Unleash Social Media to Build Your Brand - India Real Time - WSJ

By Sunayna Malik

Sunayna Malik

For most, if not all, start-ups the challenge of building a brand is integral to the success of the venture. In the past, the expense involved in doing this has been prohibitive. Without a doubt, social media allows start-ups to build a brand presence faster and cheaper than ever before, and in many instances can help level the playing field against larger and more established competitors.

Start-ups, with their lack of legacy issues, are ideally placed to embrace new media and reap the benefits.

An organization looking at leveraging the social media wave to build its brand should structure its approach around the following principles.

1. Search is King

Studies have shown again and again that search engines and directories provide better results than other forms of online advertising. Frankly, if your company is not found in the top 30 rankings of a search engine (and many would say even higher), you’re really invisible on the web.

It’s critical to know what terms and language your customers are using and reflect that in your online activities. Use the words your customers are using on your website, in your tweets and so forth.

2. Develop Your “Owned” Media

There are social media channels over which you have a lot of control and they typically include your brand’s web site, Facebook page, Twitter stream, blog and YouTube channel.

Unfortunately for a lot of businesses, simply creating these sites is viewed as the sum total of their social media strategy. But the days of “if you build it, they will come” are over, and you need to bring customers to these sites by encouraging conversation and participation. For tips on how to do that, keep reading.

3. Know Where Influence Lies

It’s critical to know your audience and establish where conversations are taking place and where the influential discussions and people are, so that activity can be prioritized effectively. This is particularly essential for start-ups with tight and limited resources. A key element of this is to determine which channels and individuals amplify your messages and help to energize your brand.

4. Drive Conversations Between Owned and Other Media

You need to build a trusted and relevant role in the communities you have identified as important, by adding real value and conversing freely. There needs to be consistent engagement, including checking channels regularly and commenting on a regular basis.

As a starting point, track the three most critical online groups for your brand and comment on at least three threads a week, assigning 30 minutes every day to the key social media properties. Once this foundation is in place, you can then proactively discuss your company’s product or services and link back to your owned media, for example a press release, blog post or YouTube video.

As long as this discussion adds value to the community and is relevant and authentic, it will be welcome. A key distinction to make is that you should not be selling, but rather talking about your company, a subtle but crucially important difference.

5. Build a Community of Advocates

Engage and energize your customers so that they do your promotional work for you. Brands open the door, but people close it, so if you can create a community that is enthused and engaged by your product and services, the return on investment should be clear.

Of course, social media isn’t a silver bullet and a poorly executed and misdirected social media strategy is as bad or possibly even worse than no social media engagement at all. It’s important to start out by asking some key questions: “What do we want to sell?”, “Whom do we want to sell it to?”; “What’s important to our audience?”; “Which channels influence this decision?”

As long as you are clear on the answers and act accordingly, a strong online brand presence is yours for the taking.

Sunayna Malik is managing director for Text 100 India, a global public relations firm.

via blogs.wsj.com

Thanks to a fellow social magnet: @Swatibhattacha [Swati Bhattacharya] New Delhi, India Vice President Corporate Relations, Ingersoll Rand. Interested in Social Media, Marketing, Branding, Communications, Innovation, Leadership, Sustainability