I’m not that into shoes, but the Zappos brand and story are impressive. Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos, is starting to resemble a superhero. His customer-centric and social media driven culture has not only taken the company to annual sales in excess of $1 billion -- but his personal and corporate brands are also generating tremendous buzz as a change agent across industries.

Clearly the Zappos team is doing something right, and their secret sauce includes key ingredients like focusing on customer service and social media; companywide.

What can marketers, and business people in general, learn from Zappos? With that question in mind here are some thoughts, links and lessons that come right from the source:

In the Beginning - Let There Be Shoes

The year was 1999, and our founder Nick Swinmurn was walking around a mall in San Francisco looking for a pair of shoes. One store had the right style, but not the right color. Another store had the right color, but not the right size. Nick spent the next hour in the mall walking from store to store, and finally went home empty-handed and frustrated. More…

Your Culture is Your Brand

Building a brand today is very different from building a brand 50 years ago. It used to be that a few people got together in a room, decided what the brand positioning was going to be, and then spent a lot of money buying advertising telling people what their brand was. And if you were able to spend enough money, then you were able to build your brand. More…

How Twitter Can Make You a Better (and Happier) Person

I was in Washington, DC last week and spent several days participating in inauguration-related events with various people including Evan Williams, the CEO of Twitter. So I thought this would be an opportune time to write about a topic that I've been thinking a lot about over the past few months: how Twitter has contributed to my own personal growth and made me a better person, and how you can take the same principles and apply them to yourself if you'd like. More…

As a bonus, and assuming you haven’t already seen this on TV or YouTube, here’s the Zappos story (and some business tips) from Nightline. Come on, admit it. Wouldn’t you want your business to be featured on Nightline or ABC News?

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