Tell Your Story
Buyers love to connect with brands they trust via social
media and video. They love to hear stories about not only your company but the
other buyers who are using your products and services successfully. They’ll
share the stories with their friends and family, thus helping expand your brand
through story telling.
To tell a good story you’ll need to delve deeply into your why. Why does your
business exist? Why are you passionate about your product or service? If you’re
not sure how to develop your story, you can use social media to distribute
surveys to the customers you have that already exist if you’re collecting (and
you should be) their information. In addition you can brainstorm with employees
and contractors, ask them why they’re here. Ask them why they come to work each
day. Also, never overlook searching the web for what people are saying about
your business.
Fill out your profiles on the “About Us” area of your
websites, blogs and social media. If you guest post for others ensure that your
author’s bio is succinct in telling your story. Create videos or ask your
clients to create videos that tell your story. Even your contractors and
employers can help tell your story via their LinkedIn.com profiles, or social
media profiles that mention your company and what they do for your company.
Place photos of your products or important components of
customer testimonials that showcase all the positives of your services on your
website and social media sites in a prominent location. People want to know
what is behind the products and services in a way that shows them that you
care, and that you are dedicated to solving their problems. That’s right, all
successful products and services solve a problem. If you’re not sure what
problem you solve, it’s time to research and figure it out.
Your blog is a terrific place to start talking about your
why for being. Create posts, and ask for guests posts from service providers,
contractors, employees, customers and clients that show in their words how
important your why is to the world. Be open and transparent in your discussion
of why you exist. If you’ve done your home work, your story will resonate with
your clients and potential clients and make them proud to do business with you.
Spreading the Word on Social Media
Social media offers a tremendous opportunity to brand your
business. In the old days we only had TV, Radio, Newspapers, Billboards and the
cocktail party. Today, the world is truly open for businesses who see the value
in using technology to expand their reach.
The best way to enjoy the advantages of what social media
can offer is to realize exactly what you can do with social media. Yes,
still go to local events, and live events, but never underestimate the
importance of being part of the online conversation about your industry.
You can use social media to:
• Study your market
• Network
• Share important information
• Announce new products and services
• Tell people about sales
• Expand your brand
Some ways to do the above are:
Facebook — Use Facebook to build a community and participate daily.
Answer questions professionally, and interact with others in your community.
It’s important to give your customers a reason to talk about you. Ask them to
create a videos or showcase them on a live video describing how they used your
product or service and what kind of success they enjoyed due to it.
Twitter — Share new content with
followers, comment on their shares, and participate in the conversation your followers are
having. Share coupons, sales, brand news, answer questions, share how-to’s and
interviews that you’ve done. Consumers love getting coupons and freebies, so
ensure that you offer them.
Google and YouTube — While other social
networks remain at the top, Google+ remains a place to engage in collections
and communities, share your posts, and gather the latest news from influencers
in your industry. Images and video work well here — especially with YouTube’s
integration where you can grow your brand audience through pre-recorded
video or live video.
LinkedIn — This is a more serious
business networking social network in which you can join professional groups,
share your latest blog posts, and network with influencers in your niche. With
the simple publishing features it is a great place to attract more visitors to
your website for free.
Instagram and Pinterest — Create
compelling image or video that showcase the inner workings of your brand
including your products and services, and customer testimonials. This type of
visual social media will expand your brand in many ways and could even go
viral. Pinterest is especially important to retail businesses as well as
bloggers who would like to grow their readership.
On any of the popular social media avenues today it’s
possible to search keywords that describe your audience, product or service
including competitors to keep up with what is happening in your industry. It
doesn’t matter if you have an online business or offline business. Using social
media to further your brand is an essential component of any branding effort
today.
Before you get started take a look at your mission
statement, and remind yourself of who your target audience is. Keep the same
visual brand throughout all your social media networks. In fact, your online visual
brand, the logos, the graphics, colors, tag lines — they should remain the same
across all marketing channels.
Before joining the conversation, create full and compelling
social media profiles using your other marketing collateral as a start. Don’t
reinvent the wheel. You’ve already developed a brand offline, and that brand
should stay the same. The idea is to expand your brand, not replace it. While
your brand is more than just your photo, there is no point in confusing your
audience. You want current customers who find you on social media to share you
with others and they will if they recognize you immediately.
All businesses need to use social media to promote their
business today. But, many business owners don’t realize that their actions on
social media comprise an extension of their brand. To expand your brand it’s
important to use social media in a strategic way that aligns with your core
business values. How you promote your business with social media depends on
what kind of business you have.
If you’re a speaker, author, life coach or your business is
completely about you, you will handle your branding through social media
differently than if your business is about a product or service. If you have
products and services it’s important that you develop a brand for those in
addition to your personal brand by creating accounts for each business
component. Your @JaneSmith Twitter account should be used differently from your
@ProductorServices business account.
On your personal social media accounts it’s important to be
yourself and be transparent. Admitting mistakes, showing your personality,
engaging with others, sharing information is important in branding yourself. On
your business account you should also be a real person, share, engage your
audience, and try to be compelling and interesting. However you slice it,
social media is an excellent way to increase your brand.
Using social media can increase brand awareness quickly.
Whether you like it or not, people will be talking about your business via
social media. If you’re not invested in social media the conversation goes on
without you. Not only do you want to be part of that conversation, you also
want to be in control of the conversation.
In order to be in control of the conversation regardless of
which social media you use, start the conversation. Create excellent content on
your websites. Write excellent guest posts for other people’s websites. Share
compelling information that other people have shared. Comment in a meaningful
way on content that you enjoy, or even content that you disagree with. Always
be respectful, but showing each audience your expertise will increase your authority,
even if it’s controversial.
Never, ever delete critical information that you find,
whether it’s a comment on your blog, or a complaint you discovered on Facebook.
Instead, publicly deal with the comment in a professional way. Of course,
delete offensive comments riddled with swear words, but don’t delete genuine
critical comments or complaints. How you deal with these issues will speak
volumes to your target audience who sees them.
Use social media to promote the things that your company
does and is involved in. Every blog post you make, every new product you
create, every new service you offer should be worthy of the same promotion as
the next.
Remember, branding is more than a logo or pretty picture.
It’s really about the perception your target audience has about your business’
culture. It’s a compilation of your name, logos, tagline, mission statement and
the messaging that leaves your office. Without knowing your story and conveying
a compelling story to the marketplace, many people will miss out on enjoying
your products and services.
If you need help developing or telling your story, contact SK Consulting today!
No comments:
Post a Comment