Trend-spotting from Brand Keys

From Brand Keys via the Brand Strategy blog come nine trends for business in 2009.

There are a wealth of insights here, and I suggest you take the time to read the post. For example:

“Awareness as a meaningful market force has long been obsolete, and differentiation will be critical for success, i.e., sales and profitability. Those who primarily rely on “flavor of the month” promotional tactics will quickly find that they are creating a lasting perception among their consumer base that only price (or price cuts) differentiates their products from the competition. Do that often enough and your product and service will move away from being a “brand” and will come to be regarded as a “category placeholder” and nothing more.”

and

“Consumers are searching for and demanding simplification. In some categories this is showing up strong, such as cell-phone plans, search engines and laundry detergent. Who has not looked at switching cellular carriers and bemoaned the task of comparing one complicated plan to another? Simplification is also showing up as a driver in online travel sites for itinerary planning. Yet as the competition has heated up brands still continue to compete on price, and not what will engender positive
consumer behavior – simplification.”

What will you be doing to differentiate yourself in 2009, and how will you be making it simpler for your customers to buy from you?

More on Twitter for business

More on how to use Twitter for business, this time from BusinessWeek.

“A growing number of companies are keeping track of what’s said about their brands on Twitter. Comcast, Dell, General Motors, H&R Block, Kodak, and Whole Foods Market are among a handful of companies [using] Twitter to do everything from burnish brands to provide customer service.”

The magazine also profiles 18 CEOs using Twitter, the applicable to your business being Johnathan Schwartz, Chief Executive at Sun Microsystems:

“Communication is a key part of leadership—as CEO, I need to engage the market, inside and outside Sun, with whatever technology affords me the greatest possible reach. Through blogs, online news, social networking sites, or Twitter, the Internet has fundamentally changed how we communicate with one another. Today, we have thousands of employees participating, engaging customers and developers across the world, 24 hours a day. And whether it’s via a half-hour streaming video or a 140-character Tweet, we need to reach everyone in the forum and format they choose—not what we choose.”

Schwartz says a lot in a short paragraph, but you could do much worse than to model your social media strategy on his outline.