In the competitive world of lawn maintenance, establishing a strong brand identity is not just an option—it’s a necessity. A well-crafted brand identity sets your business apart from the rest, serving as a beacon for customers seeking reliable and quality service. By focusing on developing a robust brand reputation, you can build customer trust and loyalty, which are crucial for long-term success. Utilizing tools like Google My Business can significantly enhance your visibility in local markets, helping potential clients discover your services with ease. In this guide, we’ll delve into how a strategic content strategy can attract your ideal clientele, ensuring your business not only survives but thrives.

Establishing a Strong Brand Identity

Creating a robust brand identity is crucial for lawn maintenance companies to stand out in a competitive market. This section explores the importance of brand identity, how to build customer trust through reputation, and developing an effective content strategy.

Importance of Brand Identity

Brand identity is the foundation of your lawn maintenance business’s public image. It encompasses your company’s values, mission, and unique selling proposition.

A strong brand identity helps differentiate your business from competitors, making it easier for potential customers to recognize and remember your services. It also creates a sense of professionalism and reliability, which is crucial in the lawn care industry.

Developing a distinctive brand identity can lead to increased customer loyalty and word-of-mouth referrals, ultimately driving business growth. By consistently presenting your brand across all touchpoints, you create a cohesive image that resonates with your target audience.

Building Customer Trust Through Reputation

A stellar reputation is the cornerstone of customer trust in the lawn maintenance industry. It’s built through consistent, high-quality service and positive customer interactions.

To build a strong reputation, focus on delivering exceptional results with every job. This includes not only the quality of lawn care but also punctuality, professionalism, and customer service.

Encourage satisfied customers to leave reviews on platforms like Google and Yelp. Positive reviews serve as social proof, influencing potential customers’ decisions. Address any negative feedback promptly and professionally to demonstrate your commitment to customer satisfaction.

Developing a Content Strategy

A well-crafted content strategy helps attract and engage your ideal customers while showcasing your lawn maintenance expertise.

Start by identifying your target audience’s pain points and interests. Create content that addresses these topics, such as lawn care tips, seasonal maintenance guides, or before-and-after showcases of your work.

Utilize various content formats, including blog posts, videos, and infographics, to cater to different learning preferences. Consistently share your content across relevant platforms, including your website and social media channels, to maximize reach and engagement.

Implement SEO best practices in your content to improve visibility in search engine results, making it easier for potential customers to find your business online.

Leveraging Local Marketing Tools

For lawn maintenance companies, local marketing is key to attracting nearby customers. This section covers how to maximize Google My Business, engage with the local community, and craft effective local campaigns.

Maximizing Google My Business

Google My Business (GMB) is a powerful tool for improving your lawn maintenance company’s local visibility. It’s often the first point of contact between your business and potential customers searching for services in their area.

To maximize GMB’s potential, ensure your listing is complete and accurate. Include your business name, address, phone number, website, and operating hours. Add high-quality photos of your work and team to make your listing more appealing.

Regularly update your GMB profile with posts about promotions, seasonal services, or lawn care tips. This keeps your listing fresh and engaging. Encourage satisfied customers to leave reviews on your GMB profile, as positive reviews can significantly boost your local search rankings.

Engaging with the Local Community

Community engagement is vital for building a strong local presence and fostering customer loyalty in the lawn maintenance industry.

Participate in local events such as home and garden shows or community fairs. These provide opportunities to showcase your services and connect with potential customers face-to-face.

Consider sponsoring local sports teams or community events to increase brand visibility and demonstrate your commitment to the area. This can help create positive associations with your brand among community members.

Collaborate with other local businesses, such as garden centers or hardware stores, for cross-promotion opportunities. This can help you reach new audiences and establish your company as a trusted local service provider.

Crafting Effective Local Campaigns

Tailored local campaigns can significantly boost your lawn maintenance business’s visibility and attract more customers in your service area.

Start by identifying your target audience’s specific needs and preferences in your local area. This could include common lawn issues, popular landscaping trends, or seasonal concerns.

Create targeted advertising campaigns on platforms like Facebook or Google Ads, using location-based targeting to reach potential customers in your service area. Craft compelling ad copy that addresses local pain points and highlights your unique selling propositions.

Consider offering localized promotions or services, such as neighborhood group discounts or services tailored to common local lawn types. This demonstrates your understanding of local needs and can help differentiate your business from competitors.

Strategies for Customer Loyalty

Building and maintaining customer loyalty is crucial for long-term success in the lawn maintenance industry. This section explores personalizing customer experiences, maintaining consistent communication channels, and effectively utilizing customer feedback.

Building a Strong Brand Identity: Personalizing Customer Experiences

Personalization is key to creating memorable customer experiences that foster loyalty in the lawn maintenance industry.

Start by keeping detailed records of each customer’s property, including lawn size, grass type, and specific care requirements. Use this information to tailor your services and communication to each client’s unique needs.

Offer customized lawn care plans based on individual property assessments. This demonstrates your attention to detail and commitment to providing the best possible care for each lawn.

Remember and acknowledge important details about your customers, such as their preferred communication method or specific lawn care concerns. This personal touch can significantly enhance customer satisfaction and loyalty.

Consistent Communication Channels

Maintaining open and consistent communication channels is essential for building strong relationships with your lawn maintenance customers.

Establish a regular communication schedule, such as monthly email updates or seasonal service reminders. This keeps your business top-of-mind and demonstrates proactive customer care.

Utilize multiple communication channels, including email, text messages, and social media, to cater to different customer preferences. Ensure your messaging is consistent across all platforms to reinforce your brand identity.

Be responsive to customer inquiries and concerns across all channels. Prompt, helpful responses can turn potential issues into opportunities to demonstrate your commitment to customer satisfaction.

Gathering and Utilizing Customer Feedback

Customer feedback is a valuable resource for improving your lawn maintenance services and strengthening customer relationships.

Implement a systematic approach to gathering feedback, such as post-service surveys or annual customer satisfaction questionnaires. Make it easy for customers to provide feedback through various channels, including email, your website, or in-person conversations.

Analyze feedback regularly to identify trends and areas for improvement. Use positive feedback to reinforce successful practices and negative feedback as opportunities for growth and service enhancement.

Act on customer feedback visibly. When you make changes based on customer suggestions, communicate these improvements to show that you value and respond to customer input. This can significantly boost customer loyalty and satisfaction.

The post Building a Strong Brand Identity: How Lawn Maintenance Companies Can Attract Loyal Customers appeared first on Platform Creator.

Employees have quickly become scarce for many industries in this volatile labor market.

And tech companies have known this for a while. When programmers become available, for example, head hunters are on ‘em like a cheetah on a gazelle.

If you’re not out there hunting, too, you could be stuck gnawing on bones.

And here’s another reality…the “difference maker” employees aren’t unemployed…or really looking for jobs.  If they’re good, they already have a job.

You’ll want to be on their radar when they’re ready for their next move.

Why recruitment marketing?

It can sometimes be tempting to maintain the status quo, right?  

It’s a hassle to (and sometimes expensive) to craft help wanted ads, post them, invest time for interviews, blah blah blah.

Just one more thing on your plate.

But…(and here’s where you get into second level thinking) invest in the right people and you actually save time and money.

You can find people who don’t need to be micromanaged.  

They care about solving problems…in fact, they thrive on it!

Now you can really scale your business because the right employees are assets…they provide more value than they cost.  (As long as you create the right kind of environment…but more on that in a bit!)

Sound good?

So let’s get into it!

So why do you need the right recruitment marketing strategy right now?

This graphic from a recent Washington Post article says it all:

With diminishing numbers of willing workers, attracting and keeping quality employees becomes even more critical. And doing so requires more than marketing tactics, effective talent acquisition, or compelling job ads.

For example, you may have a world-class career site for attracting potential candidates, but if people are leaving at a faster rate than you’re hiring, you’ll be winning a race to the bottom.

There are two significant reasons to get started now. First, unemployment is at a 50 year low. There are simply more jobs available than there are employees.

Second, developing your recruitment marketing strategy will give you a head start in a very competitive race. Unfortunately, most small businesses are still struggling to come to grips with the problem. Most see it as a hiring challenge rather than a marketing challenge.

But without effective recruitment marketing, you won’t be hiring the folks you need in a job climate like this one.

The big corporations have been playing the game for a while now, but small businesses often can’t afford to outsource recruitment marketing efforts, and probably shouldn’t. However, your business marketing team can help your hiring team get up to speed.

Where to start with your recruitment marketing strategy

We will outline a very basic plan and a few tactics to get you started.

The first task is to align your employer brand with your company brand. The overall success of your recruitment marketing strategy and the long term success of your company depends on this first principle:

Create the kind of company people want to work for, and you’ll become the kind of company your clients want to do business with.

Attract the kinds of employees that relate with your customers.

Great company cultures aren’t built overnight, and there’s always room for improvement. Now’s the time to examine and close the gaps between the culture you aspire to and the current reality.

Doing so doesn’t just make for good marketing. It makes good business sense.

And it doesn’t have to mean rebuilding a company culture from the ground up. First, begin by asking yourself what employees really want.

The LinkedIn Global Talent Trends report (LIGTT) provides excellent findings to guide your answers and apply them to your company.

Empathy is key to a healthy, marketable culture.

All great marketing and culture-building begin with empathy. It’s the hallmark quality for influencing your client’s and employees’ mental, emotional, physical, and financial well-being.

Here’s a statistic worth considering from the LFTT:

LinkedIn Global Talent Trends Report

Millennials are now the largest generation in the labor force. And they’re keeping it real in the workplace.

They want to know prospective employers are creating and nurturing an engaging company culture or just building a money machine.

Money is not their first priority.

Just ask Simon Sinek.  They want free food and beanbags, but still aren’t happy.  

So, how can you demonstrate and go public with your commitment to a culture that keeps it real?

Consider the Big 3

When it comes right down to it, most people are happy when they:

• have a degree of control over their environment
• can make a positive impact
• live out the lifestyle that suits them.

For some, that might mean having control over how they manage their customer accounts, seeing positive growth from those accounts, and being able to come into work later, take a longer lunch break, but then work into the evening.

Of course, this needs to fit into the needs of your business, but seeking ways to accomplish the Big 3 increases employee happy dances.

Which increases customer happy dances.

When in doubt, ask.

Start by spending a lot of time asking questions and listening intently to the answers.

The aim is to persuade employees to buy into the current strategy and vision and to have senior leaders tuned in to what employees want. And having those wants influence your company’s vision for the future.

Do this well, and you’ll have a great story to tell prospective employees.

Consider what the job candidate’s current experience. And spend some time imagining what that first encounter should look like.

For example, typical onboarding is considered an opportunity for the employer to show and tell.

But let’s face it, many of those experiences result in soul-crushing boredom. (“Here’s our company handbook, fill out these employee info forms, be sure to park 6.3 meters from the dumpster…”)

Doesn’t really inspire creative energy does it?

Instead, find creative ways to make the process engaging and interactive.

For example, the tech company Square includes informal 1:1 coffee chats between new hires and senior management as part of its onboarding process.

Coffee or soul-crushing boredom…which would you prefer?

Easy on the aspirational stuff

A word of caution when it comes to your strategy and how you portray your company culture:

Today’s job seekers are savvier than ever.

Just as your business customers research your service or product before they get in touch, so with job seekers, it’s better to surprise them on the upside than the downside with your company’s introduction video, for example.

Paul Wills, Senior Director at Wicresoft, says that one of the biggest mistakes he sees is employers trying to paint an idyllic picture of the work environment.

“The average job seeker see right through the aspirational veneer. It detracts from your brand, rather than enhancing it.”

Wills suggests you substitute the word “job” for the name of your product or service when marketing your company culture.

Finally, some tactical advice.

Although developing an engaging, desirable work culture is the single best thing you can do to market your company to prospective employees, it’s not enough in itself. You’ll also need a tactical approach for getting the word out.

Here’s Paul Wills’ punch list to get you started:

• Set up a referral program. Referrals may be your most reliable and essential source for finding employees. According to CareerBuilder, 88% of employers agree on this point.
• Day in the life videos. Create a short video that depicts the employee’s perspective and highlights an actual employee. You have this done professionally or use the latest iPhone to shoot footage.
• Perform a competitive analysis. Evaluate the job market and learn from your competitors. Play to your strengths.
• Respond quickly to interested prospects. It’s a way of demonstrating you value them early on. It also makes good sense from a tactical standpoint.

The most underutilized secret weapon

There’s a valuable piece of digital real estate that you may already own a piece of without knowing – an Indeed.com company page.

Indeed.com company page

Whether you need to claim your Indeed company page or create one (you’ll find out when you set up a profile), it’s worth developing and maintaining as a recruitment marketing outpost.

Final Thoughts

As the coach of your team, you need high caliber players to compete. And you can’t just sit back and wait for them to come to you.

Because other coaches are sitting in the living rooms of #1 recruits, pitching team culture, and asking them to sign on the dotted line.

So unless you want to be stuck with the second-stringers, you have to get out there.

Define your employee brand and increase employee awareness.

Increase engagement with things like day in the life videos, referral programs, and maybe even FUN corporate events like softball games and whitewater rafting trips. You make memories and the visibility makes people take notice and say, “I want to work there!”

Finally, make onboarding an interesting and exciting experience. Don’t kill first day enthusiasm with a litany of policy and procedure. Or, if you must devote time to those topics, at least do it in an engaging way!

These are challenging, fascinating times. We’re all wrestling for leverage in this volatile labor market.

If you have any recruitment strategies that have worked for you, put them in the comments below. We’d love to see what others are finding that works!

The post How to create the recruitment marketing strategy your company needs now appeared first on Platform Creator.

At times you can even begin to think an insult or caustic comment would be better.

Allow for nuance

But before you chuck the whole marketing enterprise, recognize that customers are fickle and hard to predict. Even the best marketers in the world have their duds.

Exhibit A: watch the Pepsi/Kendall Jenner spot.

Oops… Guess they had to take it down!

Marketing your small business takes a dual-pronged approach

Effective marketing is a skillfull blend of art and science. To earn the attention of your audience, you’ll need to practice both.

The art is in understanding human nature and knowing what’s worked in the past. That is the past in terms of your own experience as well as the tried and proven practices of past marketing experts.

As for your own experience, draw on your customer’s experience of what it’s like to do business with you. Key in on their initial reluctance too.

Use what you learn to develop marketing plans that account for both and begin testing.

The science is every bit as important as the art. To know what works, you have to enter the lap and run experiments then analyze the data.

The scientific method has been around since the 1600s, but the idea is still going strong because it works. It involves seven steps:

Each of these steps could be a separate post of its own, but let’s focus on one for now.

Smack dab in the middle of ‘the method’ is step 4: experiment. Place it in the middle of your marketing strategy too. The nice thing about it being an experiment is that you can be objective about the results.

It’s only data – use it to adjust and adapt for your next experiment.

Be creatively consistent

Consistency is a hallmark of great marketing, but it’s not a replacement for creativity.

Hammering out content is a must because it will help you develop your voice. But consistently posting hasty, shallow content doesn’t help anyone.

The hard work of creativity is learning what doesn’t work, and then – to quote Churchill – “…going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.”

Check out the work of those whose content you watch or read consistently. Deconstruct it and try to figure out why it works. ‘Appropriate’ it, like we did the Churchill quote.

Don’t over-do it with novelty

We tend to think people are driven by what’s latest and loudest, or most clever. But people value reliable, proven help, and their BS detectors are more sensitively tuned than ever.

Give them what they want.

Better business and better marketing go hand in hand

Marketing your small business is difficult when no one is watching. Use this time to think deeply, not just about the marketing but also to think about building the kind of business you’ll be proud to market in the future.

You know…

… when everyone starts watching.

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As an online platform creator, helping companies with social media, media planning and buying, website design and SEO in the Dallas area, 2015 was a year in which we played a lot of Wack-O-Mole. We spent a lot of time fixing things, but spent little time building. We’re pledging to change our mindset, by creating productive habits, casting a new vision, and chasing after trouble. To start building something great, 3 keys need to be cut:

• Habits
• Vision
• Mindset

Habits are hard to change. But, discipline is not the key. We’ve seen how upward of 90% of New Year’s Resolutions are broken within the first month. You might ask about the research on that stat, but we just made an educated guess based on personal observations. That’s a bad habit we need to break. Seriously, though, you are already completely disciplined in your current routine, even if it’s an unhealthy one. We’ve read that it takes 21 days to start a new habit. So, why try to start 3 or 4 new habits or resolutions at a time, when failure is likely? There is a productive place for failure, but not in continually setting unreasonable expectations. Try doing one new positive thing for 21 days.

• Simple Changes to Better Wellness
• Small Measurable Changes Over Time (Kaizen)

Vision: Where There is No Vision, the People Will Perish. Likewise, when a company has no vision, it too will perish. Many companies claim to have open door policies and claim that ‘We want you to bring truthful answers to meetings’. However, they continue to lack the qualities of casting real vision. Three fatal mistakes companies make when attempting to create vision are:

• Employees are punished for speaking truthfully or openly discussing potential problems.
• Management does not value employees’ input.
• Management does not trust employees to make mistakes.

If you want a culture of growth and trust, you must be willing to be vulnerable and open to change. Gossip is not productive, but having an open discussion with input from a variety of different employees is valuable. If you trust, even an intern, with making mistakes that might not be costly in millions of dollars, but maybe hundreds, it can create a real proving ground for growth and employees embracing the vision of a company. Give ownership to all levels of employees and they will feel like apart of the vision. You want to build a team of advocates not gossips.

Part of casting a new vision starts with creating a new mindset.

Here’s how trouble-making expert, Mark Modesti, helps frame the mindset.

“Here’s what I mean: Our lives – personally and professionally – are shaped by the problems we take on. As a salesperson, one of my objectives is to challenge my clients to take on the problems – the trouble—that will transform their business.

I think trouble gets a bad reputation – undeservedly so. Trouble is actually an in-your-face kind of friend. If you don’t look for it, it’s going to come looking for you.

In my experience, I’ve found there are two different mindsets that determine how people deal with the trouble that comes their way – and the trouble they choose to go after. There’s the fixer mindset and the builder mindset.

Truth is, none of us can just be one or the other. But to me fixers are often caught up with just keeping up. I think we all get in this mode from time-to-time where we’re constantly playing whack-a-mole with our problems.

Builders are a little more interested in measured, focused impact. They look for the opportunity to swing big.

So, which are you? Fixer or builder?”

Troublemakers Who Were Willing to Swing Big:

Abraham Lincoln Embraced Opponents to Form His Inner-Circle

• Abraham Lincoln’s Cabinet Selection
• The Power of Lincoln’s Message

Founder of Netflix Visits Blockbuster Offering to Run the Blockbuster Brand Online

• Former Blockbuster CEO Tells His Side Of Netflix Story
• What Startups Can Learn From Netflix

TOMS Shoes Founder Started Something That Matters

• TOMS Shoes One for One Model
• Start Something That Matters

Whether you’re building an online platform filled with SEO, social media, website design, media planning and buying or building a service company or brick-and-mortar storefront, put down the Wack-O-Mole hammer for just a minute and think about what kind of company you are building. What is your vision? Do your employees embrace it and repeat it to others. Do you run away from trouble or tackle it? Are you a fixer or builder?

Part of this blog was reposted with permission of Longitudes, the UPS blog devoted to the trends shaping the global economy.

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Everyone has a gift.

If you think about some of the struggles you’ve had in your life, chances are your experience could be a valuable asset to someone else. That’s one of your gifts, a gift to be shared. A gift is part of your brand. Or maybe you used to play the piano or sing in the choir and haven’t used your gift in a while. Well, maybe it’s time to dust off the ivory or those dancing shoes and think about how you can use that gift to help others. The Adams family contacted one of their local Starbucks to see if they would display their origami Christmas ornaments to help raise money for charity. They sold out of their 35 ornaments in one day.

Build Alliances.

Whether it’s a manager at a local Starbucks or a manager at a local car dealership, I’m sure there is someone you know that could help you display your wares or help mentor you on how to get your gift, even if it’s intangible, out to the audience who would appreciate it. How many friends do you have on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, or just in your email contact list? What if you sent a short and compelling story out to your friends asking for them to forward your message out to their lists? A friend of mine did that and raised hundreds of dollars to provide well checks and immunizations for children in need in one day through gofundme.com. Or, find a business that can benefit from you writing about them in your blog and how you can connect that business to a worthy cause marketing project. Develop a relationship with people who can benefit from your experience, but don’t be afraid to ask for help from people who likely will not benefit from your talent. Many people you think will help out, won’t, and vice versa. You don’t know until you ask.

Duplicate yourself.

Fortunately through gaining attention from their local paper, The Dallas Morning News, and the relationships within their church, the Adam’s girls’ efforts were duplicated through volunteer help. If you are serving others with passion, others will likely catch your fever. There is a reason the root in influenza is influence. Be persistent. Spread the news. Don’t give up on your passion. Build your brand. Write about it and let others find ownership within your project to help others.

If you are trying to build your brand through an online platform, blog, or just need some help finding your vision for: writing, business, or ministry project, drop us a line.

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An amazing story of authenticity comes from our local friend turned nationally syndicated radio icon, Kidd Kraddick. What does Kidd know about the ‘laws of branding’? Well, he built one of the top radio morning shows brands in the country by being authentic. Sure, it didn’t hurt that he was astute, quick with his words, and naturally funny. However, few can question Kidd’s authenticity. After learning of complications before his daughter’s birth, he saw an outpouring of support from fans. He knew what a responsibility he had with the platform he had built.

So, what did Kidd do? He used his brand platform for good. Kidd gave thanks to God for the safety of his own daughter. And, he used the gift of his brand and support of his listeners to help other families who had loved ones struggling with illnesses.

Conversely, too many brands are diluted by forcing an inauthentic message. Some DJs endorse products or charities that are not a good fit. Breast Cancer Awareness, which is a wonderful cause and one of the strongest cause marketing brands. It has been adopted by hundreds of brands from: The NFL, consumer products, retailers, schools, and work places. Yet, less popular and equally as deadly diseases remain unmatched. Adopting Breast Cancer Awareness within your brand will likely help gain support and will not necessarily harm your brand messaging. It may dilute it. How does the cause you support help your brand stand out. More importantly, how does it authentically address the needs of what ails your customers and / or their communities?

And, there are always exceptions to the rule. If being authentic is your excuse to authentically complain and trash others, leave that authentic guy at home.

Control Your Messaging

It’s hard to control your brand messaging if you don’t have uniformity within the leadership of your company, organization, or government party. Regardless of what side of the aisle you are on, you have to admit that the Republican Party lacks uniformity and clarity in their platform messaging. The Affordable Care Act, which by most examples of which we have heard and read, not just an isolated example, is anything but affordable. Watch Fox News, CNN, listen to talk radio, and read The Wall Street Journal. But, just talk to people in your neighborhood, and in most cases reported, people will experience a drastic increase in their health care expenses, not decline.

Yet, Republicans currently have a lower brand rating than the Democrats. Former President Obama, knowing about the problems associated with the ACA, used his power to delay the mandate on businesses and unions for one year. Even after his refusal to delay the individual mandate for ‘We the People’, his ratings haven’t dropped as much as the Republicans. Some Republicans think they should just try to get along. Even if they violate their conservative spending principals, they think getting along is a better solution. Others believe they should use a government shutdown to try to negotiate for an individual mandate delay. In business, when opposition strikes and preferably before it strikes, your messaging needs to be clear and plentiful. Especially, if you want to ensure that your blog, website, and all ad messaging supports your brand or at least, does not contradict your online platform message.

Focus on Your Audience

In broadcasting, it’s easy to think of the old school ways of broadcasting a message instead of approaching the building of your brand as a conversation. It’s not just about broadcasting out to an audience. It’s listening to what is coming back. It’s the conversation economy. It’s about connecting with your audience in a meaningful way just as Kidd Kraddick did every day with his audience family. He brought them into his life daily. Conversely, if you sat a dinner party and did all the talking, your dinner guests would not return for seconds. It’s the same way in building your brand. Yes, being bold and trying something new and innovative is important. However, testing your brand messaging is important too. Stop talking about what you have to sell and how your product is so great. Better yet, tell them how your product can solve a problem. Be like Apple, useful, not like the US Government, broken. Strive to be authentic like Kidd, not like the average politician. Regardless of the messaging, they many time do not follow through with focus on their audience, the American people.

The laws of branding start with who you are and how you can authentically relay your message. You want to connect not project. Your second law of branding is about controlling your messaging. And, most importantly, focusing on your audience. If you better serve your audience, you’ll better connect with them.

RIP Kidd. Help support Kidd’s Kids here. www.kiddskids.com

What three companies or organizations have brand confusion? What’s the fix?

The post 3 Immutable Laws of Branding: Violation Could Cause a Government Shutdown appeared first on Platform Creator.

Let’s start with the number of social media sites that you choose to use. An abandoned social media site isn’t good for your image, so you don’t want to take on more than your team can handle. You want to use at least two different social media sites. Four is probably the maximum for most companies. Faceboook, Twitter, and Instagram are three of the best sites that you can use for branding right now.

Content is one of the most time consuming parts of social media. To build trust in and respect for your brand, content needs to be accurate, unique, and engaging. Avoid posting all the same pictures to Instagram and Facebook and making all your tweets your status updates on Facebook. You also want to maintain the same tone (professional, fun, excited, etc.) on all of your accounts. You can’t be super serious on Facebook, type in all caps on Twitter, and then use teenage abbreviations in your Instagram comments. You don’t want to have brand confusion for people who follow you on all three sites.

Another important use of social media is to market your business in real time. Oreos became the talk of the Internet when they capitalized on the Superbowl power outage with a relevant ad posted to Twitter. You can even try using current news stories to promote conversation. Just be careful to consider the way a breaking story may develop so that you keep your brand out of anything potentially controversial. You can’t post something on the Internet, take it down when things go wrong, and hope that no one took a screenshot.

Finally, you have to respond to comments properly. Some antagonistic comments just need to be ignored. Some are legitimate complaints and require a prompt response. This is an opportunity to show consumers, in general, how your company handles concerns. Deleting negative posts and comments is counterproductive to branding your company in a proper way. Be sure to reward your biggest supporters, and provide incentives for people to like, +1, favorite, or retweet your content.

The right use of social media can be great for the reputation of your business and helpful in building your online platform.

Additional Source: http://www.inta.org/Programs/Pages/branding2013.aspx

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