I find that a lot of companies are intrigued with social media and would like to build their brands online. Social media is a great tool to spread the word about your product or services, and it is also a great tool for retrieving feedback from your target consumers. A lot of companies come across roadblocks along the way while building their brands with social media. I came across an interesting article on the Social Times site “The 10 Obstacles To Brand Building On The Social Web And How To Avoid Them.” I found this to be a great article with a lot of insightful points. I spent some time summarizing the 10 obstacles below:
1. Not Having a Good Product
Unless you have a good product, you simply won’t get very far in online brand building. One central concept for online brand building is taking advantage of the social web. This is where a lot of influential social media users can disseminate information about your product in a way that will get your name out to more people than you would have been able to do on your own.
When it comes to building a brand on the social web, a great deal of your marketing comes down to word-of-mouth. From one user to another, the user-generated content being circulated around your product can make a big difference in getting the word out about your brand.
2. Despair and Laziness
When familiarizing yourself with a new site or service, check out the About page, as well as the FAQs. If there’s a forum for users to discuss features and other site issues, check that out as well. These pages can all be great resources for getting started on a new site. Checking out other forums or blogs can be great resources for learning the ins and outs of a new site. If you don’t see immediate results, just remember to keep the faith. Getting into the swing of any new project can take some getting used to. The more active you are within a social media site, the more your activity will pay off.
3. Knowing Your Audience
Focusing on the wrong crowd, or not targeting at all could lead to you sending out a lot of information to people that might not care. This hit-or-miss approach doesn’t work with any type of advertising, and finding the right audience on the social web is easy enough so that you won’t spend too much time head-scratching.
Twitter is one of the easiest social media sites for finding like-minded individuals. Do a simple Twitter search and you’ll find the people that are talking about your product, similar products, or areas of interest that could related back to your product. These are the people you need to engage. If you build enough of a rapport, you can even push that conversation to other areas of the social web, such as Facebook.
4. Engagement
Be sure to remain genuine in your engagement. Keep conversation relevant and don’t participate in spammy behavior. If you’re on a site like Twitter, mix personal information in with the branding information your pushing out through your update stream. On Facebook, merely commenting on a friend’s photo album or shared link will introduce more opportunities for you to engage that user in a conversation that can eventually relate back to your brand. Fan Pages and Public Profiles on Facebook are great for engagement because they’re designed for brands that would like to further engage Facebook users.
5. Maintenance
You need to manage your web presence in order to keep up with the flow you’ve initiated when first setting yourself and your brand up for social media purposes. This maintenance is important because it adds the continuity needed to further engage your users, friends and potential clients. Out of sight means out of mind. So if you’re not constantly talking about you and your brand, you’ll quickly be forgotten.
6. Time Management
Set definite amounts of time for various aspects of your social media maintenance. This will keep you concise and focused on the different functions you need to complete for building your brand online, and keep you from feeling overwhelmed when you glance at your to-do list each morning.
7. Finding the Right Tools
The right tools will help you tremendously with your social media maintenance, and will help you manage your time much more efficiently. There are certain applications for Facebook like SocialCalendar or Plaxo that help you manage your contacts across Facebook and even other applications such as Outlook. This can help you remain personable with those you interact with on Facebook without you having to invest a great deal of time into researching these individuals.
8. Keeping up with Your Blog
Keeping up with your blog is pretty central to building your brand on the social media web. Think of your blog as your web home page, where all the other information about yourself radiates out from. As your web-based personal calling card, your blog can act as the hub for all your social media activity.
9. Tracking Successes and Mistakes
An important aspect in continuing to build your brand online is learning from your mistakes and knowing the areas in which you need to improve. Achieve this by tracking your online social media behavior and taking some time out regularly to correlate this behavior with the ongoing changes you’re making to your social media strategy.
Getting direct feedback from others is one of the easiest ways in which to see where changes in your strategy need to be made. Place a feedback tab on your website and make sure that it’s easy for visitors to find. Respond to queries and leverage different channels of communication for engaging consumers in this manner.
10. Outsource
When the workload of social media gets to become overwhelming, it wouldn’t hurt to pay someone to do some of the work for you. The redundant acts surrounding social media activity are the easiest aspects to outsource, whether you’ve hired a personal assistant, a virtual assistant or an intern.
I came across this ad campaign on adgoodness for Comex paint company and it immediately made me smile. I can’t say that for most ad campaigns. I think since I was a child in the eighties I might be a little biased in my review of this ad campaign. I won’t go into details on how large my smurf collection was as a child. I believe this is a great execution for a campaign. I find it very clever and to the point. The ad is focused on color, the tagline “We Match Any Color” and the cartoon icons are immediately recognizable. Now if I could only find a store that sells Comex paint where I can buy smurf blue! Do you have an emotional connection to this campaign?
Yep, it’s true. I received a survey from my dentist. A short, one-page survey arrived in the mail the other day asking for my opinions on my visit and as a “thanks” they are going to mail me a $10 Target gift card. I promptly filled it out and mailed it back - heck, I’m not only a big fan of customer feedback but I also love Target.
We all know that times are tough. And you may be experiencing cuts in your marketing budgets, which probably makes your job even tougher. Well then it is time to switch things up a bit and work on marketing tactics that are extendable or reusable. Here are a few ideas: