This month marks the fifth anniversary of the launch of KNOWN, a seminal book on the topic of personal branding. When I consider my long career, I regard this book as my greatest contribution to the business world (so far!). Not many weeks go by that somebody doesn’t tell me how this book changed their life or that KNOWN is their favorite business book ever. KNOWN unravels the complexity of building your personal brand, and it works. Despite the obvious business case to establish the presence, reputation, and authority to get your job done in this world, many people bristle at the idea of “pe ..read more

Amanda Russell is at the epicenter of the swirling world of influence marketing. She is teaching the first college course on this subject as well as writing a seminal book on the topic. She is also an influencer herself. With the rapid growth of this channel, it’s a good time to check and see where the world is going. While influencers have traditionally been used to promote the latest fashion or cosmetics products, they’re increasingly being used by brands, governments, and other large institutions to share important information and gain trust. A good example of this is Olivia Rodrigo, singe ..read more

Today’s post is much different from my normal offering. I’m writing this from SXSW, an annual conference that is the epicenter of new ideas. I thought it was more important to quickly share some rough notes rather than try to spend extra time on editing. SXSW is so massive it’s impossible to take in even a fraction of the content but here we go with some of the highlights of my annual visit: Relentlessly Relevant There were no good pictures of me at this event. This one contains a mound of hair in the foreground. But is really nice hair. I gave one of the opening keynote talks of the event ..read more

I used to live in Texas. They have a saying there: “Never ask a person about the size of their ranch.” Meaning, it’s impolite to compare material goods. We should respect people purely for who they are, not what they own or how much money they have, and that is a code I live by. Except for today. I was updating my spreadsheet tracking my book sales and realized that over 12 years, I’ve been making significant money from my books … against the odds. Actually making a living wage is so weird and rare for a business writer that it’s worth writing about! Even though I’m uncomfortable with this to ..read more

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been reading a lot about persuasion. And this is what you probably already know — It’s nearly impossible to convince people of what they don’t want to believe! Decades of work in psychology attest to this truth, as does most everything in our politics and most of our everyday experience. Think of your own conversations with your family or your colleagues. How often have you really persuaded someone to abandon a strongly held belief or preference? Persuasion is by no means impossible or unimportant, and it’s worth considering how these truths apply to marketi ..read more

Like millions around the world, I can’t take my eyes off the news coming out of Ukraine. As I write this, the developments are heart-breaking and infuriating, but whatever hope is coming out of the war is being delivered by social media. At the heart of this crisis, we are witnessing the most important and positive social media story in 10 years. The first global star turn for social media was the Arab Spring 20 years ago. A wave of pro-democracy protests took place in the Middle East and North Africa beginning in 2010 and 2011, challenging some of the region’s entrenched authoritarian regime ..read more

Too short to be a blog post, too important to ignore, here are five random observations from the world of marketing … 1. The stylized persona My friend Minter Dial recently suggested to me that one of the biggest threats to the marketing field is the “stylized persona” — social media expectations that dictate how we should be, what we should say, and even how we look. This is a wise observation. I am overwhelmed by the boring sameness on social media these days, especially people who are trying to be social media thought leaders. Few of the people who cry “authenticity!” are really authentic ..read more

Social media can creep up on you. I was talking to a friend the other day who has blogged for many years. Then a friend asked him to start a podcast. He had always wanted to try this and so he committed to a weekly show, although it wasn’t directly related to his business. And oh yes, he is also doing a YouTube channel to support a hobby. And he’s been spending many hours following conversations on Clubhouse. The only content channel that directly supports his business is the blog. But because of the time taken up by the new podcast and YouTube channel, he had fallen behind and wasn’t creatin ..read more

Web3 is a hot marketing topic. But what the heck is it? I recently saw a blog post titled “12 Web3 definitions.” How clear can this be if it has 12 definitions? And yet, we need to be experimenting and exploring this evolution in how we connect to fans and customers. I had a rare opportunity to talk to one of the pioneering leaders of this space, perhaps one of the most respected marketing pioneers period, Sandy Carter. Sandy is a former C-Suite executive with IBM and Amazon Web Services and now she is leading marketing for Unstoppable Domains, Sandy is an energetic, passionate, and experienc ..read more

I recently had lunch with an entrepreneur in the electronics industry. He is dominating his competition and gaining market share every month. Some of his competitors are even exiting the market. But his success has nothing to do with excellent advertising, customer engagement, SEO, content, or even the fact that he has a product with superior features. The reason he’s dominating his niche is because he has a stockpile of microchips to make his product and his competitors don’t. The key to his profound marketing success is the fact that he paid obsessive attention to his supply chain and prepa ..read more