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5 Tips for building your brand online…
January 8th, 2008 | by Peter Cullen |What is branding or what does it mean to have a brand?
According to the define: command on Google, brand is a ‘trade name: a name given to a product or service’…
I much prefer the Wikipedia definition, ‘a customer experience represented by a collection of images and ideas; often, it refers to a symbol such as a name, logo, slogan, and design scheme’
A customer experience!
And what happens if your customers like the experience your business gives them? Well, they’ll probably talk about…but more of that later.
Is branding off-line different from branding online?
The main difference between off-line and online branding is speed. Reading from Seth Godin book, Unleashing the Idea Virus, he points out the following stats:
Up until the end of the 20th century, the amount of time it took to reach 50 million users/viewers was:
- Radio – 38 years
- TV 13 years
- Cable 10 years
- Internet 5
- Hotmail 1 year
The ability to influence more people more quickly is never more true. But just because you can reach more people, it does not mean you can influence more people.
5 tips for building your brand online
- Do not rely solely on your website
With the existence of Universal Search, relying on your text only website is becoming less effective when it comes to spreading your companies message. Building your website should only be the start of your online marketing efforts and building your brand is definitely not going to happen if you just stick to your traditional website.
When trying to build your brand you should give your company every opportunity to get noticed. Using text is naturally one way, but how you deliver that text has become much more important. Having a website is only the starting point. You should be delivering your brand through:
- Blogs
- Video
- Images
- Online PR releases
- Link building strategies
2. Use RSS strategically to get your message across
RSS or Really Simple Syndication is an extremely effective method for people to get notified of changes to your website and blog. If one of your customers has a large number of websites that they want to keep up to date on, instead of checking the actual websites every few days, simply let them subscribe to your website using your RSS feed. This way, they get all your important new content delivered straight to them. This is possible using a piece of software called an ‘Aggregator’ or ‘Feed Reader’ Popular aggregator’s are:
3. Implement Social Media Marketing (SMM) strategies. The social media websites below should play a key part in your online brand building strategy. As these websites are used by the larger search engines for content, you will get more visibility when you start to build a presence in these web 2.0 sites.
4. Think about viral marketing ideas.
Viral marketing is an excellent strategy for spreading your message and building your brand through ‘word of mouse’. Perfecting a viral message is not an easy thing to do. A couple of recent/current examples of viral campaigns are Inspiration’s campaign to get us all on ice, and Mozilla’s push to get us all using Firefox at the expense of IE
The power of Viral Marketing lies with your audience. When they start spreading your message for you, without you having to advertise or push the message, bingo! The more effective the viral message, the more online visibility you get.
The ultimate online viral marketing concept is pushed one step further to a concept developed by Seth Godin – the ‘idea virus’. This is where your message spreads with lighting speed due to several factors. Godin explains that you can deliberately set-up your marketing campaign so that it stands every chance of becoming an idea virus. (That’s definitely another post!)
5. Start targeting up and coming websites that can give you extra exposure in the search engines. Some examples of these websites are:
Summary………
Building your brand online should be an ongoing exercise that continually looks for new ways to get your message out there. Increasingly online users are getting information sent to them rather than going searching for it.
Your ability to create a buzz has become increasingly more important, it only takes months now to reach 50 millions potential customers – the trick is knowing how to find them!
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