I recently had the opportunity to speak to a group of business owners and entrepreneurs on branding. A problem I often hear from both business executives and clients is that they have good intentions of streamlining their online presence but the task often falls to the bottom of the to-do list. My recent speaking engagement helped to address the solution to this problem, outlining 5 ways to get started. I wanted to share with you here too.
Here are my 5 Tips for Online Branding:
- Cohesive Branding: Take an audit of everywhere your business is listed online. Do your profile pictures, logos, business descriptions, and contact information all match? Are you clearly communicating who you are, what you do and how people can get in touch with you? It might sound simple but confused customers walk away. Make sure all your online listings and profiles tell the same story.
- Create a Brand Book: Create a document that houses all your fonts, colors, logo, company descriptions and language used by the company in one place. Again, this might seem obvious but over time we forget which font was used in our logo. Secondly, as your company grows and employees come on board or consultants work with your team, having all this information in one place will prove helpful and save time.
- Plan Ahead: The more planning you do, the easier it will be to remain organized and to establish a routine. We work with clients to develop content calendars for blog posts, email marketing messages and social media posts. We are often working 1-3 months in the future. If you are in need of a content calendar, we offer a free download on our website.
- Be Consistent: Commit to the dates listed on your content calendar and consistently post and engage with your audience. Even though social media tends to move at the speed of light, relationship building online is much like relationship building in real life – It takes time to establish trust before customers will take action. Keep showing up and providing value through your content and you will see a ROI on your time.
- Be Engaging: Connect with your audience beyond pushing out content. Be active within your online community by liking, commenting and sharing other’s posts. Also, be responsive when a potential customer or client reaches out with questions or feedback through social media. It is another form of customer service and you don’t want to leave anyone hanging.