The Art of Professional (and Personal) Branding with the Cloud
Branding — the watchword of the zeitgeist. From billion-dollar conglomerates to everyday individuals who dream of reshaping their image, it seems as if we’re all on a mission to brand ourselves and shape other’s perceptions of us. When properly executed, a branding (or re-branding) effort can augment a business’ profile and revenue, attract a more influential network, and help a person or company follow trend or transition into a more appropriate, compelling image. Do you know what other concept continues to gain traction, and positive branding, for achieving these very same ideals? If you said “cloud computing,” give yourself a shiny gold star.
Indeed, the cloud is enjoying an ever-increasing and improving persona as a tool essential for anyone who aspires to greater efficiency, creativity, and (potentially) profit. Rumor has it that cloud computing can also tag-team with a branding strategy, on levels both personal and professional, to positively redefine who uses it. Here are a couple ideas on just how this cloud-branding harmony can be accomplished:
Harness cloud computing to prep for a massive inflow of visitor traffic during a (re)branding campaign. Many of the greatest and most effective marketing missions in business history never came to be, due to those missions’ failure to cogently answer a key question: how will the client’s website handle the skyrocketing demand and visitor influx? We’re happy to report that cloud computing offers an attractively flexible answer to this question.
Cloud-based web servers can upscale to absorb a spike in hits and interest, preventing a crash, while those same servers can downscale as the attention ebbs. With the cloud, a well-marketed, shiny and new web campaign will withstand the positive pandemonium every branding effort prays for.
Configure your cloud correctly to brand your business/client on outstanding customer/fan service. Say that, during a (re)branding period, a massive change to your virtual interactions ensues. You dismantle your old blog in order to refurbish a new one, for example. Or your team has yet to eradicate every bug and glitch to your business’ sparkling, souped-up web site, so you need time to troubleshoot. Such fissures in web presence can spell frustration for regular customers or interested fans, who might complain/unfollow/un-Like in protest.
You can address and allay this dismay, however, by establishing a special phone number or temporary site, via the cloud. Cloud computing’s flexibility also enables you to reach out to your web community before, during, and after a major re-tooling. All of these steps both preserve your respect and declare that your fans/customers come first, cementing their loyalty and potentially attracting more interest.
Cloud loving readers: how have you used the cloud to help fuel and sustain your (re)branding campaign?
By Jeff Norman
