A purple cow is something that grabs your attention and sticks in your head. It's the perfect description of the goal of every piece of marketing content, and the above print ad certainly fits the bill.

Marketing content is supposed to grab your attention but it's also supposed to sell the brand. So, can you guess which brand created this advertisement? Let us know in the comments.

Who are you and what are doing here? A two-part question few of us have had to answer directly. Most of the time people try to avoid being so direct. But we do answer those questions all the time. We do it when we email or call a stranger, or we interact with a customer service representative. We actually spend a lot of time explaining who we are and what we’re doing.

Yesterday was a big day in social media. Mayan predictions and opportune weddings created the majority of buzz, but a single account caused a stir of its own. The Pope, the actual leader of the Catholic Church, started using his own Twitter account to delight of devout Catholics and lazy journalists everywhere. How this new journey into social media engagement will affect the Catholic Church is for others to discuss. But his first few tweets did make an interesting point for marketers.

On this blog, and on many others around the web you see many references to building an online presence and developing your brand identity. We often punctuate those posts with references to big brands, and notes on how great websites should look. But we rarely illustrate them with actual images of great online presences. Until today.

When big brands make big changes, it gets noticed. Small businesses regularly go through changes, bit by bit improvements to drive growth. It’s regular business practice, so it only makes a bit of a ripple. But when brands like eBay or Microsoft change their logo, it’s more like a tidal wave.

We’re reaching a watershed in Internet history; we’re at a point where there are adults who have never lived in a world without the Internet. That’s mind-blowing for those of us who remember getting their very first modem. The mid-nineties Internet will be remembered for things like the screeching sound of dial up or not being bothered by a website that took minutes, whole minutes, to load. In the last few weeks we’ve seen two icons from that period in Internet history go through a bit of a change.

The future of every business is online. That’s a prediction that most businesses believe in and work towards fulfilling. At this point, the majority of businesses have an online presence. The online world is constantly changing, so companies will naturally reassess their online presence from time to time.

Over the last few years Microsoft has developed a pretty bad reputation. While Apple and Google have been developing their own reputations as the cool and interesting tech giants, Microsoft has been starting to look more and more old and boring.

Social networking is the perfect way to learn how consumers deal with the perception of a brand. It is a rich source of insights, which we can use to strengthen the marketing strategy. By listening to what’s going on in social media, and identifying the buzz, businesses can strategically position their brands in the minds of the right target market.

Happy New Year LinkedIn members! How about making this the year that you make LinkedIn really work for your business? Those who have engaged properly with LinkedIn to promote their businesses are reaping the benefits. However, using LinkedIn for marketing isn’t an exact science and there’s a lot of uncertainty out there.