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.

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.

For Effective Branding, Leaders Must Walk the Talk

Every company strives to become a household brand, recognisable at the drop of a name. From the start-ups to the Fortune 500 companies, each works hard to build its brand image and reputation. Having an amazing product or service is only half the journey. In recent times, businesses have realised the power that storytelling has in improving a brand’s image and reputation. Audiences are more drawn to powerful brand stories than corporate mission, vision and values, and who better to tell that story than the brand’s person at the top: the leader.

Dorian Hedy Mekni, director of Agency-Jin Limited, knows all too well the importance of having the leader walk the talk and embody the brand’s story. He points to the rise in politicians making use of their parents in campaign ads to tell human stories of the politicians’ lives and childhoods. They have realised the power that such stories have in capturing the attention of the audience, and in communicating the beliefs that they hold.

The leader’s story becomes one with the brand. Tim Cook, Apple’s Chief Executive Officer, supports environmental protection and gay rights. Expressing his interests on social media platforms has opened the opportunity for Apple to take on more charity work focusing on the environment and gay rights. To the outside world, this story that Apple communicates is much more than just its electronic hardware, but one of a greener future and tolerable society.

A leader has to own the brand’s identity and know its core values and purpose inside out, asserts Dorian Hedy Mekni. By doing this, he or she will be better placed to know the capabilities and limitations of the brand, and focus on those when representing the brand. The leader becomes the chief ambassador for the brand, and employees follow what he or she portrays.

To keep everyone on the same page, Dorian advises that leaders constantly communicate the brand story that they have created. A brand has to convince its internal customers to buy into the message before it can start communicating the story with external customers. Where there is a disconnect with employees on the brand’s story, a leader can be sure that even the target audience is also disconnected from the brand.

Brand storytelling is highly effective if the leader has a solid narrative to communicate, according to Dorian Hedy Mekni. It falls on the leader to know the story inside out and make sure the entire team knows it as well.

How to Get Good Customers Build Brand Fires For You

Dorian Hedy Mekni has a great deal of experience when it comes to developing brand identities for small, medium and large companies. Through his offices based in Amman, London and the United States and his extensive contact network running throughout Europe, the US, North Africa and the world, Dorian Hedy Mekni and his expert marketing team utilise proven techniques that work.

One of the best ways to build your brand is to get enthusiastic customers to talk up your company, product and/or service for you. ‘Word of mouth’ advertising has been around a long time, but the power of the internet has increased that power exponentially. Not only can you reach more people and ignite passions for your brand via social media, but those who you successfully infect with passion can turn around and pass the fire for your brand on to tens, hundreds and even thousands more.

Here are some tips to achieve a brand bonfire.

1. Get People Talking

One of the first steps to starting a brand fire is to get people talking about related subjects surrounding it. Social media outlets are great places for directing attention to your brand as well as find out what people are actually saying regarding your company. By using well trained moderators to run your social sites, people can be prompted to express what they need and how your brand either meets that need or how it can be improved to better meet needs.

2. Be Sincere

As people open up and talk about your brand, make it clear up front that you take their needs, concerns and comments seriously. Don’t make promises you can’t or won’t keep, but on the contrary show your audience that you are willing to take steps to meet them.

3. Engage Key Company Personnel

As fervour is being created on social media sites, give the people you are reaching direct outlets for their contributions. Assign key individuals in your company the task of personally answering serious inquiries. Providing customers with personal responses from key players such as your marketing manager, CEO or VP can do wonders for fanning the flames of brand sharing.

4. Provide Recognition and Rewards

Brand flames are further fed by identifying those that are spreading the positive news about your company to others and then taking steps to recognise and reward their efforts. Recognise them by taking the time to give them a personal response, invite them to share their thoughts on your blog, or offer to add their website links to your page. Reward them by sending them discount coupons, asking them to review a new product, or inviting them to company functions. If active, loyal customers are treated like they are appreciated and are seen as VIPs, they will work harder to start brand fires on your behalf.

Read a sampling of blog posts from Dorian Hedy Mekni and learn more about brands are maximised.

Take Advantage of Video Brand Building without Busting the Budget

Video is a powerful tool for drawing viewer attention to your brand. However, in order to be effective, videos must be visually engaging and provide information the audience is seeking. If your brand marketing video lacks information and visual entertainment then it stands to fall short of expected performance.

Creating advertising videos from scratch can be quite expensive. There is a way, however, to get around high costs and still offer viewers stimulating videos that both meet their needs and effectively build your brand image. That method is to use stock videos which, if selected and modified correctly, can provide you with diversity, quality and relevancy, all at an affordable price.

Following are some pointers on what to look for when shopping for stock videos and how to get the best performance out of them.

Start with the Entrance – City streets are filled with stores vying for your business and the ones that tend to draw you in are those that have a unique and eye-catching entrance. The same principal works with video advertising. You can’t expose viewers to the excellence of your brand unless they ‘enter’ the video. Therefore, an intriguing video introduction is necessary to get your audience to press PLAY.

Keep It Light and Interesting – Most people will stop watching or forget your message if it consists simply of heavy information presented without flavour. To make your message interesting and hold viewer attention, be original by adding animations, colourful images, 3D effects, etc.

Keep the Message Concise – Time is extremely precious in today’s fast-paced world and many people will avoid your video if it is too lengthy. Therefore, present your message in the most powerful, concise form that is no more than several minutes in length.

Provide Quality and Control – The higher the video quality, the more captivating it will be to viewers. Therefore, select videos that contain HD resolution so that images are crisp. Also, ensure that viewers maintain control of the video in lieu of using auto-play which can feel forced and intimidating.

Select A Company with Licensed Stock Videos – You should work with video companies that not only distribute videos for viewing, but for licensing as well. The quality of the company can be gauged from their high licensing standards.

Dorian Hedy Mekni has a successful background in helping businesses develop and expand their brand exposure. His experience allows him to work with small to medium businesses as well as large, well established companies. Get more information at Dorian’s websites, or connect to Dorian Hedy Mekni via LinkedIn.

Become a benchmark brand

Entrepreneur Dorian Hedy Mekni knows that branding plays a hugely important role in the success of any business. Whether your company is product based or service based, it will benefit from establishing a strong, identifiable image, a brand philosophy and a reputation which can be relied on to carry it through the more difficult stages of business marketing and success.

However, in order to really stand out you need to be the benchmark from which all other suppliers are measured. Increasingly, this is becoming the requirement rather than the ideal as we try to recover from a double-dip recession and the consumer market remains as fierce and competitive as it is today. These days it is not enough to expect your consumer to remain loyal when competition is so high, online reviews are unavoidable and the opportunity for consumers to self-research on the internet is rife. So, how do you achieve the benchmark brand status?

The first step to establishing the winning formula is to make your brand stand out from the crowd; help it to get noticed. Businessman Dorian Hedy Mekni doesn’t take this to mean adopting a one way push model in which the consumer market is inundated with promotional information about your brand. Such approaches will only take you so far. To attract the kind of attention which will entice customers and rouse interest, consumers must resonate with your brand on a much more emotional level. It is an emotional familiarity between consumer and brand that will establish true customer loyalty.

Several months back, Adweek published an interesting article which listed ‘The 100 Most Loved Companies’. Needless to say, the brands which made the list were all well-established, hugely successful brands with fantastic marketing approaches. However, they were also much more friendly, familiar and familial than those brands you would expect to see on a similar ‘Top 100’ Forbes list. Brands like The Walt Disney Company, Hershey’s, SC Johnson and Kellogg’s all rated higher than arguably more successful brands like Coca Cola.

Engaging with your consumer is essential for even the most basic of marketing exercises, but it is the forming of an emotional relationship between consumer and brand which will make all the difference and transport you from default brand to the much coveted benchmark brand.

Tips for Boosting Social Media Marketing via Visual Design

Dorian Hedy Mekni knows that a strong online presence is imperative for success when building social media marketing images. As the founder and owner of Urban Amman and Agency-jin, Dorian Hedy Mekni and his professional branding and marketing team enjoy global contacts and clients from such locations as Europe, The Middle East, North Africa and the United States.

One area that contributes to successful social media marketing campaigns lies in visual branding. The majority of your internet presence is visual, and therefore, requires proper and consistent elements to make your brand stand out. Colours, fonts and photo filters work together to boost your social media presence. Following are some tips for maximising your brand through visual branding techniques.

Maximise Colour

In order to make the best impression on viewers, your brand needs to both stand out and convey its personality. This is achieved by utilising strong colour combinations as well as those that are specifically associated with your brand. For example, creativity is relayed by using pastel or bright colours and trustworthiness is conveyed by using deeper colours of maroon and blue. If you have a certain colour scheme associated with your brand, such as red and yellow, green and orange, silver and blue, etc, you want to work those colours into your imagery so it is immediately recognisable by your viewers.

Consistency is vital in social media marketing and images are no exception. To keep your graphics team on the ‘same page’, record and share the colour hex codes that you want incorporated into the bulk of your images.

Say It with Fonts

The fonts you select for your message generate attention as much as the words that are being conveyed. Therefore, pick out two or three fonts that express your brand’s personality and use them to create your messages.

Remember, consistency is a key element in successful brand marketing. By using the same fonts in your graphic messages, you train your audience to recognise those that are from you.

Influence with Photo Filters

Another colour consistency which is often overlooked is the use of photo filters. The right filter used consistently will reinforce the personality of your brand and help it to stand out among the crowd. People can easily view hundreds of posts a day in their news feed so having a striking photo filter that both expresses your brand and stands out can help viewers recognise your posts from among all the others.

Check out more of Dorian’s tips on branding and take your social media marketing campaign to the next level.

Dorian Hedy Mekni | Social Media Marketing and Other Digital Business Tools

As the founder of Urban Amman, a business dedicated to providing professional services to companies, such as marketing, graphic design, and market strategy, Dorian Hedy Mekni has experience with businesses of all different types and sizes. From start-ups to existing businesses who want to build on their current brands and identities, Urban Amman is a firm familiar with the power of marketing and branding. Based in Amman and London, Urban Amman’s founder has a broad network of contacts in business throughout Europe and the MENA (Middle East & North Africa).

Social media in particular is a strong focus for the team. Platforms like Twitter and Facebook present a unique opportunity for companies to truly engage customers and cultivate loyalty. Not only does social media work for marketing, but it also works for customer service and retention. In fact, businesses are increasingly citing social media as the most effective tool they have for retaining customers. Those who do not feel that way and who are leaving complaints made on social media unanswered may start suffering losses in favour of the companies who respond and address customer complaints in real time.

Aside from social media, many businesses also need content. The best content available online comes in the form of pictures and videos. Dorian Hedy Mekni provides graphic design services via Urban Amman, though graphics are also available for purchase from several outlets. These graphics work well to enhance a website or to generate new content to be shared on social media, as images are much more likely to attract attention that just text alone.

Blending the areas of social media and images together is the platform known as Pinterest, which is an exceptional social media platform that focuses on the sharing of pictures and ideas. It allows customers to organise things that interest them into categories for further exploration. Many businesses use Pinterest as a way to brand themselves further, and to stimulate sales, as many people will make purchases after selecting something on Pinterest as a favourite.

These are just some of the tools and strategies that Dorian Hedy Mekni works with when he consults with businesses that are looking to grow their identities and enhance their brand images.

Dorian Hedy Mekni | Why Branding is Necessary

Continued success in any industry is largely to do with public awareness and the public’s attitude towards a company. The most successful businesses are those with an incredibly powerful brand which can be as simple as a three word mantra, ‘Just Do It’ from Nike or a bold colour scheme such as Coca Cola’s red and white theme. Part of Dorian Hedy Mekni’s business, Urban Amman, is developing marketing strategies which work to build a business’ identity. Dorian Hedy Mekni and his team are more than aware of how necessary branding really is to a company.

There are three main areas that can help a business’ performance greatly through use of a strong brand identity. Ultimately, branding should improve a company’s connection to their customers. The end goal is to raise awareness of the products or services on offer and get customers to use a business more than their competitors. Branding successfully can mean more than simply producing an association between a business and a key idea, connecting with people can involve a product that actively engages a customer’s everyday activities with a market leader. For example, Apple became much more than a home computer manufacturer when it brought out the iPod. It identified that a customer’s connection with their music will make for a strong connection with Apple itself.

In a market that already has a number of other competitors, creating a strong brand will improve a company’s standing in that market, as it will identify them as something different to all the others that are available. Some well established businesses share many traits with one another when it comes to their imagery. For a new company to try and break into the market, branding their products completely differently will provide distinction from the others and in some cases, a more edgy and contemporary approach too.

Finally, branding is important to developing a company’s value. Well established brands are proven to be worth more than unbranded products as people see them as more reliable. This can also contribute to a company’s success if it is necessary to branch out. Tesco managed this when it moved from supermarkets into banking and even mobile phone service provision.