5 ways to grow and market your brand online
Five Ways to Grow and Market Your Brand Online
It’s never been easier to market your brand online. There are dozens (if not hundreds!) of free tools online that you can utilize to scale up your business. The beauty of the internet is that you can get your brand in front of your target demographic within just a few clicks. There are five tools you need in your digital strategy to smash your goals and expand your brand. Whether it’s a personal brand or start-up business, you want to be leveraging these five tools to help you market yourself online. Read on to find out more about how you can use these five digital tools to grow your business.
Personal or Professional Website — There are two types of websites that you can have — a professional or personal website. It will depend on whether you’re marketing a personal brand or a business. If you have a personal brand — whether you’re a performer or writer — having your own website allows you to have a dedicated space online that reflects your style. You can take a minimalistic approach and give a visual representation of what your brand is. You need to be hitting your keywords and incorporating SEO, but most personal websites focus on photographs and videos. When you have a professional website, it’s all about getting your potential clients into the sales funnel. Your focus is on mixing visual mediums with written content that incorporates keywords and SEOs. A website should be all about your product or service, introducing what you have to offer to your customers or clients.
With a professional website, you still want to have a tailored theme that reflects the aesthetic and ethos of your brand identity. If you have a specific niche demographic, making your website more specific and unique can help you attract your ideal clientele. You want to consider the industry that you work in. If competition is fierce and your service is wide-reaching, you want to keep your website sleek and minimalistic to attract clients from across the spectrum.
There are dozens of platforms you can use to host your website. Thanks to Squarespace and WordPress, it couldn’t be easier to launch a personal or professional website. All you need is a custom domain, a hosting site, and a website design. The benefit of having a website is that it’s your corner of the internet. Unlike social media profiles, you don’t have to worry about them being deleted.
Blogging — As part of your website, you want to incorporate blogging. It helps you stand out from the crowd, grow your organic audience, and boost brand awareness. Your blogs should serve to either educate or entertain your audience. Blogging is a way of developing your relationship with your audience by sharing your story and behind-the-scenes content. You can pull back the curtain and invite your audience into your brand by showing them more about what makes you unique. Your blogs shouldn’t come across as a hard sell but rather a conversation between you and your audience.
Blogging provides another opportunity for you to incorporate SEO and keywords into your website. You can share your blog posts across your social media platforms as a way of bringing your followers to your website. If you’re a personal brand or website, having a blog can help establish your authority within your niche.
Instagram — A picture tells a thousand words. Instagram is one tool that you don’t want to overlook. The platform has almost one billion monthly active users, making it one of the most powerful social media platforms. You don’t have to be a professional photographer to leverage your Instagram profile. The camera in your smartphone is as powerful as a DSLR and can help you capture high-quality images to tell your brand story.
It’s all about creating a community around your profile and making your audience feel like they have a connection to your brand. Your Instagram should capture your brand’s identity and act as an introduction to your audience. The secret to Instagram is about growing your engagement and keeping your audience interested in your content. You want to find your niche on Instagram, build your community, and promote your brand or service.
Pinterest — Pinterest is an often-overlooked platform that has the power to scale up your business overnight. The platform has over 470 million active monthly users, growing by 100 million in 2020. Research conducted by Millward Brown shows that 93% of Pinterest users utilize the platform to research purchases before hitting ‘add to cart’. The demographic on Pinterest is quickly changing, with a 35 and 40% growth in Millennial and Gen Z users on the platform.
Your Pinterest posts should feature a call to action and incorporate SEO and keywords to target your niche demographic. Each original Pinterest pin should link back to a post on your website, whether it’s a blog or website page.
Vlogs — Video blogging (known as vlogs) has taken ordinary people and turned them into overnight celebrities. If you’re confident with speaking in front of a camera, then vlogging is a priceless tool for marketing your brand online. As a business owner or individual, you’re the face of the brand. Vlogging allows you to create a unique connection with your viewer that can be leveraged to sell your products or services.
You can show the real you and build a community around you. If you’ve ever scrolled through YouTube, you’ll have seen millions of users who ‘vlog’ their everyday life or provide commentary on their niche. It’s worth taking a deep dive into YouTube and seeing what other users in your niche are producing.
TikTok is another platform that incorporates vlogging. Within a few months, TikTok has become quickly commercialized, with users ranking in money through the ‘creator’s fund’ and sponsorship deals. If you’re willing to put yourself out there, vlogging is a marketing tool that has grown and develop brands overnight.
You can utilize vlogging to share behind-the-scenes content, tutorials, or commentary videos that showcase your authority within your industry or niche.
If you use all five of these tools, you’ll be guaranteed to be putting your best foot forward with marketing your brand online. They should form the backbone of your digital strategy and are interlinked with each other.
Which of these marketing tools will be using to promote your brand or business? Let me know in the comments below!
