Tag: Branding Tips

Are You Telling Your Brand Story Using Social Media?

Are you currently using social media as part of your business marketing strategy? If yes, have you been successful this year in growing your audience and connecting with them on social? If not, are you ready to give social media marketing a try to grow your business in the new year? 

Our team has over a decade of experience supporting service-based businesses with building their social media presence and engaging with their audience online. We’ve found that the most effective tool for social media marketing is incorporating brand storytelling into your content.  

Let’s break this down for you:

Know, Like, & Trust

Yes, social media marketers are still talking about know, like, and trust. Why? Because it’s the proven method for capturing attention and converting people into followers and paying clients.  

It’s rare for someone to see your content once and then pull out their wallet. Trust is what convinces buyers to make a purchase. To earn trust, you must first grab your target audience’s attention (so they know who you are), then provide content that allows that audience to get to know you better (so they begin to like you). Once they like you, they will start paying attention to what you put out in the world. This process builds the trust needed to convert someone into a paying customer or client. 

Building Your Influence

Our team works with a lot of new and small businesses. We regularly consult with business owners that have little to no online presence on how to build their social proof and influence online. In a world that is so saturated with competition, with businesses working daily to earn the attention of their audience, not having a presence at all is a liability. If a lead can find nothing about your or business during a five minute Google search, it’s almost a guarantee that they’ll move onto a competitor with a better online presence.

Social media is a great marketing tool when it comes to building your online presence and presenting yourself as a legitimate business. Trust us, you want to be a business that takes advantage of these platforms with millions of people using them daily to reach a larger audience. However, it only works with business owners who are committed to consistency.  

Brand Storytelling 

To engage with a social media audience, you need to share content that is inspiring, motivating, educational, or entertaining. Did you notice that I didn’t say your content should be promotional?  

To sell in the 21st century, your sale needs to be subtly packaged around content that your audience actually wants to consume and engage with. Storytelling is a proven method for capturing attention and building an audience. We all have stories to tell and your business has a meaningful story behind it. The key is to take that story and package it into content your ideal client wants to see. The use of brand storytelling can really showcase your products, services, and your culture – when done with your audience in mind.

Simply posting content isn’t enough to get the traction you need to be successful with social media marketing and success doesn’t happen for anyone overnight. If you are ready to make a commitment to marketing your business on social, and earning social proof and building trust with your audience, we highly recommend a brand storytelling strategy. Your audience is incapable of connecting with you if all you post is sales and promotional material. 

If you are using social media, you are probably only engaging with pages that share relatable content. Are you wanting to define your story and build a long term relationship with a loyal audience that finds YOUR content enjoyable and relatable? Let’s do a Discovery Session to see which Social Media Advisor programs best fit your needs.


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Hollie Clere of The Social Media Advisor is a “#BeAwesome” Developer, Social Media, Brand Builder, Content Manager, Trainer and Author in LinkedInFacebookTwitterBlogGoogle+YouTubePinterestInstagram, and the tools to manage them.

Click here for Social Media TrainingSpeaking and Strategy Consultations.

#MarketingTrends2018 – Why You Should Be the Highlight of Your Brand

It’s almost the start of a brand new year, and that means it’s time to make your marketing plan. There are customers out there who are looking for your business, so what are you doing to bring yourself to the forefront and #BeAwesome?
There is power in storytelling, and your brand story is essential to gaining the advantage of your ideal market. Your real story, the pains you are solving, the struggles you’ve faced to be able to help them with their pain points…all of this is essential to a solid brand story.
Your customers want to know who YOU are, and what YOU can do for them. It’s time to put yourself at the forefront of your brand.
Here are some great questions to get you started:
  • What is your company’s origin story? Where did it begin?
  • Where is it headed and how do you plan to get there?
  • What significant events in your life and company’s history lead to where you are now?
  • What pains have you overcome to succeed, now?
  • What drives you to help others overcome those same struggles?
Your audience is tired of seeing generic platforms that try to sell to them constantly. They want a personal touch, a way to connect with a real human on the other side of the screen. Showing them the work behind the scenes is a great way to build an emotional investment in your viewer. People relate to the stories of other people.
Remember that you’re the face of your brand. If you’re late or slow to comment, that’s also a part of your brand. You should put your best (and most professional) foot forward. That doesn’t mean you have to use stilted language and respond like a robot. It does, however, mean that you need to put out professional quality and accurate information. A key point to remember is that a live video Q&A, training, etc. doesn’t mean a last minute production. Create quality content and you’ll gain the trust of your audience.
As a side note, consider adding a section to your site that highlights your most popular articles, products, or services. This gives your potential customer/client a great place to start. Shining the spotlight on these valuable posts and services will showcase what your brand is all about. Using the title “Most Popular” can have a great side effect of showing an active brand community.
It’s a new year. Use this time to ensure that you have the YOU in your brand.

 

Be sure to Follow us and Let’s Engage!
Hollie Clere of The Social Media Advisor is a “#BeAwesome” Developer, Social Media, Brand Builder, Content Manager, Trainer and Author in LinkedInFacebookTwitterBlogGoogle+,YouTubePinterestInstagram and the tools to manage them.

#BrandConsistency – People Do Business with Individuals, Not Brands

Your personal brand is different than your company’s brand, but it is just as important, if not more so. People do business with individuals, not brands. So how do you create a personable brand that potential clients and customers want to work with?
Your personal brand is the image you wish to project. Here are ten tips to get you started in #BrandConsistency:  
  1. Be clear about the image you wish to cloak yourself in. Keep it simple. Keep it authentic. How?
  2. Be true to yourself.Spending days, weeks, and even years projecting an image you don’t like can be exhausting to maintain. If you seem to be faking it, the word will spread and your authenticity will suffer. Inconsistencies will cause a rift in trust. You don’t want that.
  3. Become a public speaker. You must develop your communication skills. You can do this either live or through video sites like Vimeo or YouTube, but you want to project confidence and speak from a platform of power and control. Your videos don’t have to be long. Ten minutes or less is more than fine. Just find one topic and speak on it. Your speaking engagements, on the other hand, are as long as you’ve been slotted for. Prepare in advance. Double check your numbers. Provide value, and your brand will shine.
  4. Be consistent in branding across all platforms. This includes synchronizing your LinkedIn profile with your resume.
  5. Create leadership articles and participate in interviews. This goes to credibility. You want to be seen as a subject matter expert, and you gain that by providing proof of authority.
  6. Show numbers, dates, etc. to back up your broad statements. You want to be seen as a subject matter expert so that your clients and customers can be confident in your ability to lead them through the darkness.
  7. Build an online presence. This goes back to #4. Be consistent in who you are. An online forum or community is not the same as your private home. Remember that everything you put on there can be screenshot and used against you at a later date.
  8. Be brief in your mission statement. You can’t do everything. Specialization is key to business success.
  9. Never stop learning.You must remain relevant to your industry. Take courses in subjects outside your chosen field to widen your perspective. You don’t want to box yourself into your own world and lose touch with your customers and clients. Expand your knowledge as much as possible.
  10. Finally, one of the most important tips: talk about what you’ve done, not what you plan to do.You need to build your brand on results, not ideas. It’s okay to admit your weaknesses and shortcomings. It’s okay to be vulnerable. That makes you more human and relatable. It’s not okay to spend all your time ramping up for ideas that may never solidify. Clients and customers want results-driven numbers. Keep that in mind.

Take some time to develop your personal brand and opportunities will come your way. 
Be sure to Follow us and Let’s Engage!
Hollie Clere of The Social Media Advisor is a “#BeAwesome” Developer, Social Media, Brand Builder, Content Manager, Trainer and Author in LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Blog, Google+,YouTube, Pinterest, Instagram and the tools to manage them.

Find Your Customers On Social Media

 

So let’s take time to build our profiles on all of the popular Social Media sites & then find our customers? Hmmmm, this actually isn’t the way it should be.

 

 

Let me ask you the following questions & you let me know if you agree with the answers?

• Should your customer have to build a profile on a site where they have no common interest? No.

• Should you take time to build your profile on a site that your customers don’t exist – just because it is popular? No.

• Should you find your customers first, then develop your profile on those particular sites? Yes.

 

This post is straight forward. The purpose of networking online is to connect with others of like business, like interest & like industry.

Don’t waste your time doing something that isn’t worth doing because you will be harder to find & connect to.


Learn how to use social media to grow your business online with our video series!

  • Learn the fundamentals of social media
  • Learn how to build better brand engagement
  • Learn how to enhance your visitors' experience
  • Learn how to grow your business using social media strategies.

If you want someone to break down aspects of social media to get more clients and build your business using social media, this is the program for you.


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