Basic human nature prevents our relationships from ever going past a certain level if there is no trust.  It’s a protective mechanism that is housed and deeply rooted in all of us.  The same goes for brands seeking to build relationships with consumers online: without trust, the relationship will only get so far.

In order to develop trust online, brands must first build a social media dialogue that will grow and evolve into a trusting, fruitful relationship.  Unlike traditional marketing, social media gives brands a chance to interact directly and immediately with consumers.  This direct access is a powerful tool and one that must be monitored in order to ensure it is always being used in a manner that builds on trust and moves your relationship with consumers forward.

As social media audiences have grown substantially over recent years and demographic reach continues to expand, brands can no longer ignore the opportunity for communicating their brand value and building brand trust by engaging with customers online.  But how can brands take advantage of social media without compromising the relationship and trust they have developed with their consumers?

Here are five ways brands can build trust with current and future customers online through social media:

1. Transparency:  In today’s world, transparency is an inherent reality.  Consumers will be talking about your brand online, so you need to embrace this and get involved in guiding the conversation instead of just letting it happen without you.  Mistakes happen, so own up to them online. Consumers will respond much more positively to a brand that takes ownership publicly and explains the situation.  The same goes for growth and new products.  Let your customers know what’s coming and thank them for their input in guiding your decision.  Being truly transparent creates a natural sense of trust.
2. Always Be Available:  Consumers need to know you’re online and that they can always reach you.  The ability to connect anytime is a great catalyst toward building trust. This online channel is also a great opportunity to provide additional service in front of a larger audience.  But what if the customer voices a complaint?  Have no fear!  These opportunities can often turn into great testimonials when customers are handled with care and honesty, and quite often these customers will become some of your strongest brand advocates.
3. Project Accountability:  Brands who openly engage in social media and encourage their customers to interact with them project a certain level of accountability.  In using social media aggressively, brands can essentially hold themselves accountable to their consumer base by providing better products, services and customer appreciation.  And what’s even better is that it will all be done on a global stage, providing additional marketing leverage.
4. Engage With Enthusiasm:  An easy way to gain trust and strengthen your relationship with your customers is to simply entertain them.  Don’t always focus your online message on your company – show a lighter side and talk about what’s going on around you, introduce your staff or share thoughts on a hot topic.  Provide value to your customers in a fun and creative way through daily content, videos, contests and infographics.  This is an excellent way to keep your customers engaged, and typically, if they find it entertaining, they will also share it with others, increasing your overall marketing reach.
5. Always Practice Social Responsibility:  Letting your customers know that you care about others more than yourself or your bottom line is an exceptional way to foster trust.  Socially responsible brands traditionally gain more momentum and support because their customers know they aren’t just about profits but also are interested in giving back to the community.  Social media is the perfect platform upon which to promote your brand’s social involvement.

When marketing your brand online, remember to embrace the customer, stay true to who you are and engage openly.  These basic rules will provide the foundation upon which to build a long-lasting relationship of trust with your customers.

There is more to social awareness than simply monitoring social conversation and your brand’s reputation.  The key to a successful online social marketing presence is joining in on the conversation, but not changing it.  You must fully understand what the conversation is in order for your brand to become fully engage with consumers online.

Being fully aware of your brand’s social presence also provides greater insight into your true relationship with your consumers and can serve as an invaluable resource for product enhancement.  This awareness also gives you the guidance on search engine marketing tools for success, such as keywords that can be used in paid search or hot topics for online content.

To create a two-way line of communication with your customers online, you must first understand what the conversation is about.  Obtaining an understanding involves taking a measured look at the ongoing social conversation and determining what the online market, or community, is saying about your products, company and competitors.  Yes even what they are saying about your competitors is important as it provides details around why they see you as different or better, as well as in what areas they think the competition is more successful.

The information you can garner from being truly connected to the conversations being had online about your brand will enable you to better position your brand.  It will also allow you to join in the social conversation and begin engaging with the online market for your brand.  And while you cannot change the conversation, you can absolutely help steer it in a more positive direction.
The monitoring practice is something that is done not just within the walls of your brand’s Facebook and Twitter pages, but also throughout the expansive realm of the internet.  You want to find your “social mentions” in articles, forums, boards, other Facebook pages and the like.  Knowing this allows you to determine your overall reach (i.e. how far does your message really get) and can guide future online marketing efforts by strengthening keywords, tags and target demographics.

The beauty of online awareness is it provides insight into how your brand is performing “right now” and gives you the power needed to react at any given moment.    And knowing how to react is the new name of the online game for brands.  From new products, to responding to complaints, to engaging with consumers in order to foster stronger brand loyalty, everything starts with an awareness of the social conversation about your brand.

This new focus is surely a natural response based on the economic unease of the past few years.  To many Americans, those “aspiration filled” campaigns became symbols of what many had lost and started to feel increasingly tenuous.  Out of the past few years of economic malaise and political instability has emerged a new normal, and thus, a new era of marketing motivation based on the platform of “inspiration” has dawned.

Brands that have their finger on the pulse of consumers have already begun to evolve their message to be more in line with consumer sentiment.  No longer do they support the notion of guiding your aspirations, but rather, they are focused more inspiring consumers to what they themselves can achieve.  Brands such as Chrysler with their campaign of “Imported from Detroit” or Levi’s and their “Go Forth” campaign are now calling on Americans to make the world better for themselves, by themselves.  They no longer tout themselves as the solution to the end goal, but rather to motivation to build something better.

Even Google has adapted their strategy to a model of inspiration with their award winning “It Gets Better” campaign.  If you look deeply into their new Chrome promotion, it’s all based on the concept of “the web is what you make of it”, which puts less on the brand and more on the consumer to make the difference.  With beautiful supporting pieces like their “Dear Sophie” commercial, Google is now celebrating the power of the individual; calling on them to touch the lives around them of those they know and even of those they don’t.

At the core of what makes these new campaigns so successful is their ability to touch consumers as people and not simply playing on their aspirations as demographic marketing targets.  This new face of brand development is about inspiring people to unite and make things right; remember what’s great about America and to fight to bring us back to the great power we once were.  It’s truly more of a call to take action.

When brands get to the heart of what matters in the lives of their consumers, they will discover their new position of inspiring.  Connecting with consumers on this more personal level will not only help to empower and inspire, but will also unite and strengthen the relationship a brand has with their consumers.

Be it advertising online or in print, successful advertising is all about capturing the attention of the consumer and making an emotional connection with them.  The best way to immediately grab their attention, evoke an emotion and convey your message is through great brand advertising design.

Today we’re going to explore a few tips that are sure to elevate your message and allow you to more successfully capture the attention of your target audience.

Set Your Message Stand Apart

Consumers are hit with messages throughout the day, so make sure yours stands apart from the others!  Use images and colors that surprise and step away from the ordinary. Darker colors are more likely to blend in with most other ads and neon colors are typically not taken as seriously, so consider standing out with brighter, mainstream colors like orange or greens.

Keep It Simple

As with anything else in life the simplest approach is most likely your best bet.  You don’t want to over-power your ad with extensive messaging or multiple graphics.  Develop a clear message with one focal picture to help capture their attention and your logo for branding…..and that’s it!

You really only have seconds to grab the consumer’s attention and get something in your message to register with them long enough to stop, so don’t over complicate the opportunity with the noise of excessive images or text.  Use sharp photos and easy to read type-face and font colors.

Make Them Curious

The old stand-by of “click here” is a dead give-away to any consumer that you want something from them.  Leave the wondering and a little curious about your offer by incorporating a teaser into your ad requiring the consumer to visit your site or a specially created landing page to find out more.

Avoid the typical “click here for more” and try something more along the lines of “have you seen the great new rates Joe Smith is offering?”  A more inviting call-to-action is sure to receive a much stronger click through rate than the old “click here” stand by.

Remember, a great ad commands an answer and demands that you respond!  Create an ad that is more along the lines of an unanswered question that must be resolved verses a demand to “do as I say and click here.”

Keep It Real

One thing consumers don’t respond well to is insincerity, so keep your message real.  Don’t over-hype your message or try and position yourself as the newest pitch-man on the block.  Let the consumer get a sense for who you really are and just state your message simply and sincerely.

Take this opportunity to let them learn a little about you and who you are.  Be creative in your message, but just make sure that the words and tone of your message reflect who you are in general.

A  Great Ad Just Works

Creating an amazing, award winning ad campaign is art, true; however, creating a great ad that sells is strictly the execution of a well created and proven formula of creating an ad around clear, uncluttered, sincere messaging that evokes an emotion and connects with a consumer.  Deliver your message in a way that stands-apart and emits sincerity and you have the recipe for an ad that sells.

We’ve outlined the eight key elements of a product launch plan to increase your odds of a successful new product or innovation launch:

1. Discover your “what’s in it for me?” position.  To gain the attention of any potential customer, you must first provide them with the answer to their main question, which is “what’s in it for me?”  Regardless of the product or new innovation, if it doesn’t connect with the end user and offer a benefit to their needs, your product or innovation will be destined to fail.
2. Grow your user base.  Obviously, the most critical element to growth is to create and grow your customer user base.  Regardless of their size, every new customer counts, plays a pivotal role and is important to your overall success.  Quite often smaller customers become larger, longstanding consumers as your brand relationship develops and grows over the years.  Newer customers tend to be more vocal, providing more brand word-of-mouth advertising; whereas longstanding customers aren’t often as publicly vocal, they share brand support when asked by their inner circle, which typically provides stronger, qualified referral leads.
3.  Create a successful online social strategy.  A successful online strategy provides continued relevance to the consumer.  The easiest way to gain a new follower or obtain a “like” from a user is to provide a promotion or discounted offer; however, your real goal is have that consumer interact with you in an ongoing, two-way conversation online.  To do this, you’ll want to create content that not only draws a user in but also maintains their interest and incents them to interact with you on a regular basis.  Surveys and open-ended questions are a great way to get consumers involved.  Sharing curated content on relevant and timely issues and topics that relate to your brand is another great way to not only get consumers involved but to also provoke them to share content from your Facebook or Twitter page.  The activity of sharing content could extend your overall reach and introduce you to new potential customers.
4. Develop the mindset of speed.  Gaining new customers and growing quickly requires online mass reach in today’s global marketplace.  The fastest way to jump-start any marketing effort is to create a buzz.  Buzzworthy content (content thought to be worthy of being talked about or shared online) such as infographics, dynamic photo galleries or YouTube videos, will spread virally and rapidly, giving you access to a wider consumer base.  Buzzworthy content is also more prone to receiving feedback, which opens the door to natural two-way conversations and additional sales opportunities.
5. Add a splash of traditional flare.  Although the goal is to get consumers to interact with your brand online in order to impact sales, one of the easiest ways to get new, qualified leads to your online doorstep and jump-start the growth of your new product or innovation is to reach them via television or radio.  Adding television or radio to your marketing mix can drive new customers to search for you online or ask others about you.
6. Establish your marketing plan of attack.  To ensure optimal success, define your marketing product launch plan and control your message and frequency.  Create a content calendar which outlines the topics you want to cover at a high level and specifies the activities for each day.  You’ll want to connect with your users on a consistent basis, without spamming or overloading them.  Too much information too fast could be perceived as information overload and cause a potential customer to be turned off or a current customer to stop following you.
7. Measure your performance and map consumer engagement.  Not only should you keep close tabs on the performance of your product launch marketing performance, but you should also follow your consumer behavior.  What article, blog or social piece drove the new consumer to your doorstep?  What topic or conversation starter caused a current client to interact with you or make an additional purchase from you?  Knowing these statistics, as well as your overall sales numbers, will help guide and define your ongoing product marketing efforts.
8. Continue to add fuel to your fire.  Many marketers and business owners make the mistake of thinking their launch is the end of the event, when in fact it is simply the launching point for a never-ending process.  Doing a big push and then pulling back, assuming your launch is over, will no doubt have huge negative impact on your sales performance.  Prepare yourself for the mindset that your launch is simply the beginning and that your support and continued marketing efforts will be an ongoing effort.

While each of these elements on their own can have a positive impact on your new product or innovation launch, their value comes from combining them together.  Using all eight of these elements together can help you create a powerful launch strategy and provide you with a roadmap for product launch success.

Best wishes to you and your families for a fabulous Thanksgiving holiday celebration!

We look forward to hearing from you and having the opportunity to help your brand achieve new heights after the holiday.

So if we’re going to accept the term in its literal origin, then it’s easy to understand the critical importance of the design of your brand and the consistency that must be achieved in your product line and services.

The Goal of Brand Recognition

Without a doubt, the name of the game is brand recognition!  You want consumers to see your brand and immediately feel comfortable with you and your product or services.

There are a couple of key factors that go into developing strong brand recognition:

• Distinctive design
• Consistent user experience (with products or services)

Distinctive Design

With many small businesses, not enough attention is given to creating the appropriate company or product name or logo.  As frivolous as this may seem, these elements are core to the success of your brand recognition.

It’s important to create a company or product name that conveys a mental image of what your product or service does.  For example, if your company creates horseshoes, then naming it Harry’s House of Horses probably isn’t going to explain to people what your main focus is.  In this case, something like Harry’s Hooves or Harry’s House of Horseshoes might do a better job of explaining this.

Once you’ve settled on a name, now it’s time to create a logo that can relay the same message as your company or product name.  A key element, of course, will be color.  Keep in mind that colors have a tendency to be associated with feelings, so if you’re Harry’s Hooves you might not want to use tons of red or black, as those colors tend to convey feelings of intensity, love, or trendy urban feelings.

Consistent User Experience

Once your brand is out there, consumers will begin the process of associating your products and services with their user experience.  The experience consumers have when they interact with your company, be it in person, on the phone or online, will begin to shape their perception of your brand.  It’s vitally important that your staff delivers a consistent experience to all consumers.

This consistency also extends to the products and services you offer.  For example, if Harry’s Hooves suddenly starts offering hula-hoop lessons, no one is going to associate that with Harry…even if his logo is sitting smack-dab in the middle of the flyer they received announcing the new service.

Whether it’s a product that they feel they can’t live without or a sales associate who always goes the extra mile for them when they call in, consumers will begin to develop feelings that will instantly appear whenever they see your brand.

From logos to colors, to fonts, to your message tone, if done correctly, your brand will be “burning your mark” on everything it touches.

Today we’re going to explore the four basic elements of creating and maintaining a brand’s social presence online.

Outline Your Core Message

The first step, as with most projects, is the most critical. It’s the step that your entire online social presence will be built upon.  What is your core message that you want to convey to your audience?  Do you want to relay information about a new product launch or an upcoming sale or is your message going to be educational in nature?

Whatever your message, all content, either visual, social posts or traditional article-based content, must support this main message or theme and drive back to it.

Humanize the Experience

One of the simplest ways to get users to connect with your brand is to humanize it; put a face to the brand, company or product.  Think about it…consumers are people who are social creatures by nature.  It’s so much easier to be social and connect with another “human” than an entity.

If you’re a small-business owner, opt for putting your photo on the site or incorporate photos showcasing you or your staff interacting with other consumers on your blog or Facebook posting.   This simple act makes your entire brand much more personable and approachable.

Got products or services that target specific user bases?  Then give them names and create avatars to help personalize them.  Consumers are much more apt to connect with and associate themselves with something they can see and touch (even if only virtually).

Create Two-Way Conversations

A great way to maintain your social presence is to create a two-way conversation with your consumer base.  Don’t simply push information out…enlist feedback, suggestions or ideas from your consumers.  This not only allows them to feel more connected with your brand, but it’s also a great way of performing consumer research and finding out what your users really want from your product.

Another advantage to creating this two-way conversation is that it also creates additional, fresh content.  This content impacts your search results and your overall social presence, as the main search engines are constantly looking for fresh, relevant content.

The Importance of “Being There”

Now that you have your message, it’s time to get it out there!  As a rule of thumb, outside of your own site, you should try on a daily basis to hit at least one of the big three with your content: Facebook, Twitter or Pinterest.  The trick is to make sure you stand out from the other noise currently hitting the social airwaves.

Here are a few solutions you might consider:

• Create blogs and social posts that announce your new product or sale.  Develop a message campaign that builds excitement, giving hints or sneak peeks, as the launch date approaches.
• Create an infographic that graphically demonstrates why your product or service outshines your competitors or that visually explains why consumers can’t live without your product or service. (This is also a great opportunity to have a little fun and let your creativity shine!)
• Use newsletters to bring information “you might have missed” to your audience.  In your bimonthly or monthly newsletters you can highlight blog posts, media mentions or customer testimonials that your consumers might not have seen if they haven’t been to the site lately.
• Create an educational message or product announcement that is delivered by your staff, either with a visual scrapbook or a video series.

Experiment with a combination of methods and see what works best for your company.  The most important factor is that you stay consistent and true to your message.

So you can see why having a unique and memorable brand is vital to your business; through your brand you not onlybuild brand awareness, but you create a reputation and long-term position in the marketplace.

What is Klout?

Klout is an online platform that measures a brand’s social media “influence” throughout the online world.  Based in San Francisco, the start-up was founded as a way to measure a user or brand’s performance on Twitter.  However, the platform has rapidly expanded and now includes activity on Facebook, FourSquare, Google+, LinkedIn and a handful of other social media sites.

To anyone in the advertising, marketing or social media professions, knowing your Klout score is like knowing your social security number or your height and weight – it’s just part of your statistical make-up and a fact about yourself or your company that you keep track of.

So before we go any further, let me explain why your Klout score is actually more important than you may realize.  Klout measures your brand’s overall social reach (i.e. how many people will see your message online).  The higher your Klout score, the more people you reach, and thus, the more people see and are potentially impacted by your message or promotional campaign.

How Can I Impact My Klout?

Now before you panic about what all it’s going to take to create a good score, take a deep breath and keep reading.  Klout measures your brand’s overall influence based on your ability to “drive action.”  So basically, it tracks not only how much fresh content you put out there, but also how much you engage with and interact with others; so really, the trick here is to simply manage your content and interactions.

The only extra step you’ll need to do is join Klout.  Once you’ve joined, then it becomes all about managing your interactions more effectively.

Knowing that most small business owners don’t have excess time to spend on social media, let’s look at those key elements that will impact your Klout score that you should focus on:

• Build a relevant social network built around your target audience (i.e. folks who will respond to your message and serve as your brand advocates)
• Create content with a relevant message and a strong call-to-action (i.e. talk about your services and what makes you different, then offer a promotional code or coupon)
• Stay active on social networks 5-7 days a week (for you “do-it-yourselfers” out there, you can set up your content to post via programs like Hootsuite, which keeps you from having to post new content manually each day)
• Focus the bulk of your messages on Twitter and Facebook as they carry the most weight when measuring activity and influence on Klout
• Hand out your +Ks on a weekly basis for two reasons: it shows that you are active and, typically, if you give +Ks, then you’ll receive +Ks

Flaunt Your Klout

After you have been on Klout for about 30 days and are making an effort to drive up your score, it will then be time to brag about your Klout score socially! Add your Klout score to your LinkedIn and Facebook profiles and let everyone know that your brand has a social media presence with true Klout!