Hot then Not

Everything was going great in high school until that new guy showed up.

Let’s call him Fabio.

Fabio was tall, wore the coolest jeans, but what really did it was his hair.

Fabio had long hair and it was driving all the girls to distraction. All they could talk about was Fabio’s hair.

In the halls they were always staring at Fabio.

Fabio was hot.

It goes without saying that all the other guys in school were feeling - let’s just say: under-appreciated.

So what did they do? One by one they all started to grow their hair long.

Even that guy with curly hair. He was the only guy with curly hair. He had to grow it twice as long because it took twice as much to look long.

Now he just looked like everyone else.

Then it happened.

One day Fabio showed up to school with short hair.

Now short hair was hot.

The other guys were now thinking: ‘Damn, I just spent all this time growing my hair out. I used to have short hair! What was I thinking?’

Well, that’s what’s happening in social media right now:

Fabio is TikTok.

Long hair is short-form video.

And the curly haired guy is Instagram.

TikTok recently announced they are going to be accepting 10 minute videos soon.

...and everyone else is still deeeep into growing their hair long.

In fact Adam Mosseri, CEO of Instagram just announced to account holders that Reels weren’t going to replace photos. He said Instagram is ‘still’ committed to photography.

Even though it certainly doesn’t look like that to anyone paying attention.

The moral of the story is that one minute what is hot, the next minute will very likely be not.

So it’s usually best to hold on to your core competency.

I’m not saying short-form video is going away. It’s not.

But when everyone starts looking just like Fabio...something is bound to change.

_______________________

resources

Canva Whiteboards : Available for free on the web, desktop, and mobile, Canva Whiteboards offers tons of templates to get you started building just about any kind of visual tool you can think of, from flow charts to mindmaps - all with the intuitive, drop dead simple UI you'd expect from Canva.

SparkToro : A great tool to get insights for understanding audiences. Super helpful tool for building customer avatars. It crawls over 80 million social profiles and web pages to find what (and who) your audience reads, listens to, watches, follows, shares, and talks about online. Limited free functionality, tiered paid levels. A little pricey IMHO.

Jasper : Are you getting tired of creating content using your own hands and brain? Why not just pay an AI bot to do it for you? Introducing Jasper, artificial intelligence that makes it easy to create content for your blog, social media, website. Tiered paid levels.

Airstream by REI : Ok, tbh this has nothing to do with branding or resources other than it being a product partnership made in heaven. Just checking to be sure you're paying attention. Airstream and REI have partnered to create the coolest damn smaller-scale recreational vehicle trailer I think I've ever seen. Check out the 3D Tour on the website, it's a total blast. Not cheap though, starts at $50k-ish.

Influencer Marketing Contract Template : When I was creating the contract to use for my brand deals I came across this great starter template for 'influencer agreements'. As with any legal template, it's important that you adapt it to suit your particular needs - and get an attorney's opinion. Free download.

Adobe Express : Adobe has come out with a Canva killer and it looks pretty promising. The functionality is all there. I personally find the interface more intuitive than Canva and the templates look a little higher end. Plus you get the entire Adobe font library and stock library to build your stuff with. Free if you have an Adobe CC subscription and cheaper than Canva for the single app subscription.

_______________________

recommended

Tone of voice is how a brand communicates and connects with its audience through messaging and customer interactions. If you want to learn more about how voice helps businesses differentiate themselves from the competition, check out this well-articulated article on the Semrush Blog. Read it.

_______________________

watch

The functionality of the LinkedIn platform has grown in leaps and bounds in the last few years and if you haven’t been playing attention and regularly updating your profile to leverage its new capabilities, you are literally leaving money - and clients - on the table. Watch It.

_______________________

features

Adam Mosseri, CEO Instagram, talks about how IG is evolving, leaning heavily into video and why. He shares some new features they are experimenting with that will help users discover new content creators they aren't connected with. The changes he discusses mirror what I am seeing happening on YouTube - as well as the influence TikTok continues to have on the overall social media landscape. Check it.

_______________________

trends

GoDaddy News + Trends Video: Are you ready to scale your personal brand? Find out how to do it in this News + Trends video I did for GoDaddy ’s YouTube channel, “How to Master Personal Branding (+ Find What Your Strategy is Missing)”. Watch it.

_______________________

books

"Designing Brand Identity: An Essential Guide for the Whole Branding Team" by Alina Wheeler

The new edition of the bestselling toolkit for creating, building, and maintaining a strong brand. The content spans research and analysis through brand strategy, design development and identity standards, through launch and governance. It features mostly enterprise level brands as examples and is geared towards brand managers, marketers, and design teams. Read it.

_______________________

quote of the week

“You too are a brand. Whether you know it or not. Whether you like it or not.” ― Mark Ecko

_______________________

Brand Strategy 101 is our signature course that shows you exactly how to use proven strategic branding processes with your clients so you can land bigger projects, increase your fees, get paid for thinking and become a highly valued business partner.

7 Modules, 25 Lessons, 24 Strategy Tools downloads, and 8+ hours of instructional videos.

When you enroll you get immediate, life-time access to all the course videos, checklists, downloadable tools and resources.

Learn More About BS101

_______________________

Resources We Recommend

Support Us by Using These Affiliate Links

BYOL with Daniel Scott : The Best Adobe Application Training

Tubebuddy : The Best Tool for YouTubers

Convert Kit : The Best Email Service Provider

Kajabi : The Best Digital Course Platform for Creators

Envato Elements : The Best Design Resources for Creative Pros

Squarespace : The Best Website Builder

InVideo : The Best Video Builder: 50% Discount Promo Code: PHILIP50

Transistor.fm : The Best Podcast Hosting Platform

Jotform : The Best Online Form and Survey Creation Platform

HighLevel : All-in-One Sales and Marketing Platform

_______________________

Join Us On Facebook

If you're a creative professional or entrepreneur looking to leverage the power of brand strategy, design and marketing to build your personal brand or business, I invite you to join us in the Brand Design Masters Facebook group . It's private, but free and there are a ton of awesome 'peeps there to network with, share inspiration, ideas and get all your questions answered.

_______________________

Philip VanDusen is a branding thought leader and principal of Verhaal Brand Design an agency that leverages strategy and design to build brand equity for companies and entrepreneurs. Get more from Philip in his newsletter brand?muse , his industry leading YouTube channel or connect with Verhaal Brand Design on Facebook .