Build Your Online Brand Presence Using Social Media

Increasing your Social Media presence should be one of your top priorities, especially when you wish to establish your brand online. Almost every people on earth is on Facebook, where users spend more than 700 million minutes per month. YouTube has 490 million unique users per month. Twitter adds 500,000 users per day, and on average, 190 million Tweets are sent every day. More than 344 million people read blogs each month.

Companies that aren’t focusing branding and marketing efforts on social media channels are missing out on millions of potential customers. These days, branding on social media channels is almost as important as brand identity offline.

Starting your Facebook, YouTube, Twitter accounts, and blogs is only the first step in creating a solid online brand presence through social media channels.

Here are five considerations for establishing your social media brand effectively and strategically.

Visual Branding

The Nike “swoosh,” McDonald’s’“Golden Arches,” and of course the Apple, “apple” all have one thing in familiar – solid brand identity. If your company has branding guidelines, make sure you’re applying them to your social media channels, too. Your Twitter and Facebook profile images should reflect your brand.

Twitter allows you to customize your background, while Facebook gives you the flexibility to add a large cover image. When your customers see your tweets fly by on their timeline or Facebook news feed, you want them to know – in an instant – they are communicating with your company. Strong, consistent visual branding across all social media platforms will do this.

Social Signals Frequency

There’s much noise on social media channels, and to be heard, you have to be entering the conversation. Make sure you’re posting status updates regularly – daily, if possible – so your content has the best chance at being seen. If a blog is part of your social media brand, follow the same consistency guidelines.

Consider an editorial calendar or regular features, so your customers know what to expect. Common content sharing will build your reputation as a resource or information destination.

Become a Resource

Social media differs from traditional media in part because social media allows for two-way communication. Use this excellent benefit to participate in honest, authentic conversations with your customers and potential customers. People trust those who they “know” and buy from companies they trust. Sharing relevant, usable content with your followers is one way to become a trusted resource. Think about setting up a Twitter list with industry news accounts and re-tweet exciting tidbits to your followers.

Favorite other pages on Facebook and visit their pages– or share exciting links directly to their pages. Regularly answering LinkedIn Questions in your industry is another easy way to build your social media brand.

Social Signals Monitoring

With the ease of content scheduling on blogs and social media content management clients (like TweetDeck or Hootsuite,) it’s easy to “set-it-and-forget-

 it” when it comes to social media. Savvy businesses know that one of the best ways to build relationships with your customers is to monitor your social media channels regularly and respond to a conversation – both negative and positive.

Wouldn’t you want your brand known for quickly responding to customers’ needs and questions? Monitoring your social media channels is the way to get there.

Interactivity

To get your customers excited about your social media channels, you have to give them something to get excited about. Interactivity is significant in social media, and customers are more likely to remember you and your brand if you interact with them on your social media channels.

For example, you might set up a FourSquare special for multiple check-ins, hold a Twitter party for an online product launch or ask a fun question on a Facebook status update.