Tips and advice for those who wish to present a reputable brand via social media

Like most people, Dorian Hedy Mekni understands that an enterprise’s success is dependent on its reputation. As a successful businessman himself, whose own professional information can be found on Flickr, he is keenly aware of the role that social media plays in maintaining a brand’s positive public image. Here, we’ll be discussing some of the most effective ways to use social media to enhance a business’s standing amongst its customer base.

The first, and perhaps the most important thing to note is that social media is designed to help people connect with one another; and so, whilst your ultimate goal in setting up Twitter and Facebook accounts may be to promote your business and increase sales, you must focus on establishing relationships with both your existing and potential customers. It’s vital to interact with them, and spend time getting to know who them as individuals. This can be achieved in a number of different ways, but the key is to ensure that you are present in the communities that your customers frequent. This could be a specific group on Facebook, or regular online ‘meetings’ on Twitter, where people use a hashtag to discuss a particular topic.

Although it might be difficult to resist, it’s best to avoid ‘hard selling’ when using social media. Even customers who love your goods or services are unlikely to enjoy tweets about your latest product. Remember, the purpose of the content on your social media accounts is to help you build a strong connection with your customer base, not to sell your wares. When it comes to providing valuable content on social media, aim to give 80% more than you receive. This means than no more than 20% of your time on Twitter, Facebook and Google Plus should be devoted to self-promotional conversations. This approach will lead to organic growth which is both consistent and sustainable.

Producing content which is interesting and relevant will help you to gain the trust and respect of your target demographic. Rather than making your brand the central focus all of the time, try to serve as a source of interesting information and light entertainment. Be creative, in terms of the type of content that you choose to share on a daily basis; you may, for example, want to include things such as infographics, sweepstakes, competitions, videos and apps. Make sure that you grab opportunities to showcase your expertise too; you can do this by, for example, sharing a link to a blog post you or your staff have composed, or an article you have written for another online publication. Try to produce and share content which is not only informative, but also valuable to your customers; if it’s useful to them, they’re much more likely to share it with their followers.

Being appreciative of those you interact with is also important if you want to make a good impression. Always thank those who ‘retweet’, ‘favourite’ or share your posts, as they’re doing you a favour by spreading the word about your brand. A simple ‘thank you’ will let them know that you appreciate the effort, and may even encourage them to share your content again in the future.

Regardless of how respectful you are of your audience, it’s inevitable that you will have to deal with customer complaints via social media, at one point or another. Instead of viewing this is as a problem however, try to look at it as an opportunity to improve your brand’s reputation. If dealt with the issue head on, in a polite and helpful manner, complaints made on these platforms can be transformed into positive testimonials.

If you spot a tweet or a Facebook comment from an unhappy customer, it’s always best to address the issue immediately. Under no circumstances should you block them, or delete their comment, as this will almost certainly aggravate the situation further, and may even lead to them complaining about your business on another online community. Keep in mind that your response will remain on the internet permanently, and will either contribute to, or detract from your standing as a reputable brand. Keep the tone of your reply pleasant and positive, and always do whatever you can to rectify the problem. On social media, the traditional rules of professional interaction can be bent slightly, and in fact, many brands fare best when they respond to customer issues in a more playful and personable manner.

Whilst projecting the best image of your brand online can be both challenging and time-consuming, there’s no doubt that this task is worth the effort; when used with care, social media can serve as a highly effective tool in developing and maintaining your business’s reputation.

The Importance of Online Branding

The importance of online branding cannot be underestimated in today’s world. The way in which we attract customers is changing fast, from ‘push’ to ‘pull’ tactics. Customers are more likely to search for businesses, products and services online than through any other method and sites such as social media networks enable businesses to promote an ‘opt-in’ form of advertising, establishing a strong online presence and letting the customers come to them. Without that strong online presence, the chances are that very few new customers will appear on the horizon. Dorian Hedy Mekni is the founder and owner of two websites focusing on the creation and application of creative and innovative online branding and marketing in order to drive business forward. With Urban Amman, Dorian focuses on turning small businesses into well-known profitable ventures and helping larger or more established companies reshape their marketing for further success. Through the Urban Amman website, Dorian discusses ways in which successful online branding can change your business from small fry to a big fish. You can connect with Dorian Hedy Mekni by accessing his LinkedIn profile or visiting the official website.

Recognition and Differentiation

Unless you have been lucky enough to come up with a product or service nobody else has ever thought of before, chances are there are already hundreds of other businesses out there offering similar products. Even if your idea is unique there will likely be competitors following in your wake soon enough. A strong online brand differentiates you from the competition and makes it easy for customers to form an attachment. It also makes it easier for customers to find you in a busy online world. There are approximately 500 million new tweets and 4.75 billion pieces of content shared on Facebook in every 24 hours – if you don’t stand out from the crowd you are practically invisible. With an engaging website and presence on social networks and with a recognisable brand and logo that customers can instantly recognise, you become far more prominent.

Building Trust and Credibility

Brand loyalty has long been recognised as a highly important aspect of creating a successful business. With the push rather than pull form of marketing that the internet enables, customers are able to opt-in by liking, sharing or following a brand or even becoming friends with the brand. This empowers the customer and makes them feel important, which in turn endears them further to your brand. Where a business has limited online presence or does not put sufficient time and energy into maintaining social media accounts and engaging with their customer base, they will quickly find that customer base diminishing. Branding works on one level as a form of great customer service. If customers have positive associations with your brand they are more likely to return to it again and again, just as in a shop where the cashier remembers your name and your favourite products.

Reduced Marketing Costs

Online branding and engagement with social media is a highly cost-effective way to get knowledge about your products and services out there. The main cost for any business is time – once the brand is out there the business needs to keep coming up with fresh, original content to engage the customer and maintain a continuous dialogue. The internet expands your reach without the need to relocate, making it easier to move from local to regional and even global without a significant increase in costs. With a strong online presence almost everyone in the world has access to your company.

Memory and Emotional Attachment

A strong, simple and easy to recognise brand makes your company easy to remember. The more customers remember you the more they form the emotional attachment to a brand that creates loyalty. A good brand is easy to pick out from the crowd and easy to remember. It should also tap into the emotional side of the customer in a relevant way – creating a brand personality that people can relate to. Once your brand has made an emotional impact on a customer, that customer will remember it forever. This also makes it more likely that your brand will be recommended to others.

Online branding is all about increasing your visibility in order to gain trust and credibility, value, edge on the competition, confidence and even expert status. Creating and promoting a strong, easy to remember brand differentiates you from the competition and creates customer loyalty, increases recommendations and lets consumers form an emotional attachment, all while steadily decreasing your spend on advertising and marketing. Branding has changed and developed with the advent of the internet and any business without an online brand is being left behind. Businesses can still employ many of the same tactics as before using online tools, yet have a whole new opportunity to truly engage with customers as well.

Dorian Hedy Mekni considers how to implement an effective social media strategy

According to a Harvard Business Review article from April 2014, 58% of companies now use social media and are engaged in social networks such as Facebook, micro blogs such as Twitter and the sharing of multimedia on YouTube and similar platforms. Social media can be extremely useful for communicating with large numbers of actual and potential customers and supporters quickly and easily. This can be especially valuable where an organisation wishes to make its customers aware of new products and services and special offer promotions. Social media channels can also be an effective means of sharing commentary and news on trending issues that are likely to be of interest to the company’s target market. In this way, the organisation can show that it is in touch with the issues that are relevant to its core market and can help build authority and establish trust.

There is a distinction, however, between merely making use of social media from time to time and having in place a well thought out social media strategy. Rather than dipping into social media occasionally on an ad-hoc basis, companies are likely to gain the most from it if they have in place a strategy; including clear aims about what they want to achieve and how they intend to go about achieving it. Dealing with all of this in-house can only go so far; especially where the company in question only has limited time and resources and is unfamiliar with how to take full advantage of what these various social channels have to offer. Many companies benefit from expert help from third parties – whether in the form of initial guidance to set them on the right path or as part of a fully managed social media service. For a wider perspective, it can be especially useful to seek assistance from those individuals with expertise not just in how to get the most out of social media, but also marketing strategy as a whole. Through his business, Urban Amman, Dorian Hedy Mekni, for instance, has experience of advising different sized businesses on a range of topics including marketing strategy, social media, market research and graphic design. Here, he considers what is required to build an effective social media strategy. For more information, including commentary on the very latest developments in the field of marketing and branding, it is also worth visiting the Dorian Hedy Mekni Facebook page.

Understanding the strengths of various social media channels

Rather than considering all social media platforms as basically the same, it is important for anyone who is new to social media strategy to appreciate what each platform is for – and what its strengths are. Facebook, for example, is useful for sharing news about the organisation and as a means of product development. The fast and instantaneous nature of Twitter makes it ideal for sharing snippets of information – although the speed at which things move on this platform means that trying to grab the attention of followers can be a significant challenge. Pinterest provides a platform for businesses to share images with likeminded audience. YouTube and similar video sharing sites can be very useful for distributing the type of information that can be difficult to communicate via text or one-off images. This could include, for example, detailed instructions on how to use a particularly complicated product – as well as ‘how-to’ guides demonstrating to customers how to get the most out of a particular product or service.

The importance of having clear aims

To get the most out of social media, businesses need to be clear on what they want to achieve. Before putting together a strategy, an organisation needs to be clear on its goals, mission statement and branding. It should develop an appropriate tone that reinforces – rather than detracting from or confusing its brand image. When it comes to creating messages and content to be disseminated via social media, companies should ensure that the content is in line with this tone. Developing this unique “voice” is itself a particular skill, and this is where engaging the services of professionals such as Dorian Hedy Mekni can be especially useful, as this voice needs to be appropriate to the brand, industry and target audience.

Devoting time to a social media campaign and the importance of sticking to a timetable

A well thought out social media campaign can enhance a brand image. If a campaign is devised and implemented in a half-hearted way, however, this can have a detrimental effect on a company. If, for example, an organisation’s Facebook page lies moribund and contains inaccurate information about offers and promotions that have long since expired, this sends a negative message about the company as a whole and how serious it takes the whole area of effective engagement with its audience. This is especially the case if a social media page is allowed to descend into a sounding board for disgruntled customers. From time to time, it is only to be expected that dissatisfied customers will use social media channels to air their views. Companies need an effective strategy in place for responding to – rather than ignoring these comments. It is also important not to become impatient. Developing relationships with opinion influencers and a wider audience is not something that happens overnight.