Online Branding Part 3

Welcome back to the 3rd part of our 3-part series talking about online branding.

Let’s recap.

In the introduction to Online Branding Part 1, we were reminded that customers are now more knowledgeable than ever, thanks to the instant availability of information that’s just a few key presses and a couple of mouse clicks away.  If they want to find out what people are saying about you, your business and your brand, then they will.  People are interested in who you are, and what you have to offer them in terms of value.  They are not interested in a company with a head office that no-one ever sees or speaks to.

“Businesses need to see themselves as brands, and be engaging and interactive”

In Part 2, the role of your website and social media was touched on- People want to interact and to be a part of your brand.  People are switching off to one-way advertising.  Instead customers want to be able to talk to you, to share stories, to see that your brand is active and relevant.  They want to be part of a community where they can engage and know that their opinion is important.

Creating a strong brand

Firstly you need to determine what your brand values are.  Ask yourself, how do people talk about your business when you aren’t around.  What would you want people to be saying about your business to their friends and family?  This is the starting point for building up your brand.  Work out what your brand values are, what you want to be known for, and then live your brand by those values.

“Your brand lets people know what you do and how you do it”

How to build this brand?

One way to build up your brand online is to start a business blog.  A blog (short for web-log)  is writing content called “posts” that are published online, in chronological order, on a blog website.  The content should be updated regularly and readers should have the option of leaving comments and sharing posts with others via the web.

By having a blog, and writing new posts regularly to your audience, you dramatically increase your brands exposure, especially if your blog is attached to your business’s website.

How does it help?

Firstly blogs help you to rank higher in search engines.   This occurs simply because websites with ongoing, fresh, updating content are crawled by search engines and indexed for more key words.  The more often that you appear on a search engine (for e.g., Google) then the more opportunities for people to click across to look at your blog and website.

Secondly, the more interesting and valuable to your audience that your content is, the more likely they are to share your content on social media, and this is by far the most valuable advertising for you.  When someone shares your content, your brand, your business with their friends and family via social media, the impact is much greater than when you (as a business) promote yourself.

This sharing of your content then increases links back to your website and blog pages.  This is an added bonus for search engine optimisation, and will generate even more traffic back to your website.

Thirdly, this then begins to build your brand authority as people start to look to you, and your blog, for relevant and interesting articles, tutorials, top tips, videos, industry reviews, etc.  So make your content really stand out from the crowd, and people will market your brand for you, as they share links with friends and through social media, such as Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Stumbleupon, Digg and others.

Engage!

1. Don’t forget to engage with your community by responding to comments on your blog, answering questions, and talking.
2. Update your blog regularly, make sure that it is something that your followers/ readers/ fans would be interested in- not inane advertising.
3. Actively live your brand, so that people will think about your business first.   You want to encourage discussions, feedback and internetworking.

I hope you have enjoyed my 3 part series on Online Branding.  I’d love to hear your thoughts or questions in the comments below, and consider sharing this article with others if you think it’d help them.