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You’ve probably worked hard and paid a LOT in creating your brand identity. This could be generated by you personally, creating your brand from ground up, or working with advertising and brand specialists.
One thing’s for sure though, creating a memorable brand is entirely different than building and implementing a strong online presence.
“Why would I need a great online brand presence? Shouldn’t a good product or service be enough?”
In this increasingly competitive and global digital landscape, a good product or service is just half the battle. To win the war, you must possess a great online brand.
“But I already have a good-looking logo and an awesome website! That’s enough, right?”
Not exactly.
While good design elements can really help, branding isn’t just about the look and feel of your business. It’s also about building a healthy relationship with your customers, your partners, investors, stakeholders, and your employees.
Think about the products you buy most often. How important is the brand to you? Are there some brands you trust more than others? Why?
Picture this.
You visit the grocery store and you try to look for MILK.
Now, we wrote the word MILK, the first image that came to your head was the brand that you already preferred, right?
That’s because people prefer to buy from a brand that they already trust.
Therefore, if a customer already trusts a brand, selling them new products or services would be incredibly easy. And with the proliferation of social media and online strategies, having a strong online brand presence is an ABSOLUTE must to reach new customers.
The entire internet is now the grocery store, and thousands of businesses like you are all vying for the attention of the customer. What do you want them to see when they visit your aisle and Google search you?
But building one is easier said than done. A lot of people have no idea how to begin, and most of them fail in this aspect.
So, to help you out, we here at Influence Vibes proudly presents these 50+ tips on how to build a strong online brand.
Content is king.
From a practical standpoint, when you’re writing poor content, you’re just wasting time, energy, and resources. From a business perspective, poor content does not offer value.
CMI Chief Strategy Advisor Robert Rose recently described the important role content marketing plays in building customer trust and relationships. He said that marketers or brands should not just focus on winning a moment of truth, but every experience should also be used to deepen the trust gained from the customer.
Anyone who says they do not know how to create content either should not be part of the marketing or should be given a copy of everyday.
Of course, these should all be curated with intent and strategy toward what you plan to achieve in the future.
Additionally, having a content plan will keep you from disturbing schedules and keep your workflow.
Of course, these should all be curated with intent and strategy toward what you plan to achieve in the future.
Additionally, having a content plan will keep you from disturbing schedules and keep your workflow.
It’s a tough market out there. Forbes reports that an average person receives 4,000 to 10,000 ads in a day. So, to sell yourself, you must see to it that people know why they should buy into you.
Showcasing how good you are will help your audience compare you within your industry.
Be aware that your business might not be unique or outstanding too much from the competitors, but you must make sure that your brand looks trustworthy to boost your potential client’s confidence.
Aside from telling your audience your expertise, being transparent about your culture and how you conduct business will also ease them into trusting you and if they are looking for an alternative to what they’re accustomed to, this can help tip them off the edge.
Audiences value authenticity. The more relatable you are, the more chances they are to believe in you. There are theories that say Google is now tuning their algorithm to value authenticity and passion as factors to their ranking. That’s juicy news if you want to go get ahead of the SEO game as well.
There are many ways to do this bit. But you have to be aware that even the medium that you will use needs to be tied together and should be designed to fit what your audience wants.
A couple of ways you can get to know your audience better is through survey, quizzes, interactive content, or simply by responding to comments or DMs.
Virtually everyone is on social media today. So it will pay well to get a firm grasp of how these platforms work. Your audience is there and it’s easier to interact with them so might as well see to it that you are also there so that your brand will also be relatable.
If you’ve heard of social media marketing, it is a dynamic form of marketing that’s suited to work on social media platforms. In essence, this strategy suggests to focus on a few platforms especially on ones where your audiences are on.
Forums were the first social media pages before Facebook was a thing. These are still active today and are great opportunities to further connect with your audience. A study found that forums are perceived to be more trustworthy than social media channels.
Being active in an online community especially about your industry will help solidify people’s trust in you.
Considering recent events in the world, we need positivity more than ever. That is a power that any brand can make nowadays. You can promote something that will encourage and make your audience feel even more connected to you.
Being active in an online community especially about your industry will help solidify people’s trust in you.
Growing your audience is a crucial step to your success. A well-defined audience is a great way to build your image to your potential target market.
You don’t need to find influencers if you have genuine people who are loyal to you. You can use this to your advantage because they will see you as a down-to-earth and transparent brand.
You can do this by actively communicating with them and interacting with them on a regular basis. When your audience sees that you’re active and have a casual or easy to approach style, they will grow to trust you more and will not hesitate to provide you valuable feedback and insights.
Before jumping in the conversation, you have to be prepared. You have to establish some grounds who you are and how you will speak to them. Your personality should be easily identifiable. Another preparation you can do is to understand who you are talking to.
On that note, to have a solid persona for your brand, you have to have a brand bible. This is also commonly referred to as the style guide.
In essence, this is the DNA of your brand. Having a style guide will keep your messaging consistent throughout any type of media. Among the things you will find in a brand bible are:
You can be as general or as specific as you want. What’s important in this step is that you establish a firm guideline and stick to it no matter what.
But, there is always an exemption to the rule. From time to time, especially in relevant situations, you can adapt to the times and break away from the norm.
Being flexible is a great way to show that you are relatable and that you are aware of what your audience is going through. This is also a great way to connect and interact with your audiences.
A prime example of this are Google Doodles. The move away from the Google logo but still retain the aspect of what makes them Google.
However, you should be very careful to not play with your brand at ever beginning. Google start playing with their brand when they are very popular brand and recognized logo. Starting early being creative with your brand might create confusion for your customers.
There are more than 30 million companies on LinkedIn and more than 690 million profiles who are all focused on connecting, networking, and building their businesses. Needless to say, this is fertile ground to cultivate your brand.
For you to be successful in this, you have to make sure that you have a strong profile which prospects like applicants and would-be business partners see your profile as professional and a head above the rest.
LinkedIn is a great solution for building a good employer branding, especially as your business scales up and you need to recruit a lot of people.
Being in the loop about what’s trending and the latest news about your industry will help increase your brand value. You may even become the go-to page for the latest information relevant to your product or service.
Don’t worry about sharing about other creators as well as in the world today. Another thing is that helping out other creators in the same industry has a lot of benefits.
Your unique selling proposition (USP) should be highlighted in your marketing materials. Whenever you speak, it should be told or implied to remind your audience. You should showcase what’s the best thing about you. If you won awards, it isn’t tooting your horn if you put it in front of your website since you did something to earn that.
Just do it in a way that isn’t too in-your-face. You can use these as leverage and when you’ve set your footing, sell them of the value you provide for them.
Most people nowadays will make a research before purchasing. Creating a wiki page or a Wikipedia article will help them know more about you. They are fairly easy to set up and you have control over the content of the page.
This will not just benefit your audience, it can also be used by your company employees as well. With your own wiki page, you can assign different roles to members so that they can modify the content as well.
You can also hire a good Wikipedia writer who understands well how to write properly for the platform. Wikipedia has specifics that you or your writer should consider. Do not write it by yourself.
The last thing people want to follow is a clueless brand. If they find that you’re not consistent and up to date in your industry. People will also want to pick your brain on certain topics as these are things they are looking for in a reliable brand.
One good example of this is Seth Godin’s blog. His posts aren’t always long. They are clear, concise, and straight to the point of the matter.
Many individuals or business owners build successful brands through their blog. Don’t forget to deliver your message in different format such as written content, videos, audio. Plus, never forget to optimize your blog to be disability friendly. WWWC (world wide web consortium) provides all the information and requirements that you should consider with their WEB Accessibility Initiative (WAI).
You can’t promote anything that doesn’t have a name. It should also be an official one. And what better way to legitimize your business than with a website with your own name as the domain.
Also, you should add an SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) certificate to your domain. This helps Google and all search engines to understand that your domain is secure for the visitors.
Find relevant blogs and online journals or magazines and take part in their community. Not only will this be a good opportunity to put out content for your audience, you can also build a bigger network with similar businesses, potential partners, and stakeholders.
Birds of the same feather, blog together. There are many websites that offer guest posting. If you’re a business owner, then you should do well to ask if you can contribute an article to them or, better yet, if you can post in the regular.
If you’re concerned about your Google ranking, then you should do guest posting because it is also one of the ranking factors they consider.
Be aware that search engines are paying additional attention to guest post and link building so make sure your backlinks are not fishy and are coming only from quality sources.
If you have a team, you have to make it clear to them that the success in building your brand online is a collective effort because if you are successful, then the whole company will reap the benefit.
You have to build your company culture around holistic growth and concern for the business rather than just for individual success.
Let’s face it. It’s hard to ask people to join your newsletter. Unless they are really interested in your content, brand, or service, chances are, they will give you a hard pass.
But offering them something unique will help make it easy for them to join. Be as creative as you want. You can ask them provoking questions or give a sneak peek. There are still many ways you can customize this to your business.
This might not be something you expected in this list. But this small salutation at the end has hidden powers you can use.
You can use this for brand recall, personalization, social proof, higher response rate, and more.
Don’t just go on popular sites. Make use of little known but effective sites like Reddit. Making use of these types of platforms will enable you to tap into more audiences and see things from a different perspective.
If you’re going for tip number 24, you must treat the new platform as how you treat mainstream media. You will never know who is looking so better to fill out the bio page and post high quality and valuable content. You should also tailor fit your content and messaging to them.
A solid branding is important because brand recall will get you ahead of the game. When your target customer is at the point of choosing which one to purchase, you better be sure that you are on top of the list.
Time and again, it has been proven that branding is a numbers game. So be sure to keep all grounds covered and correctly. Using your brand bible, be sure that all your mentions are of the correct format whenever mentioned.
Social media is not just fun and games. Used the right way, you will be able to establish meaningful and fruitful connections with relevant people. Follow, use auto follow, and retweet your way to networking. Also make sure to follow brands that matter most to your organization and engage with them. Twitter presents itself as an incredibly easy way to sound off on current events as well, and your brand might be picked up by journalists looking at an angle at a news. There are plenty of ways to do it, but make sure the engagements you have and the language you use is appropriate for the tweet.
An online magazine presence is a way to show your audience that you are confident in your expertise. But don’t just create a Medium or Inc. account, populate it with relevant information that will help them know and understand your brand.
Don’t just launch a Facebook page, do it strategically. Know what you want to put out and fine tune the parameters so that the social media giant will crawl you up the search results and make you visible to all relevant searches.
Like SEO, Facebook is all about sharing good content. Most people come to Facebook to enjoy relatable content from their family and friends – not to be bombarded by ads from companies. What you can do is to share some interesting facts, tips, and tidbits that you know people will share.
As simple as this seems, you will be surprised at the results of this step. Put it in relevant areas or after someone has finished reading your article, or even in between.
The strategic placement of your social media buttons will show your empathy and respect for your audience.
It’s going to be difficult to keep track of all your social media accounts if you do it one by one. But utilizing apps like FriendFeed will allow you to connect all of them as well as interact with your audiences faster and more efficiently.
You don’t necessarily need to be geeky and technical in order for your brand to thrive online. There are simple ways where you can get relevant information and data so that you can adjust your strategies accordingly.
Crunchbase is a useful tool that can provide you with adequate information that you can use to your advantage. Time spent learning how to navigate and understand the information from this platform is time inverted in solidifying your online presence.
As people are becoming more and more mobile, they are turning to podcasts if they don’t have time to sit down and read an online article.
If you want to catch your audience’s attention, build and maintain relationships, and open up new opportunities, a podcast should be part of your content plan.
Note however, that you shouldn’t take this one as mandatory requirement to boost your brand. Running a podcast might be not suitable for your business. In one instance, Gary Vaynerchuk advices popular YouTube show “First We Feast” producers to start a podcast.
Despite their massive popularity and after spending hundreds of thousands of dollars, the campaign failed, simply because it didn’t suit their brand.
It’s a unanimous vote: video content is king. And what’s a better platform to upload your videos than on one of the best social media platforms today?
Google ranks as the first biggest search engine on the internet. And YouTube comes in second.
With that in mind, YouTube is showing no signs of slowing down and is innovating. The real challenge is choosing what videos to put out.
Again, the key thing here to keep your audiences and future customers engaged is to create great content that’s SEO friendly. You should also be consistent with what you put out and when.
One key to a lasting brand impression is interaction. Who knows? You might just be seen as one of the most open and transparent brands if you join an initiative and make you the ambassador. WIth the openness of people nowadays, opportunities are always somewhere within arms reach. Just make sure that it’s relevant to your industry or brand objectives.
You have to keep in mind that you still have audiences who rely on press releases for trustworthy information. And the good thing about it is that these people are the ones with influence, buying power, or both.
Additionally, a press release does not just have offline value, you can still use it for SEO purposes.
Don’t underestimate newsletters because they have the ability to make or break your business. Some brands built their business by making newsletter a big part of their content marketing. An example of this is Huckberry. The carefully curated content is sent on a regular basis and features brands and products that are of interest to their target audience.
This is a win-win strategy. When conducting a free or paid webinar, you get to learn a thing or two if you’re teaching and you have a chance to teach something to your audience.
You will also establish yourself as an authority figure in your niche or industry. This is a fitting time to make these webinars as more and more people have been introduced to livestreaming and webinar.
There are more merchandise available aside from tshirts and mugs. Tailor-fit your merchandise to fit your branding. Go all the way so that people will be intrigued by what you offer. Remember when KFC offered pool toys? That kind of creative.
In lieu of promoting other brands, see to it that you also help those which your business needs to thrive. You can do this by simply promoting them on your pages or blogs. Another thing you can do is to collaborate with them for a project. This will establish your connection as well as get crossposts and promotion on the channels of your partner brands.
As mentioned before, going on online forums will reap benefits for you on your goal to build an online brand. One of the tried and tested methods is to go on Reddit and host an ask me anything or AMA.
Celebrities, company CEOs, and influencers have all done this and have gained a lot of attention from the activity.
You have to take note though, people on forums and Reddit know when you’re trying to be sneaky and are not afraid to call out if they sense it. So, best to be upfront from the start so that they will know what your intentions are.
It has been proven time and again that celebrity endorsement helps boost the awareness of any brand. The internet has given rise to unorthodox individuals who have gained a celebrity status simply because of something they did or their expertise.
Inviting them to a conversation over at your podcast or YouTube channel can be beneficial to you. You can also write some articles about them and get a quote from them to add value to the piece.
Among the most effective strategies for LinkedIn is to post a blog. You can share this on your profile as well as let others view it so that they will have a good idea of how you work or what your brand is all about.
Including presentations and talks in this will further your reach and how your audience perceives you. This is also an opportunity for you to explore new ideas and present them to your peers.
Long-form, evergreen content has always been a surefire way of succeeding in content marketing. If you publish a white paper, case study, or an eBook about your industry, chances are, it will be used in other research. This strengthens your brand equity and makes people who are in the research department of your target audience see you as an authority and someone that can be relied upon for information.
Research is an investment that will pay itself in the long run. Once you’ve completed your report, you can use this to fine tune your products or services and you can also use this as a reference for your content.
GIving it away will also be a good way to get subscribers to your newsletter or a follow on social media articles
Corporate social responsibility campaigns are not just for show. They are an important aspect to any business and can be done in a tasteful way.
They have real value both to the beneficiaries and for marketing purposes. One of the greatest benefits is the creation of community among your followers and beneficiaries.
As mentioned before, people value authenticity. A good example of this strategy is Richard Branson, owner of the Virgin empire.
You can’t help but associate him to the brand that he has created. Even with the brand messaging, you can picture him doing the talking.
When documenting, use all the resources you can use. Take a video, make a podcast, take photos, and write articles, before, during, and after the project. These are great content and people love to see progress.
The Futur, a design company, put out a webisode that showcased their process on designing for clients. Some agencies may keep this as a secret but when they did this, they gained more followers and subscribers to their YouTube channel.
Another thing is that you can learn a lot from feedback and looking back at your previous content plan. And in order to get the most out of the campaign, resolve to be honest and open if there are things that need to improve or change.
Which ones did great and which ones flopped? Make sure to get to the down and gritty so that you can make critical decisions that can have a significant impact on your brand.
If you have a brand that targets your local market, it would do you well to go out and meet with the locals. This will enable you to take the conversation to them and engage them in an intimate and personal way.
After you’ve established a connection, you can ask them to visit your online channels so that you can continue the conversation there. One thing you can do to encourage them to join the conversation is to mention them in the program or the article.
This is how you can stand out from your competitors and make 50 people from your target market speak about you. While you are speaking, engage them with your brand online on the spot. People love gamification, gambling and to compete so USE IT.
You can utilize hashtags, photos, and live videos here. This can provide a good boost to your brand especially if you invite influencers in your industry.
Having your competition come onboard will also greatly affect the way people perceive your brand. You will be seen as a welcoming and one that cultivates healthy competition and values relationships.
Of course, this should be done with some limitations and guidelines. Be careful not to come out as seeming snarky about it. Be as genuine as you can and highlight the real good thing about them.
Most of the time, businesses are so focused on attracting people to their brand that, they tend to lose focus in the aftersales aspect.
This is where great customer support comes in.
Note that if you have an awesome customer service support system, more people will talk about your brand both online and offline. This is a clear and effective way to achieve positive “word of mouth” marketing that can dramatically impact your bottom line.
There may be more ways you can build your brand online, but this exhaustive list can prove to be a great resource for anyone who wants a boost. Make sure to try these out for your brand and let us know the results. We’d love feedback on these tips and if there variety to the result they bring in different industries.
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