Where's the Beef?

There is so much hype these days about 'branding' and how it should be utilized. Many of the expert social media gurus, point to the importance of using branding to get your company out there in the marketplace. As a result, most are jumping on the Facebook and Twitter band wagon to get their company and products known.

I must say that as an ex- small business owner, I realize the importance of making use of the internet to spread the word about your products. In most cases, small business owners have limited cash reserves to spend on big marketing campaigns. So utilizing the internet social network to spread one's name is pretty economical and easy for most to achieve.

Most of my business came from word of mouth and recommendations from of my customers to their customers, clients and suppliers. It was great and after the first year or so of heavy marketing and advertising fees, it was nice to put my resources into my production and let my customers do my marketing. In a sense, this is what Twitter and Facebook provide the small business man or woman. Nothing is better than having your customers recommend your product to their friends on Facebook or tweet about it on Twitter. In fact today, I made note of a company, explored their website and products on the recommendation of someone I follow on Twitter. Had I not seen their tweet about the service, I may have never discovered what this company had to offer.

In the past, branding was something that we saw in TV and radio commercials, that cost huge amounts of money. Just last night I was watching a great documentary about Dave Thomas the owner of Wendy's. I was intrigued with his life story, his achievements, hard work and innovative means to build an empire. He was one of the pioneers to utilize a successful branding that some will remember - Where's the Beef?

Not all small businesses have the means and money to pay for costly spots for Super Bowl TV ads and it seems to me that Twitter and Facebook are certainly a means to accomplish this for a lot less.

Check out this tribute to Dave http://www.wendys.com/dave/