Increase Your Brand Awareness By Building An Online Presence Through Your Website, Blog And Social Media Profiles
You must concentrate on building an online presence for your business to develop brand awareness. Trish Davies shows you how to do it by leveraging many different platforms.
As a business owner brand awareness is more important now than it ever has been. The reason I say this is because the playing field, although is still level, it is becoming more congested. What ever industry you are in your competition is growing rapidly every day, so you need to stand out from that crowd.
We live in a digital age which is transforming how we live our lives daily. Sometimes it is hard to believe or even remember what life was like pre internet and the world wide web. It is crucial that you don’t get left behind because the longer you leave building an online presence you run that risk.
You must move forward with the times and if you look at the history books you will see massive change. Machines streamlined manufacturing processes and technology has continued to evolve to change how business is done. It is time to embrace change and see it as a challenge to break away from outdated methods to establish brand awareness.
That’s not to say those methods don’t still work. They do but not as effective as they once were. One example would be media and newspapers in particular. Popular broad sheets and tabloids used to have a massive print run and circulation but not anymore.
There have been many major publications that have stopped with print and moved everything online. So, if you have a business and have advertised within a printed publication then your marketing efforts have become diluted. So, if the newspapers have noticed this dramatic shift then you must change your mindset.
Change Is Good
They have kept their brand awareness by moving to where the audience is, and that is online. Another example would be television as only around thirty years ago you had a limited choice of channels. Back in the day your advertisement would have got noticed but viewing habits have changed.
Satellite and cable television stations moved the goalposts by offering so channels. The result was that viewers then selected their favourite channels which became their hubs and stuck with them. After all there is only 24 hours in a day so you can’t watch everything.
What did happen though was that you could target your audience more as you could advertise your business on related channels. So that was good for business as that audience was congruent with what you had to offer. The downside was though that it was hellishly expensive which is not good unless you have a massive budget.
Now a lot of people watch live stream television through the internet because that is where people spend their lives. If your business is not on the internet then it needs to be, like yesterday!
Building an online presence is an easy thing to do because you can leverage technology to the max. Basically anyone can build websites and create blogs with simple point and click software. You don’t need to be some kind of tech wizard so there is no need to break out in a cold sweat.
Also, social media platforms make it simple to create profiles in just a matter of a few minutes. The important thing is the content you put into each platform that will help you build your brand awareness and authority. Before I talk about that let’s quickly look at just what you can set up online for your business.
Building An Online Presence – Your Website Or Blog
So, what is the difference? You could have a stand-alone website that showcases everything about your business in static pages. What you offer in the form of products and services and how to get them. Also, you would information about you, your business and how people can contact you. You would structure it in a corporate way, and this is your virtual real estate.
You could have a stand-alone blog in which you would regularly publish fresh content every day. This is much more engaging because when people begin to like what you publish, they keep coming back for more. Within your posts you could promote your products and services and give the reader clear call to actions.
The other option is to combine the two into a corporate design and have blog facility as well. In other words, the best of both worlds. This is what I have done with this website you are on now. I have static pages with information about who I am and what I do along with a blog to make regular posts. This is what I recommend you do with your business.
By doing this you will establish your authority and you can show your authenticity within the content that you publish.
Create A YouTube Channel
Remember I mentioned television and then live streaming were ways that people viewed content? Well video on sites such as YouTube is where millions of people now consume their content.
Video is engaging and a perfect way for people to get to know, like and trust you. You do this by being you and you alone.
Building An Online Presence – Social Media
It is easy to create social media profiles and brand them to your other online platforms. You only have to sit in a coffee shop for 15 minutes to see how many people are on social media. You can tell them a mile off because they are scrolling up, down, left, and every other direction. They need their regular newsfeed fix, and this is where you can establish your brand awareness.
This is just a taster about building an online presence and there are many other ways. That is the easy part but now it is what you publish that’s important as I mentioned earlier.
You Are Your Brand And Your Brand Is You So Tell Your Story
Everything I have mentioned up to now is about how to build an online presence, but why do you do it? You must build a tribe of raving fans that become your regular audience. This is the fundamental part of a success and sustainable business and a healthy bank balance.
The way you build your audience is by telling them your story so they can relate to you and feel a connection. Recently I published a post that will help you create your story that can then be broken down and used in your marketing. I encourage you to read this post by clicking here because it will help you create a resource that you can continually tap into.
I must emphasise that to build your brand awareness and authority your focus must be in providing value. There is a saying that “you reap what you sow” but what does that mean for your business? You are in business to make money so let’s be clear on that and embrace it.
The thing is though that the revenue you generate is the biproduct of the value you give. If you regularly publish value through your many different online presences, then the money will flow. The money should not be your train of thought, it should be how much value am I providing. That value will come from your story so make sure you read my post titled “How To Tell A Story About Yourself” by clicking here.
As you can see building an online presence is simple enough because technology allows you to do it. The important thing is how you use that presence and I recommend you focus on your story. This helps establish authority, authenticity which will build your audience.
A life of freedom and choice.
Trish Davies International
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