These days, a business’s online brand is just as important as what happens offline.
Your company’s digital presence can be a deal maker or a deal breaker. An uncared-for brand turns consumers away in frustration. But an all-star brand can attract leads, expand your reach, increase brand awareness, and ultimately boost sales.
Even if you get referrals through word-of-mouth, you can bet those folks are going to search your business online and interact with it digitally.
Most companies don’t handle these interactions effectively. And even fewer do so in a way that promotes the company’s brand positively and improves the customer experience. That means that a stellar online brand and active digital presence can be a huge competitive advantage.
Let’s explore four ways to supercharge your company’s online brand.
Look Beyond Facebook
Sure, Facebook is still the global giant when it comes to social networks, but it’s not the most effective way to expand your reach. Growing your audience organically is an iterative process. It requires testing on other social channels, which means you have to actually be on other social channels. To learn more about this, sign up for the upcoming Score workshop.
LinkedIn and Twitter are obvious choices. If you haven’t done so already, go ahead and create a company page. If kept active, this will help you build brand credibility and connect with potential investors. There are loads of social channels out there so be discriminating as you choose which ones to tackle. Your business doesn’t need to be on every one, but it does need to be on more than one.
Start a Blog
There’s a reason content marketing has exploded over the last several years. B2B marketers that use blogs receive 67% more leads than those that do not. And marketers who have prioritised blogging are 13x more likely to enjoy positive ROI.
Think about it — popular content is a terrific way to attract customers. If someone Googles a question about your industry and your awesome content comes up, that’s a valuable entry point. Offer consumers high quality content on a regular basis, and they’ll come to trust you as an authoritative source of information in your industry. That association is worth its weight in gold.
Respond to Feedback, Both Positive and Negative
Negative feedback can be scary. But responding to negative feedback is all about taking responsibility. If someone complains about your business on social media, that’s bad. But left ignored, that complaint can be even worse.With a quick response, you can diffuse the situation, give context to the complaint, and even win a customer back. Remember to remain polite and see if you can explain how you’re going to remedy the situation in the future.
Don’t be afraid to respond selectively to positive feedback to. You don’t want to be seen as overly eager or arrogant, but the right comment can solidify the loyalty a customer feels with your brand. If a customer loves a particular aspect of your company, you can use that as an opportunity to generate excitement about something new in the pipeline.
Improve Online Presence for Management
People are going to look up your business and they’re also going to look YOU up. Consumers want to know the entrepreneur behind the curtain, and a quick Google search is the easiest way to do that. If your online brand doesn’t match your business, you’ll reduce the impact of your brand message. Take steps to improve your own online presence and ensure that your digital footprint helps to promote your company, rather than detract from it. Even if your search results aren’t particularly negative, there are some convincing reasons to build up your presence proactively.
Closing Note:
At the end of the day, your potential customers are just regular people and so are you. Appeal to their humanity, be personable, and show that you’re human too.
A version of this article appeared originally on Score New York City.