Dialed In: Navigate Your Brand Identity through a Storm of Competition

Dialed In: Navigate Your Brand Identity Through a Storm of Competition

Dialed In: Navigate Your Brand Identity Through a Storm of Competition

Understanding who your audience–and isn’t–is critical for many reasons, but I’m going to focus on your being able to start blogging and using social media. Until you know who you are, you and your brand will be flailing to try to determine who your product or service will appeal to. Every day on all platforms, there are startups and brands who have the “shotgun” approach, who say that “everyone” is their target market. And we’ve all heard that “if everyone is your target market, then no one is” thought before. So where to start?

Simple Survey

Use something like Survey Monkey to ask your already-existing clients or friends what they think of your brand. A short survey of 3-4 questions (perhaps with a reward for finishing) could be very useful. For instance, “What one idea comes to mind when you think of our company?”

You might also want to ask your employees what they would change about the company, as Matthew Evins suggests in his excellent article Before Rebranding: Five Questions to Gauge Your Brand Health. As he says, simply asking the question raises morale. And who wouldn’t want to work somewhere with high morale? Of course if you’d rather have a demoralizing environment, you could read Startups: Ten Ways to Demotivate Employees.

Brand Identity and the 360 Review

Brand Identity and the 360 Review

360 Interview

For the more serious, Dorie Clark, the author of Reinventing You and a marketing strategy consultant, suggests the Personal 360 Interview, where you ask key people who work with you to provide anonymous feedback. You could provide a list of traits that people circle, such as “creative,” “generous,” etc. as one of the questions.

For a comprehensive list of why to conduct a 360 Review, here is a fab Guide to 360 Reviews. This guide is meant for an individual, but could be applied to an organization as well.

The Best-Laid Plans

Like a person, a business is an organic, living thing, and changes from time to time. The goals and resolutions you had as a 12-year-old kid won’t be the same resolutions you have as an adult. Why would a business be any different? Speaking of resolutions, here are my latest post, resolutions for social media.

Brand Identity and Authenticity

Brand Identity and Authenticity

Authenticity in Words and Actions

Once you have a clear idea of what your brand is, creating the target audience for your brand should be much simpler. That means that the words you use in tweets, posts, and blogging should be consistent. Having a list of words to pull from, as well as those you won’t use, can be enormously helpful. Even if your brand consists of you (if you are the brand), you need to figure out who you are. Maria Brophy has a post about saying who you are in 5 words.

Consistency

Are you the same person online as offline? Do your actions match the attributes you want your brand to have? For instance, if one of your attributes is generosity, is your brand consistently being generous day in and day out? If you say you are about integrity, does everyone who work for you have it? You certainly don’t want your brand to be thought of as ironic.

Questions for the Small Brand

If you head up a small company, spending a day or two once a year to discover or rediscover who your audience is can be enormously useful. For example, is your product or service expensive? What kind of person buys your product? Is your target customer local or can they be located anywhere? Is there a target age or range to your ideal client? You may not know who your target market is quite yet, but over time you’ll start to see patterns emerge. Reviewing questions like these once a year can help you become more focused on your social media and blogging so that your tweets, posts, and pins reflect something appealing to your target audience.

Choose Another Company to Model

Some small brands like to choose a slightly larger company to model themselves after. Often I’ll hear “make our Pinterest look like their Pinterest” or “we like the tweets from ABC company.”

When you have that target audience narrowed down, you can hand that list of attributes to your social media manager.

Is it Time to Quit Facebook?

Is it time to quit Facebook?

Is it time to quit Facebook?

Lately I’ve been hearing a lot of rumblings about how bad Facebook is for brand advertising. I’d always heard grumbling, but this was something different. The grumbling has now turned into action: my social media manager (“SMM”) friends have been leaving Facebook to spend time elsewhere. Some of them have told their clients not to waste their money.

Behind the Scenes with SMMs

Then, a couple of days ago in one of the SMM groups I’m in, someone posted Eat24’s goodbye letter to Facebook. It was hilarious (and by the way, @Eat24 rocks on Twitter, so go follow them there!). It also made me think. Yes, we all know that Facebook is a business. Yes, we all realize that at some point we’d probably have to pay to play. But is it worth the cost? And what about for personal use? If we can’t see our friends’ posts because of an algorithm change, should we just ditch Facebook and head over to Google Plus or Twitter or Instagram?

Facebook’s Response

In response to Eat24’s goodbye letter, Facebook rep Brandon McCormick posted a defense (not really a defense in my opinion but that’s another post), and the story was picked up by Huffington Post.

Transparency

I don’t have all the answers to what’s happening with Facebook, but I can tell you that my reach has dramatically decreased. I have 959 fans on my page, and of those, very few see my posts any more. There has been a big change since January of 2014. Of my SMM friends who are bailing, they’re not all managers for tiny brands–some of them are rewriting strategy for huge brands, too, and drastically cutting back on their Facebook use.

Reactions to the Change in Reach

Eggs in One Basket

Eggs in One Basket

Some of my SMM friends have decided to post more, some have quit Facebook, and some have decided to spend money on promoted posts. Personally, I’ve posted a bit less now–just once daily, and hardly ever twice a day. But I’m not taking all my eggs out of the Facebook basket just yet. I don’t think this story is over, since just about everyone is on Facebook–including my friends, your friends, and your customers if you’re managing Facebook pages.

What’s the Bottom Line?

If you’re willing to spend a few dollars on Facebook to ensure that people see your posts, it’s still a good value. Consider a small fee, like a dollar a day. If your business has no budget, then spend your time somewhere else. But Facebook is still a behemoth with a massive audience, and there’s nothing else like it. Agree? Disagree? Please leave me a comment!

 

 

Social Media Conversation Starters

Social Media Conversation Starters

Social Media Conversation Starters

You might have had some practice starting conversations during the holidays or at parties. “Hey,” you might say. “Hey,” says your new friend. “How’s the punch?” you ask. “Pretty good.” your new friend responds. And a beautiful friendship is born. See? You already know a lot about talking! But in case you need to say a little more in an online conversation, here are your…

Social Media Conversation Starters

Before you say anything else to someone, before you tell them to “like your Facebook page” in an unsolicited direct message on Twitter, you might want to start a conversation. Some good times to start conversations are late at night, on Fridays during #FridayFollow, or on the weekend. Holidays are a perfect time to begin conversations, too.

Greetings Are Important

Greetings are important

Greetings are important

Just as in real life, the hellos, nice to meet you’s, and so happy you could make it’s are the hors d’ouevres of a good social media meal. Without them, conversations will seem a little weird because you’ve skipped steps. Greetings are what get us going in any relationship. They’re the bread and butter of your social media dinner.

Seven to Thirteen Touches

If you’re selling something, as many people are on social media, it takes 7 to 13 touches to qualify a lead. You may have heard this before. I love the chart (Figure 2) in this article about how most prospects never receive enough touches. So using a “soft touch” in social media goes a long way towards nurturing a relationship.

Always Ask Questions

Usually people will tell you something about themselves or their brand on their profile. Take a look and comment on what you see there. Start off with “I love the…” and fill in the blank. “…thing you say about bicycle pumps.” “…way you string together nouns.” Anything to get the conversation started. Even noticing where they’re from or asking about the weather or their holiday plans is perfectly fine. Here’s an example from a recent conversation with Stephanie Mount on Twitter:

 Make it About Them

Don’t be waiting for a break in the conversation so you can talk about yourself. Let the other person lead and be willing to be surprised by listening. That way, it’s more of an adventure. You never know what people will say! Most people love to talk about themselves, so give them the opportunity. Alex Feinman has some good ideas in his blog (I particularly like the part about “merging” and his comparing it to traffic).

Be Funny

Not all of us are born comedians, but sharing a funny story usually helps to break the ice. I really like self-deprecating humor because that’s just my thing. And if someone makes me laugh, chances are, I’m going to like them because that’s the way to my heart. What’s the way to yours? Try what works on you with other people and you could be surprised.

What Are Some of Your Most Effective Conversation Starters?

Pull up a chair, sit down, and leave a comment!

 

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