Our first-time guest, Nicole Schmidt from Sprout Partners, drops Brand 101 💎s. Newer companies establishing their marketing strategy need to know the difference between brand identity and brand strategy. Nicole breaks it down with solid examples

In Ep 99 – Social Media Beef w/Lacey J Faught, I had to be ready to be on guard because Lacey was coming in hot. Lacey J Faught from Think Spry had social beef with yo boi, NDUB.

A fellow entrepreneur and business owner, Brandon Neely, joined the “Let’s Talk Marketing with NDUB” to talk business and marketing.

Over the years of using social media for the company and deploying a service for other companies, I’m seeing the undervaluation of social media managers’ expertise and resulting in their underpayment.

A typical startup entrepreneur has the duties of wearing multiple hats. They’re responsible for their finances by maintaining a positive cash flow. In order to stay in the black and make a profit, founders are also the main salesperson. For the sale to occur, the prospect needs to believe the leader is organized to deliver the goods/services. The daily grind is repeated over and over again. 

I’m proud to live in my predominantly white town (Vancouver, WA) but I’m not going to sugarcoat the difficulties of succeeding in spite of the barriers of being a Black Marketer. I was prompted to publish this because I don’t want to add to the problem, but be part of the solution. The solution is bringing awareness and helping others open the doors to the tables of where these decisions are made.

It’s 2022. Small businesses are being crushed by bigger businesses, governments, changing economies, pandemic, and their own stagnation. Since the pandemic has forced advertisement to be more digital, we need to address the stinky elephant in the room. I think I speak for the majority of us, but I’ll keep it to the businesses I know of- it’s time to fire Facebook, Meta, or whatever they want to call themselves.

As a veteran digital marketer based in Portland, OR, I’ve seen the world of search engine marketing, social media, analytics and conversion optimization evolve since optimizing my first website in 1996. One of the more prominent trends affecting digital marketing agencies I’ve personally experienced in the last few years is the client’s increasing desire to take search engine optimization (SEO), pay-per-click (PPC) and social media marketing in-house. The trend, while logical, has dangerous implications for corporations and agencies alike.

In 2001, I was hired at Nike while I was going to college. After a few years of working at the sports juggernaut, Nike, the hoopla of telling all my family and close friends wore off. However, I never got tired of telling anyone I was a Nike employee.  My prior knowledge of Nike’s brand