9 Easy Things You Can Do to Build Your Brand

Your brand is your business’ very identity. Increasing your brand’s visibility, therefore, is a fundamental component to your marketing strategy. You can spend millions of dollars a year – not to mention an obscene amount of time – propelling your brand to the forefront of the minds of consumers. But are you aware that, thanks to social media, there are a few very easy and non-time consuming ways you can build your brand? 

Without further ado, here, courtesy of branding guru and author, William Arruda, are 9 nine-minute things (along with my own commentary) you can do…      

 

1. Build your Network. It doesn’t have to take hours &hours out of your schedule – even if you just connect with one person a day on Facebook or LinkedIn (it could be someone in one of your LinkedIn groups – or a connection of one of your existing connections), you’ll be amazed at how quickly your network will grow. It is, after all, called “social networking” for a reason!

2. Bolster relationships.  What good is having a broad network if you do nothing to maintain and nurture it? Stay in contact with your connections. Recommend & endorse connections on LinkedIn. “Like” other brands on Facebook. Send complimentary and/or congratulatory messages to people in your network on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. You have to give to receive.

3. Get a seal of approval. In the culture of social media, it’s about give and take. As you recommend and endorse others, don’t be afraid to request recommendations, endorsements, shares and “Likes” from people in your network. Enlist these from colleagues, satisfied clients and coworkers, past and present.  
4. Record it. Nothing wrong with blowin’ your own horn once in a while either! Document your outstanding accomplishments and achievements for all to see.

5. Be current. One of the many fine attributes of social media is that they make it so simple to update your profiles as often as is necessary. Unlike websites, social media platforms take only seconds to update. So take advantage of that and ensure that all contact information and status postings are up to date.  And that goes for your photos as well!!

6. Expand on your thought leadership. Start your own group on Facebook or LinkedIn. If you haven’t already (and shame on you if you haven’t), start a blog and post to it often. Comment on other people’s blogs and answer questions on LinkedIn and Facebook. Post timely and relevant content to Twitter. These are all ways you can showcase your smarts and industry knowledge. Oh, and don’t forget to link your blog to your other social media platforms.

7. Be real in the virtual world. YouTube is a wonderful thing! Make use of it. Create a video – a bio of yourself or your business – or something that illustrates a facet of your business (a how-to or an informational piece). Go ahead – be a rock star in your own right!

8. Build a home on the Web. “Link the different places you reside on the Web into one place, with sites like about.me, flavors.me, or vizify.com. Using these tools, you can actually set a site up in nine minutes! Then you can use your subsequent days’ nine minutes refining and enhancing it.”

 

9. Research. Social media make it easy-peasy! Get to know all you can about your clients, prospects, colleagues and, yes, even – or, especially – your competitors. LinkedIn and Facebook are great places to get some investigating done!

How to Leave an Impression with Each and Every Blog Post

There is a monumental amount of blog content swirling around out there.  Some of it memorable, and some, not so much.  The success of your business is often tied to your ability to craft a compelling message and deliver it in a way that inspires customers to act.  How do you make your content stand out and resonate with readers?  How do you get your blog post to leave an impression?  Here are a few tips:    

1. Don’t write for you – write for your audience. That is, know your target audience and create content that you know will captivate, engage and inform.  Pretend that one person is sitting in front of you and write as though you’re speaking to that person.  Answer questions that are frequently asked by your clients.  Post content that is relevant and keep your audience in mind at all times when writing.  Think:  How can your posts benefit them?

 

2. Write with a “human quality”. Although the term ‘business blogging’ sounds like the equivalent to dry and dull content, it doesn’t have to be.  Keep it informative, yes, but not boring.  Don’t be afraid to allow your humanity to seep through.  In fact, be daring and lighten it up.  Use lots of humor – use language that will strike an emotional chord and move your readers.  Make a connection with them from a human standpoint.

 

3. Keep it clear and concise. People seek out blogs (especially business blogs) to learn something – to be informed.  Stay on topic when you write.  If you start to ramble and go off on tangents, your readers will be nothing but confused and start to wonder what they were trying to get out of your post in the first place.  Oh, and they probably won’t be back to catch a second act!

 

4. Mind your grammar! Bring back shades of your fifth grade teacher?  Sorry, but proper grammar is an integral part of blogging.  No one is going to take you seriously if you can’t string a sentence together.  If you’re not sure how to spell a word or of the correct usage of a word, just “Google” it.  A thesaurus is a wonderful thing!

And, don’t forget to proofread & edit – not just once, but twice.  If a sentence sounds a bit off to you, read it out loud.  Sometimes that can clarify things.

 

5. Use images for visual stimulation, to break up the text and to drive your point(s) home. Looking at a page with a bunch of text on it can be painful on the eyes.  Using one or two well-positioned images can be an effective way of not only breaking up the text and making your post more aesthetically pleasing, but of reinforcing & depicting what you’re writing about.  And, an image doesn’t necessarily have to be a picture.  If you’re citing statistics, include a graph, a chart or an infographic.   There’s no law against making it colorful!