Did I Do the Right Thing?
Last week I posted a blog entitled, Prince – The Brand. The article summarized Prince's career and then talked about his brand developed across the 40+ years Prince was in the music business. My simple point was that even though Prince was an international superstar who sold over 100 million albums, played 27 instruments, won seven Grammys, and also won a Golden Globe and an Academy Award and had been inducted into the the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, you could describe his brand with one word – funk.
Then I asked you to think about what your one-word brand would be.
I got a lot of responses, both on and off the blog. Brand Architect David Hawes was nice enough to end his comments with, “…you inspire me to consider new ideas.”
Brian Walter thought that summarizing “your brand in one word” was a challenge and asked me what my one word would be.
Simone Foote sent thanks for “…provoking me to give it some major thought.”
@MsJeanna tweeted, “Can you boil your brand into a single word? #Prince could. So can @BruceTurkel…”
And best-selling author @BobBurg tweeted, “…what's YOUR one-word brand?”
I was pleased with the responses and happy that not only had I made my point but had motivated some of you to think about how you could learn and benefit from the fantastic things Prince had accomplished.
But one of my readers was not pleased with what I had written. Geoffrey Batrouney, executive vice president of New York's Estee Marketing Group wrote, “How extraordinarily tacky and in bad taste.”
Geoffrey didn't explain further but it's not hard to figure that he felt I was exploiting Prince's untimely passing and using the event to draw attention to my blog. Cleary Geoffrey thought that I did not do the right thing.
Ouch.
But the truth is Geoffrey was not entirely wrong.
Because the mantra of my blog, my business, and my life is to be useful, enjoyable, and valuable, I'm always looking for ways to add value to the communities in which I participate. Because of that, one of my goals is for this blog to reach as many readers as possible. When I pick my subjects I do think about what's going on in the news, what people are talking about, and what I can do to make my posts a productive part of those conversations.
In order to reach more and more readers, I've studied and learned a lot about Search Engine Management and Search Engine Optimization (SEM and SEO) and I look for ways to make my posts more attractive to Google and the other search engines and aggregators. I've learned that using the right key words and phrases at the right time is an important way to get as much distribution as possible while making my blog as findable as possible too.
Finally, because I want you to take the time to read what I write and actually think about my points and maybe even apply them to your brands and businesses, it makes sense for me to write about the things in which my readers are interested. Paying attention to the larger zeitgeist and being part of the greater conversation is an important way to do this. It's why television news programs, newspapers, magazines, and online sites work so hard to uncover scoops and stay obsessive about constantly being up-to-date.
Because of this, Prince's death is not the first time current events have been the subject of my blog. If you've been reading for a while you might remember posts about Caitlyn Jenner, Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, Bill O'Reilly, Brian Williams, and more. Each was written to use up-to-the-minute examples to demonstrate valuable branding techniques that you can put to work for you. And, as we've seen, each was written specifically to generate as much online activity as possible.
So was my post “extraordinarily tacky and in bad taste”? Did I not do the right thing? I've reread the article enough times to feel comfortable that my words were only respectful. But of course that's not Geoffrey's point. I believe what bothered him is that my blog jumped on the Prince bandwagon and exploited the artist's death to attract as many eyeballs as possible. And to that I can only respond that I am guilty as charged.
But my question remains. Did I do the right thing? What do you think? Please click on the “comment” link below and let me know.