Whether you run a blog or you’re working for a company on their digital strategy, after you’ve gotten a foothold, it’s time to push towards the next step. 71% of companies plan to increase budgets with digital marketing agencies over the next 12 months. They’ve gotten the message that sitting still is effectively like going backwards. Focusing on next steps is the way to get ahead.
Here are several next steps for companies and bloggers who wish to advance.
Use Social Media to Extend Brand Visibility
Social media must be seen as a tool as much as a marketing platform. It’s an immediate way to get your brand greater visibility. Activity, especially the frequent kind, is noticed. Brands with a personality and presence garner attention in the right circles; everyone wants to have a little fun while at work or at play.
Run competitions on social media to generate greater interest. Get followers involved in the brand after they have agreed to follow the account. Don’t just let followers hang; make them feel involved in the business, take them behind the scenes, secure their investment in the brand, and then deepen it.
Take Care of Reputational Management
Managing reputation online is equally important. What do customers, potential customers, and followers see from your company or website? What does the brand speak for? Not the mission statement, but the output in written, photographic or video content.
Look at what competitors are doing and see if there’s a way to improve upon or go another direction with how your brand is represented online.
Consider communications through customer service teams too. Whether that’s email, live chat, direct messaging on Facebook or replies on Twitter; have a brand voice, train everyone in it, and stick to it. Above all else – be authentic.
Focus on Consistency in Content Production
Aim for a consistent look, feel and attitude across all forms of content marketing regardless of whether different people (or departments) are responsible for their production. That also applies whether the published content is produced internally or outsourced.
Provide guidelines to ensure the brand message and consistency flows through everything that’s put out onto social media, website and promotional materials too. Make this available internally and supply it to freelancers involved in content production.
Remember, consistency is more important than publishing frequency; you want to favor quality over speed. It takes months or years to build a reputation, but only moments to ruin it.
When you want to take things to the next level, it’s important to avoid missteps. It’s easy to attempt to do too much, too fast, and make mistakes that hurt your brand’s reputation. Higher quality content that has a consistent voice, speaks to the core audience and resonates in a meaningful way is valuable. It beats rushing to be on every platform, updating every day. A measured approach is needed when doubling down. Execute with due care to avoid messing up what’s already “a good thing.” When companies and website managers follow this edict, they’ll do just fine.
