Your Brand Visibility Is Good, But It Could Be Even Better
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Brand visibility is critical for determining the success of your company in an increasingly online environment. But how exactly do you generate brand awareness, especially in such a crowded marketplace?
Fortunately, help is at hand. The following is designed to help you cut through the noise and get to the information you need to make great brand visibility decisions on behalf of your company. Here are some ideas to get you started.
Start With Video Content, Not Blogs
It’s 2017, and while content marketing is still important, it’s video content that matters. In the past, it simply wasn’t possible for the majority of companies to offer video content to their customers. They simply didn’t have the time or resources to put them together on a regular basis. But today, thanks to the power of digital technology and the fact that prices have been pushed through the floor, recording and editing videos can be done on the cheap, if not for free.
The growth of video has been nothing short of remarkable. Facebook Live only started a couple of years back, but already more than 8 billion videos are played daily through the platform, compared to 5 billion on YouTube. What’s more, research has shown that videos are about 50 times more effective at moving your company up the ranks than regular blogs, making it an essential part of any SEO strategy.
Thus, the best advice right now is to go with marketing strategies that will give you the best bang for the buck, and that seems to be video content. Keep it short, snappy, and entertaining.
Organise Experiential Events And Post Online
When Red Bull was first starting out, they knew that if they were to become a global soft drinks brand, they’d have to do something that the industry wasn’t doing already. After all, the budget for the sector is in the billions – a startup simply couldn’t compete on a level playing field.
As a result, the directors of the company decided to go with the experiential marketing model, organizing stunts and wowing crowds, hoping that they would associate the excitement they felt with the Red Bull brand. This is precisely what happened, and the company’s profits went through the roof.
What’s interesting about Red Bull’s experience was that it all occurred in an era when there were no social networks or the internet. The company managed to get its message across to a wider audience through traditional channels, like television. But today, experiential stunts have a far greater reach. Your company could invest in an event and then spam social media, amplifying the effect. With so many videos being watched daily on Facebook Live, there’s a good chance that your video will make it onto the devices of thousands of people. If it goes viral, you could have a tsunami of brand awareness on your hands.
Put Your Company On Google Maps, Even If Customers Don’t Come To You
Everybody knows that trying to improve your brand visibility in search results is tricky. There are literally hundreds of factors which determine where your page sits, and Google remains tight-lipped about how exactly its algorithms work (presumably so that they can’t be gamed). For companies, this often means months of expensive SEO work and plenty of setbacks and disappointments along the way.
The good news, however, is that there is a shortcut: use Google maps. Thanks to Google My Business and the desire of search engine users to find local services, businesses get special treatment when it comes to the rankings. Local businesses with proven physical addresses get an automatic boost, even if they’re new. Sometimes this boost can be so powerful that it propels them to the first page of results for certain search terms, literally overnight. Even if you don’t invite customers to your premises, put your company on Google Maps anyway for the added SEO effect.
Manage Negative PR
Companies know that negative feedback comes with the territory. It’s not possible to please all of the people, all of the time. In the past, negative feedback was bad, but it didn’t tend to have far-reaching consequences. However, in the online environment, negative feedback can potentially damage a business beyond repair. The good news is that there is a tool that you can use to track, respond and remove slanderous content. Read about it here https://digitalico.com/reputation-management. By keeping tabs on both the positive and negative things said about your brand online, you’re able to minimise their damaging effects. In turn, this will help your online PR and signal to service providers that your brand is one their users can trust.
Churn Out Photos, Even If You Run A “Serious” Business
Photo marketing is a natural extension for many businesses, especially those in the retail, hospitality or travel industries. Bespoke photos have an uncanny ability to create joy in the people who view them says http://www.huffingtonpost.com, more so than a wall of text.
The problem is that many companies don’t exploit photos to their fullest extent online and, therefore, don’t get the level of attention they could. The reason for this is a longstanding belief that some companies simply can’t benefit from their own bespoke photo sharing. Accountants, law firms, business consultancies: they all suffer from a similar lack of appreciation for the power of photos.
Photos, however, are king. And they can be used in all sorts of ways to promote any brand, including those which sell B2B. Start taking photos that promote your brand and create joy to increase your visibility. Don’t forget to post them on Instagram and Pinterest.
Get Press Coverage
Despite recent events, the press still has considerable gravitas in the minds of your customers, making it the perfect vehicle to promote your business online. Press coverage, unlike regular business promotion, is seen as more thorough and objective because it’s done by a third party. People trust journalists to give them an accurate appraisal of a company’s strengths, vision and products, and companies can lever this to their advantage.
Most small businesses start off in print. They find something about their company that makes it newsworthy, like a new approach to business, a new product or a sponsored event, and then they sell the idea to the press in the hope of gaining positive exposure for their brand. In most circumstances, it works out well because the media needs healthy relationships with companies so that they continue to supply it with free stories.
Larger companies can arrange radio interviews and TV appearances. But remember, the story you want to tell has to be newsworthy. It has to be something that viewers and listeners want to know more about. You can’t just tell the story of your company and expect people to be interested, no matter how fascinating you might find it.
Take Advantage Of Free Social Media Platforms
One of the great things about the revolution in digital technology is that so much which was once very expensive is now free. Pinterest, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter: they all offer companies free outreach to their customers to promote themselves.
The challenge with social media is coming up with an active profile, posting regularly and coming up with new content all the time. But like anything else in the world of digital marketing; you get out what you put in.
Part of any successful social media campaign is regularly engaging with your audience. For instance, health food startup Wyldsson wanted to promote its powerball mixes made from seeds and whole grains to its customers to expand its business. However, on the instructions list, the company stated that customers needed to use whole eggs in the recipe. Of course, with such a large number of vegan customers, the company was unwittingly disqualifying part of its customer base from one of its products needlessly. Vegan customers soon took to social media to ask the company to provide an alternative, and the company listened, recommending a vegan version of the recipe on the back of the packet alongside the regular one.
What was so impressive about Wyldsson was how rapid their response was. It only took a few weeks between the problem being raised and the company changing the recipes on the back of its power ball mix packets. More companies need to follow this example, because it helps to make consumers feel empowered and that the business really cares about them individually.
Get Inspiration From Top Performers
Some companies do better on social media than others. Why? Usually, it’s down to a combination of the quality of the content and persistent user engagement. According to a study by Hootsuite, the social media management tool, the best performing company on social media in the world is Starbucks, followed closely by the likes of Chanel and Friskies. You wouldn’t have thought that being a coffee shop, Starbucks would have an awful lot to say. But the coffee chain proves, as do many other companies, that it’s not about what you sell, but how you connect with people online that matters.
