Online Branding Basics: How to Make Your Business Successful Online with 6 Easy Steps
Utilizing social media is a great way to connect with both old and new consumers. These platforms have built-in tools to help your business grow, but where should you start? Here are six quick tips to help you kickstart or improve your online branding:
Become Familiar with Social Media Business Tools
Each social media site – such as Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok – has different tools for you to examine your business account(s). In your profile settings on each of these, you can view information about your demographics, engagement, and more. Outside managing platforms – such as Hootsuite and Sprout Social – can take this data one step further by analyzing future ideas and scheduling posts ahead of time. If you’re a beginner, this information can be overwhelming, but with time and an eagerness to learn and practice, you’ll be a pro in no time. An important thing to remember when feeding the social media puppies is that most people “will not” see all your post. It will be important to have a mix of organic still, videos, and “boost” stills and/or videos to stay brand relevant for your customers.
You should boost events at least three weeks before an event.
You should boost sales at least four weeks before an event to a targeted segment list (dog owners, rooftops within a geocentric footprint around your location, etc.)
You should boost sales leading up to events, holidays, and special times of year.
Understand Your Audience
The age-old phrase “know thy audience” is not to be ignored. Understanding what your users want and need should fuel the content and products you offer to them. You can find data on your followers in the “Insights” of your social accounts. This will show you demographic information such as their ages, genders, locations, etc. It will also show you when your followers are the most active, AKA, most likely to interact with your content. Use this information when deciding what type of content to provide for your followers; a post that caters to the needs of an adult about to retire will differ from a post that is aimed at a recent college graduate. Speaking the language of whom you want to attract is key.
Boost, Boost, and more Boost
Boosting your content is the most effective way to become visible to potential new followers. This will require some investment, but the return is worth every penny. Boosting, in its simplest form, means paying for your post to be recommended to a target audience. This allows your content to be seen by profiles that don’t yet follow you but would likely purchase your product. The posts you decide to boost should be informative and attractive to both grab and hold their attention. It is also advised that this post is already popular; would you rather engage with a post that has seven likes and no comments or a post that has 50+ likes and a handful of comments? Bottom line: it’s worth a boost.
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SEO is No. 1
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. Let’s break down what that fancy lingo means. Anytime you look up something online, the links you see in response are due to the key terms you searched. Businesses research what words are important to their target audience(s) so that in their content SEO is a common business practice for smart businesses (that’s you) to gain traffic from organic search engines (like Google). One of the easiest ways to increase SEO is through your Google Business Profile. Here businesses are given the opportunity to obtain reviews from customers, increase sales opportunities, post blog post, and images in and around the businesses. It is important to ensure you have a minimum of 30 positive reviews, 30+ still photos, and videos.
Repurpose Your Content
Can the content you just posted on Instagram also be used for Facebook? What about Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, TikTok, or anything else? Chances are, they can. The more your audience sees your brand, the better. You can recycle your content by taking material from one project and changing it to fit another platform. For example, this blog post could be turned into a podcast episode that would reach a different variety of consumers. Being diverse in your media allows people to see and hear from you more frequently, and the repetition of seeing your business’s brand across different mediums will make it more memorable. So, take advantage of reaching your audience in more than one creative space.
Consistency is Key
It is essential that things like your logo design, color scheme, font choices, and overall messaging are consistent across every platform you’re using. This repetition will make your brand easily recognizable to customers and partners. It is recommended that design elements like this are gathered together in one space for you and your marketing team to reference. A branding guide can be electronic or printed for use. It should include key, unchangeable details that every platform should follow. Once everyone’s onboard, the ship can sail smoothly.
All in all, your business’s online presence should be just as vibrant as it is in real life. Your message, and arguably, more importantly, the way you broadcast it will attract customers. In the age of technology, the tools available to you are ever-present. So, start using them to your advantage.
