lists and Use Them Strategically in Your Business  Link to original post ...
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With the announcement of Twitter @Anywhere, your Twitter profile will soon be able to get a lot more exposure. In this video, Twitter founder Evan Williams introduces Twitter @Anywhere as something that makes websites much more Twitter-friendly: Click here to view the embedded video. So wait, what is Twitter @Anywhere and why should I care? Right now you don’t need to care, because @Anywhere isn’t available yet, but it will be soon… Pronounced ‘At Anywhere’, it’s a new technology from Twitter that will help your personal branding through Twitter by: Highlighting your name on a website On any @Anywhere-enabled website, text that matches a Twitter user’s name (but not their username) will cause a small popup or ‘hovercard’ with some of your Twitter information to appear when moused over. I’m willing to bet that any text that corresponds to the name of a Twitter user will be automatically linked for hovercard purposes, so the more your name appears on @Anywhere-enabled sites, the more chances to gain followers. It will be interesting to see how Twitter will manage all the spammers using the same names as other people, or even just regular people who share a name. I really ...
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 I get the question “will social media work for my business?” a lot. For the purposes of this post, I should clarify that the term “social media” doesn’t just refer to the big sites like Facebook or Twitter. It applies to anything interactive that takes place online—including blogs, message boards, video and more. Not every business will benefit from the same exact sites and tools.
That being said, it seems there is still a lot of S.M.S. disease going around. Social Media Skepticism, that is.  The most insidious form of this disease just happens to be Myth #1: “My clients/customers/people who pay my mortgage every month aren’t using social media.” (Or the even more aggressive form, “My prospects aren’t online.” Really?!) Maybe your clients and customers aren’t on Twitter or aren’t reading blogs regularly. You’ll need to explore exactly where YOUR market is spending their time. But I guarantee that they’re using the web to search for products and services, or book speakers for conferences, or to look for referrals, or….you get the idea. What I teach my students and clients is how to build a web presence, create a fan base and get their business (no matter ...
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Social Media Manners Matter There is so much written about what TO do with Social Media, there is so little written about what NOT to do. More than any other medium - telephone, written letters, email - Social Media is incredibly risky. Whatever you write can be broadcast worldwide, is archived forever, and can have an impact well beyond the intended audience. Watch out for these pitfalls: 1) If you're upset about something that was written, and you know the person who wrote it, it is far more productive to pick up the phone and ask them to retract than to engage in a public "flame war". 2) Don't post pictures of yourself that could be embarassing later on. (PR pros will tell you to use this test: if your mother or your manager would approve, then it's probably OK to post. It's too easy to be disqualified from jobs based on inappropriate Facebook pictures or comments. 3) Don't ask others for recommendations on LinkedIn unless you're pretty sure that they will agree. If you're unsure, pick up the phone and have a conversation first. 4) Be careful of flooding your "friends" with Too Much Information in your status updates. They'll eventually tire of it... ...
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Let me start off by saying that I enjoy LinkedIn and its functionality. LinkedIn has helped me stay in touch with family, friends, and colleagues in a business capacity and ultimately helped me connect with like-minded people. Social Media Networks like LinkedIn have opened the door for traditional sales representatives to connect with spam members of the same LinkedIn Group. I recently received this spam email and wanted to share what NOT to do when using LinkedIn for Business. [The Spammer will remain anonymous, but the content of the email will not.] How To Fail At Using LinkedIn LinkedIn Email Spam Headline  LinkedIn Spam Email Title How did I get spammed? I share a LinkedIn group with the spammer, opening up the opportunity for the spammer to contact me via email. The Title of the email is “Build your sales pipeline.” Ugh. Really? Yes, I am a “Sales Representative” but, really? LinkedIn Spam Email Introduction  LinkedIn Spam Email Intro The Spammer says, “Hi” but does not reference me. If you are going to spam someone via email, at least have the courtesy of ...
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 By now you have heard about Google Buzz and maybe given it a shot. At least you tried couple of times then you said “I think I should just check my email.”
You have to give it to Google that they were very smart about their new offering. Instead of launching it as a separate product like Wave, they launched it as a part of something already successful. In case you didn’t know, Gmail is the 3rd largest free email in the world. I personally started out with Hotmail but always felt that email should be fast and easy. Gmail is fast and easy and that is why after using both Hotmail and Yahoo! I decided to divert everything to Gmail. Every time any website asks me for an email, I give out Hotmail. When people ask for email, I give them Gmail. Lately, I haven’t had much time to play with it but so far it has been an okay experience. I don’t use Twitter much because when I ask a question on Buzz, I do get a response. On Twitter it is like I am shooting an arrow in the dark. I have more followers on Twitter by the way. Most people who are following me on Buzz are not really friends and I was little worried the other day that why exactly are all these people following me ...
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