Branding is a never-ending process. It is dynamic, and requires energy, creativity, strategic and tactical planning, feedback monitoring, audience engagement, metric analysis and mobilized interpersonal skills over the frightening limitations of social media update formatting. Successful branding requires dynamic campaigning, revisiting or exploring all of the potential and cross-promotion uses of social media, and a great effort. If you're boring, they're snoring.
The challenge of acquiring, maintaining and growing customer base, inbound leads and market share has to do with the concerted effort of constantly re-inventing your brand through social media. This doesn't only require media dominance in terms of impressions, page views, or followers (whatever that means)... it means an increased dedicated and focused investment in the creative aspect of branding.
Your branding must be a continuous story, with various interwoven elements of human interest, product/ service releases and upgrades, cause-based sponsorships, announcements and alerts and such added attractions as surveys, contests, giveaways and other opportunities to more deeply engage your audience in your company and its activities.
Prospective customers seek opportunities to interact with your company and its brand; they are interested not only in value, but in being entertained, gaming, grabbing the spotlight, and being active and strategic participants in the evolution of your brand and products or services.
In brief, your audience wants: attention, ownership, a chance to play and win, an opportunity to be heard and responded to, and constant insights into an ever-growing, ever-evolving futurescape of your business. Your followers love to follow a story --- and you must become a good storyteller.
The best Mad Marketers, the winners, are going to be the ones who engage their audiences to the extent of eagerly collaborating with them, and of evangelizing their brands through referral, word-of-mouth and social media tweeting.
Author and Social Media expert Chris Brogan makes some great points in his blog. A link is featured below:
- Tired of social media? You're doing it wrong
If you're suffering from social media fatigue, it's probably because you're focusing on social tools as an end rather than a means, Chris Brogan writes. Social media can get old, but the engagement and empowerment it's founded upon never does. "The opportunity is for us to make something interesting and worthwhile, to be helpful, to empower others, to encourage and inspire others. If we're fatigued, let's all wake up," Brogan writes. ChrisBrogan.com (8/1) ####
Make them think. Make them guess. Make them wonder. Make them laugh. But whatever you do, it is your responsibility as a marketer and messenger to get their attention, to keep it, and to direct it - like the conductor of an orchestra.
Douglas E Castle
Other sites, blogs and publications of interest:
Mad Marketing Tactics! [you might already be here]
TNNWC Management Consulting Services
Business And Project Planning
Sending Signals!
Being An Entrepreneur Is Stimulating!
Related articles
- Brogan on sharing and social media (e1evation.com)
- Chris Brogan on the power of relationships (prsa.org)
- How to Grow Social Media Leads: New Research (e1evation.com)
- Why Companies are Afraid of Social Media (socialmediaexplorer.com)
- Understanding Online Community and Influencers with @Tamar Weinberg [@InboundNow #8] (hubspot.com)
- How to Use Social Media for Business: Establish Brand Recognition Through Active Participation (lockergnome.com)
- Innovation mad libs (christopherspenn.com)
- The Social Video Blueprint, Part 4: It's About Shares, Not Clicks (reelseo.com)
- 3 Reasons to Outsource Your Social Media Management (searchengineoptimizationjournal.com)
- How to Use Social Media for Marketing to Watch What Others Are Doing and Do Something New (lockergnome.com)
- Entrepreneurs: Catalysts Creating Business And Social Value. (entrepreneurialadviceandinsights.wordpress.com)
- Branding Yourself - Your Personal And Professional Brand (douglascastle1.wordpress.com)
- Does AP style matter in 140 characters? (arikhanson.com)
- 6 Sure Fire Tactics to Develop a Loyal Blog Following for your SME Blog (vendio.com)
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