I firmly believe that the best thing small businesses and organizations can do to become more successful is to embrace and implement a focused brand development strategy. Unfortunately, there are too many businesses and organizations that either don’t understand branding, undervalue branding, or have misconceptions about how branding can help their specific situation. I find [...]

Branding and brand-building are vital components of any business’ success, but what about small business? Is creating a different, relevant, powerful brand identity really all that important for small businesses and organizations? Learn why branding is vital to the success of any small business in this overview of Branding for Small Business.

How do you view your brand development initiatives? As a cost? Or as an investment? Learn why it’s vital to the growth of your brand and success of your business to view your brand strategy as an investment.

In order to achieve lasting success for you small business or organization you must develop an integrated, focused brand development strategy. This article informs you how to employ three key branding strategies to help grow your brand.

Let’s face it, times are tight. It’s hard enough for small businesses and organizations to keep the cash flow going in a thriving economy, let alone in a difficult one. I’ve covered the importance of viewing branding as an investment, rather than a cost, but when finances are strained, your expenses and your investments seem [...]

I just downloaded the new iTunes 9 today after it was featured at today’s Apple event. Apple made some subtle, but I believe needed changes to the interface, particularly to the iTunes store, and I just can’t help but comment. This won’t be a lengthy post detailing all of the new features of iTunes 9…you’ll have to go elsewhere for that. This is just a quick review from a branding and design perspective.

The new Facebook 3.0 mobile application went live yesterday and for the most part is very well received by its user base. The update features a lot of changes, most notably a redesigned home screen with icon navigation. But what makes an update like this to arguably the most popular social networking application so well received?

In the first part of this three-part series on Social Media we covered a brief explanation of what Social Media is, and why small businesses, organizations, and freelancers should utilize social media initiatives to help build their brands. In this article we’ll define more specifically how to use social media based on what type of brand or business you manage and offer some tools and tips to optimize your social media initiatives.

Social Media. Two words which really define the most recent movement on the internet, and for the most part business in general. Even my grandmother knows what Twitter is…maybe…but the bottom line is there’s no doubt social media has taken and is continuing to take the web, tech, and business worlds by storm. But this isn’t about rehashing what’s been said about the social media movement. The purpose of this article is to address how small businesses, organizations, and freelancers need to approach social media. Is social media for everyone? How can you apply social media to your business? Why is it so important?

What insights, ideas, creative solutions do you bring to your clients that others don’t or can’t? In today’s economy more and more clients are shifting business away from traditional methods – what are you doing to capitalize on this shift in the market.

One of the key points we tell our clients at FiveSeven when working to develop their brands is to make sure they align their business strategy with their brand strategy. Most of the time the response we get is something like, “okay…so what exactly does that mean”? It’s a very important concept to not only understand, but also employ, so I want to talk briefly about what it means to align these two strategies, why it’s important to do so, and how to make it happen.

So, yes, essentially I’m talking to myself here, but I needed to fill the first post in the Interviews section and wouldn’t you know, even though I’m with myself every day I haven’t interviewed myself in a while! We’ll be posting interviews with well known designers, consultants, and business owners periodically in our Interviews section, so be sure to check back often. So here it goes, my interview with myself…

One of my good friends is the Landscape Manager at SeaWorld in Orlando, and he recently shared an experience with me that made me laugh, but also made me think. A couple of weeks ago a team of irrigation specialists came to install a new irrigation system in one of the sections of the SeaWorld [...]

We make decisions every day. Some are easy to make, others harder to make. When it comes to running a business or organization, decisions are made for a variety of reasons, and based on a variety of factors. Sometimes decisions are based on financial factors, others on personal factors, and some just on a whim. [...]

2008 was a very interesting year. 2009 is sure to be even more interesting. Given that we’re 12 days into a new year, I would hope that you’ve given some thought to what you want to achieve in 2009. I always love the turn of the year because it gives us a chance to look [...]

What Is Branding? There is a large difference between a brand and branding. A new logo, typeface, website, etc is not part of developing the initial brand idea – those are branding activities. You can’t do branding until you have a differentiated, relevant brand idea on which to base your branding activities. Branding is how [...]

What Is A Brand? A Brand is a promise that links a product or a service to a consumer through a mental association that gets stirred up when the consumer interacts with various brand touchpoints. A brand is the perception of a product, service, experience or organization by the consumer, and can either be positive or [...]