Brand: three simple tips to remember when building your online brand platform.
Many digital marketers, social media strategists, online influencers and brand strategists recommend to build your own online platform such as a blog or a website (that you own) when building your brand and then amplify your content by engaging with your audience on social networks or platforms.
While this makes sense and, if implemented well, is a solid strategy to help raise your business/brand awareness and build an online community, it does requires your time, commitment and consistent focus. Which is where the problems start…
Since what we focus on becomes our reality, many busy businesses and business owners simply don’t have the time or resources to focus on these strategies to grow their business. To complicate matters further, delegating or outsourcing can be harder still because of two factors; the added expense required for quality content plus the words or message itself falls flat – because they lack your personal tone, your voice, experience and insights (or you don’t have a brand voice established).
The result? Stretched time means quality will suffer and this will then be reflected in your content quality. Even the most committed and well-intentioned efforts will fail to engage consistently with online viewers without a sound strategy. Most will lose focus and commitment when the leads and conversions don’t show. Compounding this, not everyone is comfortable writing either. What to do?
Brand expert tip #1:
This brings us nicely to the first brand expert tip: find the format, platform or medium that suits your communication style. There are plenty of options. Extrovert types might develop short videos, Facebook live updates or live podcasts. Introverts might prefer tweets, relevant blogs, useful articles or detailed white pages. But which is the best tactic for you and your business? Read further on for tip 3.
Brand expert tip #2:
If an online strategy is of interest to you, the second thing to remember is this: don’t wait for everything to be perfect. It never will be. Best advice I ever got was to just start. So I did. Things will flow and evolve. The main thing is to take action. Just be sure to align your actions as part of an overall strategy to achieve those desired results. We all know the definition of insanity…
If you’re anything like me you may take a little longer to craft your words. The trick is don’t delay anymore than you need to. ‘Good enough’ is what we should aim for – just make sure any post or comment obeys the unspoken rule: make your content relevant, engaging or useful – and with your brand in mind, make sure you’re communicating with your brand voice. It’s consistency and persistency all the way.
Ok, so you’ve successfully started your strategy, you’ve jumped in there and started brainstorming, writing or you’ve put some structure in place? Good for you. Experts then recommend, ‘Use LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter or even Pinterest and Instagram. You have options. Find what social network resonates with you.’
I disagree here. Your actions must be strategic.
Brand expert tip #3:
Find the one social network platform you know your customer hangs out in, find out precisely when they use it and for how long (on average) and then learn to use that platform better than anyone else. As Einstein said, ‘Learn the rules of the game, and then play better than anyone else’.
From then on, it’s just a question of focusing your energy and mind on content, then managing your time to send relevant information at the relevant time and place at consistent times over a consistent period.
Finding the one social network platform that resonates with you offers no guarantee of finding or reaching your desired customer. It will not serve you. For example, I might personally prefer Facebook (I don’t) because it’s social, allows for immediate updates and communication to my online network (family and friends mostly), and I may like the appeal of the recently released ‘live video’ feature, but I know my market and my customers aren’t on Facebook (and if they are, they certainly aren’t looking for brand advice or contacts there) so this insight bears listening too and acting upon.
Be online.
Be consistent.
Be your brand voice.
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I hope you learned something new, insightful or useful from this blog.
At The Brand Experts, we believe that perception is everything. Why people recommend you, why people know, like and trust you and why people buy you. This drives us to fulfill our brand mission: to help professional services build a ‘Brand DNA’ for business growth. We do this through a series of brand workshops designed to help professionals realise what drives their ‘Why?’, identify their true identity, and what matters to them and their customers most. The ultimate reason? To make their difference in the world. Successful brands in the future care about customers, not branding. I believe that future is now. I’m passionate about creating brand stories & brand identities that help businesses grow.