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Written on Friday, April 23rd, 2010 by David and stored in digital/online, web
Utalkmarketing on one of their recent Newsletters has posed this question. It is an interesting subject as most commentary refers to ecommerce and how you can engage consumers and businesses to buy from you online. If you do not directly sell online however what should you be doing to improve your brands presence? The following tips are some of the areas you should most concern yourself with if you are currently pondering this question for your business or brand.
Define your objectives
If you do not have an ecommerce site then objectives and targets are of paramount importance. Really ask yourself what the purpose of your presence, is it to inform, gain leads, announce your services or products, and build brand awareness or a combination of all of these? Once you have decided what you want to achieve it will easier to then create a clear and sound strategy.
Create a clear strategy
Sounds obvious but again most brands are prone to jump on the latest bandwagon and online there are many of them to choose from. Not only do they do this they often only play at it and therefore end up doing it badly, this is particularly true of those who due to a lack of perceived budget try to bring in house complex ideas that they have no experience of or time to learn about. So a clear strategy is of paramount importance, as it will pave the way for decisions to be made to ignore some perceived opportunities, as well as creating time to develop those that have real value. Do not have a Facebook page just because you can, have one only if you can manage it and add value to your business or brand as a result.
Understand your target audience
How you talk to your audience will depend on who they are, what social and demographic sectors they fit in and how they use the Internet. If you are targeting other businesses it is probably unlikely that Facebook is for you but Linkedin may be a great way of increasing your network of contacts. Think about how your customers and potential customers are behaving and interact with them in a way that is unobtrusive.
Get them talking about you
This is by far the best way to increase your online presence as if people are talking about you and your brand then they are multiplying your message more than you ever could. You need to ensure that you are aware of comments being made and that you respond where necessary, particularly to bad comments, although don’t rubbish these just ensure you answer the queries in a positive manner and show that you care. Thompson holidays have recently announced that they will refund costs incurred by travellers stranded by the Icelandic Volcano in full, so who do you think those customers will travel with next time Ryanair? Track comments about your company using google alerts and make sure you respond where necessary.
Use your web site to listen to your audience as well as talking to them.
Create the opportunity on your site for comments either on blogs or forums and get your customers talking to each other not just you, as they are your best advocates, that is why they are your customers.
Use other sites to your advantage
Use others blogs and forums to talk about your brand (do not overtly sell though) and link back to your site where ever possible. Make sure you are part of blogs where your customers or potential customers are, and talk about things that interest and engage them.
There are many other online opportunities and plenty of the top brands are using these, such as mobile apps., actively being industry voices and opinion formers, video, viral and brand sharing but if you are looking to improve your presence and get your voice heard then starting with the above will help you along the way.
Warner Music and YouTube are close to an agreement that would see the return of the music company’s video clips to Google’s video-sharing site after a nine-month licensing dispute.
The agreement, which is expected to be announced this week, would allow Warner to retain the right to sell ads that run next to its videos and keep the bulk of the revenue, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Warner, home to artists including Coldplay and Madonna, is enlisting third parties to sell the ads and line up more lucrative arrangements like sponsorships for particular videos or artists.
The deal could address one of the music company’s biggest complaints about YouTube: that the ads that currently run on the site do not generate sufficient revenue for Warner.
Warner withdrew permission for YouTube to use its videos in December, when the two sides failed to reach a licensing agreement.
The new deal closely resembles the agreement YouTube reached in March with Universal Music Group, the world’s largest recorded music company by sales and market share.
Under the deal, individual artists’ pages or channels would be redesigned to emphasize things like digital-download sales and links to the artists’ own web sites.
The pages could also be customized for corporate sponsors. Meanwhile, Universal is planning to create a freestanding web site for music videos, called Vevo, for which it hopes to license videos from other music companies.
Sony Music Entertainment joined the plan in June. So far the other major music companies, Warner and EMI Group Ltd, have not signed on.
YouTube earlier this year struck another such advertising-based content partnership with Walt Disney, which is distributing clips of ABC and ESPN shows on the site.
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