The first question should be, “Why is it necessary to brand oneself on social media?” If all you are interested in is socializing with family and friends, there is no need to worry about branding. What if you have a business? Be it online or bricks and mortar. In either case creating a brand that provides value to your customers can help give your business special recognition. Let’s discuss the question: How To Brand Yourself With Social Media?
When you look at the picture on the left what comes to mind? London off course. Where Big Ben is known to be located. But this is a misnomer. Big Ben is actually one of the bells inside the clock tower. And this building, The Houses of Parliament is located in the City of Westminster. Not the City of London.
This is a powerful example of how branding can trump the facts. This structure is so iconic that it is a symbol of London. I bring this up since it is a good example of Branding. Just seeing this picture conjures up the atmosphere of London.
The same goes for the Eifel Tower. Seeing a picture of that structure signifies Paris. And the ancient Roman Coliseum, Rome. These are all examples that demonstrate the power of branding.
Now look at the following logos. Do you see the name of the company written anywhere? Logos are very much a part of signifying a companies brand.
I don’t need to tell you what companies they represent, but I will do it anyway. Nike, Mercedes-Benz and Apple. They are titans in their respective domains. Nike for sports shoes; Mercedes for luxury cars and Apple for hi-tech devices like the iPhone and sleek designed computers.
A brand conveys the essence of a company. They have worked hard to create brand awareness and maintain a very high standard of product quality and customer service. These well-known brands do not compete on price. They develop loyal customers who want to create a desirable image for themselves at expensive prices.
There are other brands that convey value for money. Like Walmart and Costco. Companies like FedEx and UPS, have developed brand awareness for delivering parcels. Amazon, Google and Facebook dominate the online world.
All these companies have one major characteristic in common. They have developed a loyal customer base who in general are happy with their purchase and services and keep returning to buy their products
Brands can also suffer when the company lets their customers down. Like Facebook and the regular issues of maintaining customer privacy. When the data gets hacked, the brand name suffers. But not catastrophically. the vast majority of these companies have recognized the importance of having a presence on social media. Check them out for yourself.
Your brand in social media
Wealthy Affiliate has shown the importance of using social media to expand one’s business as a compliment to SEO. There are multiple ways of building traffic to our website, which is in essence our store fronts. One of these is social media. But how does one go about it?
It all begins with creating your own fan or business page. There are many tutorials here that tell you how to do that. Once you have that presence, what next?
You create blog posts on your social media accounts that allow visitors to discover how you can help them with tips on problem solving using the products and services you represent. But that is only one part of the equation.
Every niche has product support pages in every social media platform. Become friends on those pages. Some are closed groups so you may have to apply to be accepted. Often all it takes is to show that you have the same interests as what those pages are about to get the OK.
Once you’re in, it is time to get active. There is a right and wrong way to participate.
DO NOT
1) openly promote your websites or social media pages or products and services. This will show you are only interested in using their sites to find customers
2) post several times a day. This will give the impression that you have a level of desperation to make friends there
3) push your products on friends you make in those sites
DO
1) engage in conversation to show that you are interested in the topic that these sites represent
2) try to find common problems visitors and members of these sites have through the general discussion tone
3) build relationships based on common interests
4) offer constructive advice to demonstrate you are an authority on those topics
5) offer solutions that directly solve problems discussed
6) build trust first. Then offer members links to check out the solutions you have in your own social media pages.
7) take whatever time is necessary to create your own brand awareness in these encounters
Logos
By now you should have developed your own logo. Use these on your social media sites and your own websites to connect you as the brand owner. Building a recognized brand doesn’t happen overnight. It requires patience and regular engagement. I recommend making no more than two posts a day on the social media sites you have joined. Make every comment and post relevant to the members. Provide value at all times.
These are the characteristics we are taught here at Wealthy Affiliate. Use the lessons learned on social media platforms.
Become the Authority and Go-To person – Problem Solver
Once you develop the reputation as the go to person to solve problems, people will seek you out. In order to become such an individual you will have to do your homework in your niche so thoroughly that you become an authority on the product. You do not need to own the product to achieve this status. When you write effective product reviews and show how these products solve specific problems, you will become the expert.
Create videos on Facebook and YouTube where you demonstrate your expertise. When you arrive at this level, you will have accomplished a great deal in cementing your brand awareness in your newfound, expanding customer base.
Branding social media business can be so tasking, as it requires various levels of expertise in online digital marketing. The world is now a global village hence, the internet or social media platforms can be used for building businesses, promotions, customer care service and invariably earning from it. Therefore, all the tips you have provided will be so helpful and I’ll make sure to put all of them to use. Moreover, I’m quite confused on how well social media promotion ads could be of use to promoting our online business, what do you think about this?
You will learn here at WA to first build your business WITHOUT using paid ads. These come later when the time is right to scale your business. By this time it is assumed you are earning commissions and buying ads will be a form of investing in your business. Pay per Click (PPC) is a common form of purchasing ads. You will learn more about this in the Bootcamp training program.
Hi Edwin, do you have any suggestions on how I could create a great logo? Do you know of any platforms that could help? Or would you recommend I get a professional to do it? I feel like I need one to become recognisable and I want it to reflect my online business but I don’t know where to start.
And what do you think are the best social media platforms to use? Which ones have you had the most success with? I don’t particularly like Webtalk, and I’m still learning how to use Tumblr. I’m not really sure how to use Tumblr so it hasn’t been fruitful for me yet. My favourites are FaceBook, Twitter and Pinterest. I have tried to devote time to learning how to best use those.
Thanks for your advice.
WA suggest using canva.com as a free source to get help to create your logo. Try that and see how it goes. You always have the option of paying a designer to do that for you. I don’t recommend that unless you have the funds to do it.
I would add Instagram to your existing social media platforms of FB, Twitter and Pinterest to expand your business. Instagram is new to WA so there are no webinars yet on that platform. However if you search online you should find YouTube videos that give advice on how to do that.
YouTube is also a great platform to create how to videos as well as reviews of products and services.
Do your research to get as much information before you dive in. All the best in using social media to promote your business.
I understand that self-branding is an essential step to make while building your own business online. It’s obvious that social media platforms can bring traffic to your website.
I was always wodering what is more important : content writing or social engagement?
What would you suggest to a newbie like me? To concentrate on writing content or to PR his/her website on social media? Which are the most efficient social platforms one should concentrate on and how much time should he/she dedicate to them daily? Thank you!
I firmly believe that writing valuable content comes first. Wealthy Affiliate makes a strong point of that. One of the reasons is your content can set you up as a knowledgeable person who can offer solutions to specific problems in the niche you have selected. Once you have created a library of content then it makes sense to branch out into social media to leverage the content you have created.
It is all about timing. I recommend going through the Online Entrepreneur Certification training at Wealthy Affiliate to learn the skills about building your business online. Don’t get ahead of the lessons taught. Make sure you do all the tasks associated with each lesson as that is how you will build confidence.
All the best in your quest for success!
Edwin
Thank you very much for this insightful article. I just stated my social media campaign and it has been an eye opener for me. Wealthy Affiliate has given us a good platform where we can learn how to promote our brands online and I am glad to be part of this community.
Branding is essential for our business, especially if we are talking about online business. When you start branding your business name on social media, it also gives Google a signal that there is something useful and interesting about your site. The more visitors are engaged with your website from different sources, better it is for your brand! In the world of SEO its called Juice 🙂 It has a lot to do with ranking high in Google. When you publish a post on social media, and suddenly a lot of visitors are engaged, there is a huge chance to be on the first page. As an example see CNN with their daily news, you never need to go the second page to find what’s happening in the world today.
Your guide on how to start branding in social media is perfect! Especially those 3 NOT TO DO steps.
Its all about patience. I have a new website and to be honest I am struggling with social media branding. It takes so much time and effort. But without branding, it will be hard to get an authority so I am gonna start soon and I am glad to follow your steps!
A not long time ago I was learning a bit about branding & naming the business. Your post just confirmed to me that branding is critical for success! I know here we are talking mainly about branding but let me share with you what I have learned about naming the business.
From your example, we can see that all those famous companies have short names: Nike, Amazon, Apple, Mercedes, FedEx, UPC. So before naming a business its good to think twice about the name.
Google loves “brand searches” and the more searches your site has the higher authority it will get. If somebody heard about you and want to find your site, there is a higher chance for him/her to remember a short name. BTW if you check some short domain names in GoDaddy you will see many of them BUT because they are short and easy to remember the price is very high. I saw a few names that cost above 20 000 dollars.
Thank you for your post and let’s brand our business names 🙂
Thanks so much for your validation. Your insights on brand names was spot on. Maybe they’d why those companies selected non descript names and made them iconic. The message I got was it’s ok to have a short name that by itself has no connection to your product or service. It’s up to us to give meaning to that name using the niche we adopt. You got me thinking in a direction that is so intriguing! Cheers! Edwin