10 ways to build brand recognition & get attention of influencers using social media

16
1 | Page 10 Ways to Build Brand Recognition and Get Attention of Influencers Using Social Media By Jolynn Oblak As a business owner venturing into the online world, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed with all the various social media strategies and tools you have to master. It’s easy to get “Shiny-Object Syndrome” and get so overwhelmed with all the tools that you have at your disposal. It’s important to not get distracted and get the foundation of your online marketing set so you can start to build and grow your brand presence.

Upload: oblak-marketing-and-consulting-with-jolynn-oblak

Post on 15-Jul-2015

203 views

Category:

Social Media


4 download

TRANSCRIPT

1 | P a g e

10 Ways to Build Brand Recognition and Get

Attention of Influencers Using Social Media

By Jolynn Oblak

As a business owner venturing into the online world, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed with all the various

social media strategies and tools you have to master. It’s easy to get “Shiny-Object Syndrome” and get so overwhelmed with all the tools that you have at your disposal. It’s important to not get distracted and get the foundation of your online marketing set so you can start to build and grow your brand presence.

2 | P a g e

Yet, as overwhelming as it can be, you know in order for your business to grow, you need to leverage social media for its branding power. The question is How? Well, my darling, I pulled together my best tips into a mini “how-to” guide with examples and additional resources to get you started. This is a useful and shareable resource. In fact, print this baby out and put it in a safe place so you can refer back to it.

10 tips for building your brand and following using Social Media

#1 – Specialize in the right social network for

your business While I think it’s important that you learn how to utilize all the social networks to amplify your message and listen to your target market, focusing on one or 2

major social networks and learning how to leverage it for your online marketing is best. That way you are

3 | P a g e

not overwhelmed learning the ins and outs of all the social networks and you limit that feeling of overwhelm that comes with starting a new venture

online. The key is finding the right social network for your business. Here are some important questions to ask about your target market:

Where does my target market hang out online?

Where do they share their fears and interests?

Where do they look for information and inspiration?

Another way to evaluate this is to consider the type of business you run. If you sell your products to other businesses primarily, (B2B) or you sell mostly to customers or end-users (B2C) you would be smart to focus on the social network that serves those groups best. For insight on this, the 2014 Social Media

Examiners Industry Report, shows a breakdown between business to business (B2B) and business to customer (B2C) social platforms that are most important to marketers.

As you can see, Facebook marketing out ranks all other forms of social media marketing for business to customer (b2C), So investing some money

4 | P a g e

on Facebook marketing may be ideal if you want to reach end-users of your product/service. #2 – Create Branded Cover Photo Images on Social Media That Reflects & Focuses on Your Specialty Regardless of what network you specialize in working with, creating a social media cover image that showcases your specialty will be one of your most

powerful and effective branding strategies. You can now include up to twenty per cent text and include your branding colors and graphic elements – as well as get your face out there. Here is an example from my Facebook business page which I created with Canva here:

Notice how I take advantage of my Facebook Page to:

1. Add a personal branding statement that lets people

know exactly what I do 2. Create cohesion my using my brand colors 3. Identify my credentials and accomplishments

5 | P a g e

4. Prome my website link 5. Leverage the new call-to-action (CTA) button to

promote my sign up incentive/lead magnet 6. Promote my latest product or service with the custom

tab option 7. Re-enforce CTA in notes area

To learn more about how to optimize your personal

and business pages on Facebook, watch this free video where I show you some simple ways to cutomize your profile for SEO and connect your Facebook personal profile to your business page so you push potential prospects or business partners to your page. As you can see, you have ample opportunity to bring your brand to life if you include these branding elements. All the social networks give you customization and branding elements that you can use to your advantage for your business. Mashable

has a good article about how companies are using their Twitter profiles for branding that I suggest you read. So, choose the one platform that you think will yield the best results starting out.

#3 – Offer Free Webinars or Video Training Series Offering free webinars and video training has become popular because they are not expensive to produce.

All you need is a video camera and presentation software and email marketing program to start. By using social media to target the right audience and promote your training series you are reaching a

6 | P a g e

demographic that may have never heard of you before but are in great need of your product or service. Webinars give you the opportunity to:

Share value freely with your target market Establish your authority and gain the know, like and

trust factor Grow your email list Promote your product or coaching services

It’s important to get the right tools for the job. There

are several options out there for hosting your webinar. Here are 2 that are popular and may meet your needs:

GoToWebinar software is what many companies use. The price makes it out of reach for some smaller businesses, but it is a great option if you can afford it.

It integrates with Leadpages as well. Easy Webinar software is great because you can do

automated webinars or live events and it is more affordable than GTW. You can use Leadpages as well to host the training as a Live YouTube event. Leadpages has webinar

registration templates and video templates plus a great free training course on how to profit from webinars. Even if you don’t use Leadpages, you can learn a lot from the course. To promote your webinar on social media, you need to create a promoted post that clearly outlines

thee key benefits people who sign up can expect to receive from your training. Be clear and specific. Here is a great example from Kimra Luna who is promoting a free training webinar:

7 | P a g e

#4 – Use Share Buttons To Promote and Ask For

Shares on Social Media The internet is a wide open place with a bazillion people and products. You have to promote YOU INC using social sharing buttons on your website/ blog. Promoting your blog content will propel your

8 | P a g e

brand and authority into the next level if your content is top notch (more on this in the #6 below). You can add share buttons to your website, blog, opt in pages,

in your eBook and registration pages. There are many social sharing plugins for wordpress that you can investigate as well. You can also use an opt in form plugin program called Magic Action Box which has templates that have the social sharing buttons as part of the design. Here is what that looks like:

Remember to also ask people to share your content. You can do this at the end of your blog post of when you post your content to social media. Something as simple as “If you enjoyed this and think it can benefit someone you know, please share it/ tag them”. Simple right?

#5 – Use Hashtag’s as Part of Your Branding

and Marketing Strategy Hashtag’s are now part of the social media experience, and you need to understand how to use them appropriately. Here is a great definition of hashtag’s from SproutSocial:

9 | P a g e

hash·tag: A word or phrase preceded by a hash mark (#), used within a message to identify a keyword or topic of interest and facilitate a search for it. So whenever a user adds a hashtag to their post, it is immediately indexed by the social network and searchable by other users. Once someone clicks on that hashtag, they’ll be brought to a page that aggregates all of the posts with the same hashtagged keyword in real-time. Once a keyword picks up

enough momentum it becomes known as “trending.” Trending isn’t simply a matter of becoming the most popular hashtag on the networks. Each users’ trending topics is different based on their location and social connections.

Social networks are now actively working to make hashtags work even better on their systems. (I.E.: Behave and interact better with

Twitter hashtags). You can create your own eye-catching, unique hashtag or using a relevant, existing one that is already trending can help multiply your shares and capture targeted audience members you haven’t even met yet. If you are looking for marketing inspiration

around hashtag’s read the Social Media Examiner article 6 tips for a killer hashtag campaign.

#6 – Provide Top Quality Tips and Content I think this is a MUST in social media and in your blogging, your content must be high quality and should help make your fans’ lives easier. This

10 | P a g e

will catch the eye of your target audience (especially if you’ve asked existing fans and followers to share your tip.) Even better, combine

really useful tips with the latest-breaking industry news and changes, that way you will be seen as the “go-to person” for invaluable and timely information. Here is an example by socialbakers,who shared a Facebook cheat sheet for the correct image dimensions for Facebook. They knew their audience

needed an easy go to guide like this.

Gary Vaynerchuk shares some ways you can create content

your market craves, his 6 strategies were summarized

by SociallySorted: it shouldn’t interrupt the user experience it offers something of value to your audience or

helps them rather than placing demands on them it shows people that you – from music to pop

culture to news. It’s about playing on their turf the way they want to play!

11 | P a g e

It should be snackable, easily digested and unique to your brand in that you are consistently creating micro-stories and micro-pieces of content

that entertain, help or inspire your fans It needs to be consistent and should reflect your

brand identity

#7 – Illustrate your Posts and Links with

Graphics Visual marketing is trend that is taking off right now. With affordable tools like Canva, you can develop stunning images and use those images with your link shares on Facebook. Images are so important because they captivate and motivate us in ways that

text can’t. Because people have become immune to links and conditioned themselves to gloss over them, a photograph helps stop people in their tracks if it “tells” them instantly what they’ll get when they glance at the photo. Hubspot has an excellent article on how to use images in your marketing which

will give you a great guide to get started. I also recommend the Branded Solopreneur’s recent blog post which outlines 8 types of visual diarrhea that plague DIY’ers(Translation- Don’t make these mistakes when creating your images!)

12 | P a g e

#8 – Be Generous and Share Relevant and Timely Industry News (and make sure you give credit) If someone else has written the post you wanted to write – blog about it and share it and give credit to the author! If they’ve provided a fabulous list of

resources or a juicy tip – share it and give credit to the author! If they have a great program that your fans would benefit from (or if you took the course and loved it) share it and talk about it with your followers. Never be afraid to share your secrets of your success with your audience. You’re proving you have their

best interests at heart and that you are all in the journey together. (And the person whose post or tip you are sharing may return the favor or JV with you one day in the not too distant future.) Oh. And share your followers’ posts and tips too (people love to be noticed and acknowledged; particularly by

13 | P a g e

experts). I do this all the time of Facebook, Twitter and Google Plus. Here are some simple tips on how to do this with some examples: 1. Tell them why you love it, how the information may help them 2. Share results you have had 3. Be clear about what pain point this information solves 4. @ mention (or + Plus) the people you have

mentioned in the post so they know you are promoting their content 5. Use hashatags that are relevant to ensure interested people can find your post on social media 6. Ask for the share and for comments on the content Example: Facebook course (I have to do a little happy dance on this one,

because Mari Smith actually commented on this post!)

14 | P a g e

#9 – Vary your Post Types Your page will feel more interactive and interesting if you vary yourpost types. Rotate between:

Photos Contests Quizzes/ polls Questions Blog links Tips Personal posts Videos Infographics Motivational quotes

Motivational quotes and inspirational sayings do well for business and they often become

“viral”. Remember, you need to remind people that there is a real person behind your business page on Facebook. Example: Jay Abraham

15 | P a g e

#10 Build Authentic Relationships with Key Industry Influencers with The Goal of Providing Value Don’t just focus on your fans – actively follow and respond to your own favorite “key influencers” in the

social media niche. We’ve already spoken about crediting them and sharing their work. Responding to polls, quizzes and sharing your own tips will help get you noticed too. Visit their feeds and interact regularly. Your regular, thoughtful contributions to their community will get you noticed. Make sure you

make it about THEM and not YOU. Once you have your list of people, spend some time contributing to their community on Facebook or their blog and then pick out 5 that you can learn from or who you think can provide value to your community and send a brief

email asking how you can promote their work. You will be amazed to see how many emails they get with pitches and offers that are not genuine or reply-worth. You can, and should be the one that stands out. Things to include:

How long you have been following them and why “I have been a fan for 6 months, I found your podcast on Itunes when I was searching for entrepreneur and business podcasts”

Describe the blog post, podcast or a resource they created that you liked and why “The episode on entrepreneurship totally blew my mind, you nailed it

16 | P a g e

when you talked about taking an active role in protecting your mindset”

Outline how you have a shared vision for serving your

target market “I share my experiences with my followers via my blog and weekly entrepreneur mindset newsletter, so we serve similar target markets, and even though my audience is smaller than yours, we are both committed to serving their highest needs”

Note that their work may seem thankless at times, but their work has had an impact on you “know you have had an impact on my life and business journey thus far, I want to thank you for that”

Then end it with a request for them to get back to you about how you can promote their work. This works because its real, authentic and you are supporting them and showing their work has had an impact on you. What influencer doesn’t want to hear that? Be honest, be real, be YOU. There you have it! My top 10 tips to build your brand presence and attract influencers. I also put together “How to be a social media superstar” checklist, calendar and action worksheets to help you define

your social media +branding goals. You can learn more about it here.