Social Media. Carolyn Boyes
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1.3
What makes businesses successful is that they are always clear about their brand and where they are positioned in their marketplace.
The idea of a brand is simple. It is the thing for which you are most recognized. For example, London has Big Ben, Paris the Eiffel Tower, Nepal is known for Mount Everest. Think about a business like Virgin. Richard Branson, the owner, cleverly created a brand around himself and his business, creating a memorable name and image.
You don’t need to own a multi-million-pound business to have a great brand. Some of the best brands on the web are one-person brands. Even teenagers, posting comments and producing videos from their bedrooms, are creating valuable brands on social media. A brand is an interpretation of yourself and you can show off that interpretation across Twitter, Instagram, Google Plus or any platform you choose.
“Setting up an account is not a strategy” Businessweek
Think about what is at the core of your brand and how you want to show that to your social media audience.
▪ What do I do for a living? Do I want my brand to be around me, the person, or around the business I am involved in?
▪ What is my Mount Everest? What am I most known for? What is the core of my business?
▪ What is unique about my business? What makes me stand out from my competitors or other people like me?
▪ Why would people be interested in listening to what I have to tell them? When I meet people at a party, what do they ask me about?
If you don’t have all the answers immediately, that’s fine. It’s better to take your time than rush into social media and change your brand. That will just confuse people.
case study Zoella is a hugely successful vlogger on YouTube and has created a strong brand from small beginnings. She films short videos of interest to her audience and has a big teenage following. Her brand has been so successful that it went offline. She makes appearances off screen and was even asked to write a book which sold in large numbers to her fans. Her brand was helped by the fact that she dated another successful YouTube star and they have made videos together, creating an even-better-known joint brand.
Think about what you stand for and how to differentiate yourself from your competition.
Most of social media is free so commitment to a brand isn’t shown with money but with attention or inattention. To get that attention you need to offer a promise to people.
What difference do you want to make? What impact do you want to make? All great brands promise us something. Take a brand like Coca-Cola or Pepsi. Many drinks quench your thirst, so why buy a branded drink which costs more? Simply because the brand seems to promise more.
Some brands last for generations even though the products are very different. What do Disney, McDonald’s, Twinings and Burberry really promise you that keeps you loyal to them? We will all pay more if someone or something makes us feel better. That’s why advertisers show us adverts populated with people we want to aspire to be like. For some of us, that means buying a product associated with the perfect home and family; for others it means a link with being young and fashionable or being different and anti-establishment.
Sometimes the brand promise is obvious and sometimes it takes time to think through. Start by considering what makes your business stand out from its competitors. By knowing what makes you different you can work out what you are really promising to give people when they connect with your brand.
“Your brand is the single most important investment you can make in your business” Steve Forbes
Take a political information company, for example. What makes them different? Information is available from dozens of sites on the web. For one company it may be their humorous presentation of the news, for another the fact they are always first with the news or they have politicians rather than journalists working for them, so they are the first to learn about what really goes on in the corridors of power.
Perhaps you run a bakery. Isn’t selling cakes and bread and buns just about feeding people? Not necessarily. Perhaps it’s the way your posts of cakes in retro fifties’ settings make people feel as if they are living the domestic goddess dream. You promise the lifestyle with every product you sell.
Think about what makes you different and what your brand can promise its customers.
Who would have imagined when Twitter or Facebook began that the most famous brands in the world would be competing for space with people posting updates from their bedrooms? But that’s what has happened – social media is still sociable and fun but it has also become a serious platform on which to do business, and one-person bands can compete with the big players.
However, there’s no point getting involved in social media and just setting up accounts here and there because everyone else is doing it. Take an inventory of what you are already doing and what your competitors are doing, then SMART:
▪ S is for Specific. Be specific with your goals. Set some objectives for how many channels you are going to use, and what you are seeking to achieve.
▪ M is for Measurable. All your goals should be measurable so you know whether you are achieving them or not.
▪ A is for Achievable. What is it going to take to achieve your goals? Do you have the resources available? Can you make it happen by yourself? If not, who can help you?
“Media was very one way … Now the internet is allowing what used to be a monologue to become a dialogue” Joseph Gordon-Levitt
one minute wonder Be specific about what you want to achieve by marketing your business on social media. An increase in customers? Growth in market share? A rise in net profit? A jump in average order price per customer? Total revenue growth?
▪ R is for Realistic and Relevant to your business. Do you need to do this? What will happen if you do? What will happen if you don’t? What won’t happen if you do or don’t?
▪ T is for Time. All good goals have a timeframe attached. Think about the long term and the short term. Then consider what is the easiest first step for you to take.
Create Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Relevant goals with a Timeframe attached.
The social media landscape is rather like the old Wild West gold-mining towns. There’s definitely gold out there but if you don’t put a stake in the ground to claim your territory then someone else will get there first and your brand is gone.
Once you have your brand make sure you start buying the websites, Twitter name, Tumblr accounts and blogs with the right name or names for your business and any products or topics you want to stake a claim to.
But even if you’re not sure whether you are going to use a particular social