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Guest post: The social butterfly: Branding
The following is a guest post by SeanTR. His bio is at the end of the article.
Establishing your brand and sharing it is rapidly becoming a mantra for success in today’s connected world. Building your brand is telling the story of you in a way that makes you easily recognizable and sets you apart from the crowd. Provide useful and interesting content on your website, blog and in the forums you visit. What this can do is establish your site’s authority in your field of expertise and gain the following of others with interest in the same industry.
Check out our three social media tools to use to effectively build your brand online.
First and foremost: Have a blog or website
A good place to start building your brand is with a blog or website that tells your story. Describe yourself on your site and list credentials, skills and awards to reinforce the idea that you are the go-to person in your field.
Post useful and helpful articles designed to answer some of the commonly asked questions related to your field. Do research to get the most relevant keyword phrases and the most searched topics for your articles. A good rule of thumb is to offer more than just the minimum; make each post authoritative and provide answers your readers can use.
Do this on your blog and offer to write useful posts as a guest blogger on similar sites. You can reciprocate and help a fellow blogger by letting them submit guest posts to your site. A simple text link back to your blog drives traffic and helps establish a credible online presence.
Add social networking tools to your site
Make your blog interactive by adding a Facebook Share or Like button combined with a text blurb encouraging readers to share the page with their friends helps establish your online presence.
You can encourage readers to share your page on other social sites. They can Tweet about your great article or product and ask friends to Digg you. It takes time to build but soon your brand will become established and well recognized.
Post insightful and helpful videos
Another easy way to build some online credibility is to create and post useful videos to sites like YouTube, Google Videos and MetaCafe. Build a branded YouTube Channel with a selection of videos designed to answer questions and offer solutions to problems. This establishes your credibility as an authority and creates quality backlinks to the content on your site or blog.
Use the comments section as an interactive social media tool to reply to viewer questions and comments and further build brand recognition. It is important to remember to employ usernames that mirror or draw attention to your brand name; avoid humorous or nonsensical handles. You want everything you post online to push the brand and reflect positively upon it.
Conclusion
Sit down and devise a strategy the will promote “you.” It is your marketing campaign to sell yourself just like other online campaigns sell soap or a genie bra. Promoting your brand with video, interactive social networking tools, guest blogging and forum posts will get your brand seen and remembered.
Going viral takes time, but the results are worth the effort.
SeanTR is a writer that loves exploring new territories and their social dynamics. When he’s not traveling or reading you can find him contributing to ATTSavings.com or @SeanTR
Interview with personal branding expert Kim Garst
Kim Garst is part of Forbes’ Top 50 social media influencers. She has just released a new book, titled “The Quick and Easy Guide to Branding Your Business and Creating Massive Sales with Pinterest.”
Cendrine Marrouat: Hello Kim, thank you for answering my questions. How have things been for you since you made it to the Top 50 on Forbes this year?
Kim Garst: Simply amazing! It was quite an honor to be named to Forbes “Who Are The Top 50 Social Media Power Influencers?” list. It is an amazing thing to find yourself on a Forbes list for one and two, to be on a list with so many incredible people. I am more focused than ever on my mission of being authentic, providing great social media content and resources and continuing to connect with amazing new people every day.
CM: Why did you decide to write “The Quick and Easy Guide to Branding Your Business and Creating Massive Sales with Pinterest”?
KG: I immediately saw the marketing potential of Pinterest. However, when I started researching to see what information there was about using Pinterest from a branding and/or marketing perspective; I discovered that there was very little information about using Pinterst from this angle. I saw an opportunity to get the word out about what an amazing opportunity Pinterest is for businesses to brand themselves and generate massive sales.
What entrepreneurs can learn from observation
I was at a concert in my city the other night. Enjoy Your Pumas was releasing its new CD. This indie band is really amazing.
Guest post: Guide to promoting your event with social media
The following is a guest post by John Lewis. His bio is at the end of the article.
Social media websites allow user participation and content and to create an online community of shared knowledge. Examples of popular social media sites include Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, although blogs and forums can also be considered social media.
While social media started out as a fun way for people to get together online, it has transformed into a powerful marketing tool. It’s now easy to take advantage of many popular sites and services to promote a number of events, like seminars and product launches. This guide will explain how social media can be used in a number of ways.
Using existing management software
One way to promote your event is through your existing management software. A lot of software today includes an integrated ability to link content to social media channels like Facebook and Twitter, which can save time and make the process much easier.
Social media is often the first step to planning, setting up and promoting an event for business. Skype, for example, allows businesses and people to make free voice calls and video conferences while sending text messages and sharing files quickly and easily. Skype can be used to stay in touch with other event planners, while the video conferencing makes face-to-face meetings unnecessary.
Google Documents
Google Documents can also be used during the planning stage to create collaborative documents that anyone with login details can read and change. This allows everyone to stay up-to-date with a calendar or event plan.
After this initial planning stage it’s time to begin promoting the actual event to people who will attend.
Promoting the event
Because social media is about communication and sharing, using every available medium to promote the event is the key to success.
The event manager should create a profile with every major social media site. If the event is small, it’s fine to use an existing company profile. For large events, create a new profile. With Facebook, create a page (not group) and fill in information about the event. This will add it to the “event” tab on the profile and let fans comment.
With a Twitter account, create a unique tag for the event, like #ourevent, and use this tag in every tweet regarding the event or conference. You can also create a LinkedIn event that others can join.
Creating an event blog
For large events, creating a blog that discusses plans is also a good way to get followers and fill in potential attendees. This concept is often overlooked by event organizers but it’s actually one of the easiest ways to keep information up-to-date. Blogs also give the organizer a way to demonstrate exactly why people should attend and what makes the event so important.
Slideshare account
A Slideshare account is yet another way to take advantage of social media to promote an event. It’s easy to make a Slideshare account using a Facebook login. This website makes it easy to share presentations to generate buzz.
One of the best aspects of Slideshare is the ability of viewers to comment on presentations, follow users and share presentations they enjoy.
Make a promotional video
A simple promotional video can also work wonders to generate buzz for a large event, like a product launch. The video does not need to be complicated and there is no need to spend much money. Even just a video filmed with a webcam discussing the upcoming event and its importance can be enough to generate buzz. The video can be easily uploaded to Youtube, where other members may comment.
Conclusion
All of these steps are easy to implement and can quickly generate a lot of buzz about a business event. They all take advantage of different social media websites in unique ways to capture the attention of the public.
Every business with an event, whether it’s real-life or virtual, should take some of these steps to make sure the public is aware.
John Lewis works at PriceCollate. You can checkout the website’s blog here.
Increase your online visibility with 3 more great services
In a previous article, I talked about two fantastic social profile aggregators: Google Profiles and About.me. Today, I would like to present three more that I discovered recently. You should definitely check them out!
