U.S. Department of the Treasury homepage

U.S. Department of the Treasury interior page

I recently attended a fantastic event hosted by 85Broads, White & Case Women’s Initiative, and Ms. JD featuring the inspiring Laura Liswood.  Afterwards, as I networked and chatted with other women there, I met two women from the U.S. Department of the Treasury.  We talked for a bit and then performed the ritual business card exchange. As I took their cards, I noticed that even though they worked for the exact same office in the same government agency, the color, fonts and layouts of their cards were very different. In fact, the women didn’t even realize the difference existed until they saw each other’s cards.

And it gets worse. Take a look at the Treasury website and you’ll find multiple logos, inconsistent navigation and page layouts, not to mention how dated the site looks overall. (For comparison, check out the consistent, clean and audience-focused design of one of Treasury’s bureaus, the Office of Thrift Supervision.)

The mismatched marketing creates the impression that the U.S. Department of the Treasury is an unorganized agency that doesn’t mind the details. Now, I’m not suggesting that the Treasury’s poor branding is related to the economic death spiral we are just now pulling out of, but the lack of consistency does make it difficult to cultivate the image of stability and trustworthiness they need right now.

To build a strong brand, it is essential to have a coherent identity. Every touchpoint with your audience—from your email signature to the design of your office space—should reinforce your unique brand value and create a unified image of your organization. Consistency allows you to:

The Influencer Project

Last week I attended the shortest marketing conference ever: The Influencer Project. The virtual event brought together 60 digital innovators and asked them to speak for 60 seconds about increasing your influence online. Speakers included some of the top thought leaders in digital media today. Here are some that I was excited to hear from:

Cupcake Queen Wendy Nemitz of Ingenuity Marketing Group

Last week I was immersed in the Association for Accounting Marketing’s (AAM) national conference here in DC. The event offered three days of inspiring speakers, thought provoking presentations and networking with the sharpest minds in accounting marketing, and, significantly, constant tweets about the event.

During the conference I used Twitter to find out what was going on in sessions I missed, connect with new friends, make plans, provide commentary, joke around, share observations and, most importantly, connect.

In essence, twitter amplified my conference experience.

Here are some easy ways to use twitter to get the most out of any event.

1. Follow the hashtag
Hashtags allow you to follow conversations on Twitter in real time. A hastag uses the hash symbol followed by a topic or event name. Find out what the event hashtag is and follow the conversations. You’ll get updates on the event, see who’s attending, the sessions they’re excited about and plan meetups or tweetups.

And, if you’re really enthusiastic, you can post your tweets about the event to your site or blog. Tweetboard lets you add a widget of your tweets in threaded discussions that can be commented on by visitors.

2. Tweet at the event
The amazing thing about tweeting at an event is that you’ll feel like a rockstar. People retweet your tweets, send you messages, talk about you in their tweets. I have to admit I was a power tweeter at the AAM conference, and people I’d never met before were asking me about my tweets. How cool is that?! But this five seconds of fame is minor compared to the value your tweets provide. By tweeting, you’re able to share the key points of a session people may have missed, alert them to a spontaneous get together, or, in the case of AAM, let them know that the escalators are not grounded. Thanks @nadenlean!

Tweeting also contributes to the overall archive of the event. Want to make sure you didn’t miss any important tweets? Use Twapper Keeper. It allows you to create an instant pdf of all the tweets that used the conference hastag.

3. Make that connection
Sometimes the end of conferences feel like the last day of summer camp. You had a great time, but you wonder if you’ll ever see any of these people again. Grow the relationships you made by staying in touch with people online after the conference. Follow them on Twitter. You can use BlastFollow to create a list of anyone who used the conference hastag. Connect on LinkedIn. And, if the connection was as much social as it was business, friend them on Facebook.

How do you build connections at events? Are there any other tools to recommend?

Tony Hsieh speaking at DCWEEK

I went to hear Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos, as part of the amazing 10 day-long extravaganza that was Digital Capital Week. Tony talked about how important the brand is to a company’s overall success. If you don’t have a clear sense of your unique value and your people aren’t committed to delivering to that promise, everything about your business will suffer. Tony saw that first hand with the first company he started. As the company grew, it lost its shared sense of purpose and morale, internal cohesiveness and profits all declined.

With Zappos, Tony set out to create a company where the brand drove everything. At Zappos, the employees live and breathe their promise to deliver superior client service, to deliver happiness. Here are some ways you can learn from Zappo’s brand values to strengthen your own brand.

Value #1: Deliver WOW Through Service
To be remarkable, you can’t be average. You have to stand out to get the attention of people bombarded with messages in an age of information overload. Commit to delivering WOW by consistently exceeding expectations, and people will remember you and sing your praises to others.