How Pinterest Is Kicking Up A Dust Storm
There’s a new social media site in town. It’s called Pinterest. And in the last month the site has gained 7 million new visitors.
Pinterest is an interesting social media experiment. And it looks like it could become one of the powerhouse websites, especially for women, its largest set of users.
The cool thing about Pinterest is that it is highly graphic. Take a look at its home page and you’ll see all the photos and images, and it isn’t cluttered.
The way it works is you set up your own pinboard. You can have one for your company just like Mashable has. And just like Mashable’s, it can be branded.
Notice how Mashable’s pinboard has the Mashable name in it. That’s great for reputation management and branding. Then, on the left, you can see the big Mashable logo with the website URL underneat. Again, that’s great for branding, but the URL back to the website provides a useful inbound link for SEO purposes.
If you look at the pins that Mashable includes on its pinboard, they’re not all self-promotional. They spend a great deal of time promoting other items around the Web. That’s great stuff. It’s the way that it should be done.
You don’t have to be a rabid self-promoter to be successful in social media generally or at Pinterest in particular. You just have to have a solid strategy for your online content, a strategy that includes promoting others while branding yourself. That’s the best social media strategy in the world, and your company can make that happen.
Does SEO Trump Branding?
There’s no doubt that SEO is a necessary component to your online marketing efforts. But what about branding? Is it necessary for online marketing? Which is more important?
Let’s take a look at the functions (purposes) for each of these efforts.
- Search engine optimization – The purpose for SEO is to get your content to rank in the search engines so that you can increase your website visitor traffic and convert it into sales. That’s obviously an important task, but if all you did was SEO in the way of marketing your content and your website, then you’d be woefully undershooting your target.
Online branding – Online branding has a much wider reach. It can, and should, include SEO. But it should also include your social media initiatives and everything else you do – online and off line.
If you think of online branding as a part of overall reputation management strategy and your overall business strategy, then it is far more important than SEO, which is simply part of your overall marketing strategy. Granted, it’s an important part, but it’s not the only part worth considering.
In terms of online marketing, everything you do is a part of your branding effort. That includes SEO.
Should You Brand Yourself Through Facebook?
I think it’s pretty well accepted now that it’s possible to brand yourself, and your business, through Facebook. You can use your profile, your fan pages, even ads, to achieve a branding effect with your Facebook presence, but should you?
There’s no doubt that Facebook is the most trafficked website online. But is that reason enough to use it for marketing and branding?
I think Facebook branding goes beyond mere traffic numbers. After all, you’re not going to reach every person who uses Facebook. You shouldn’t even try.
Like any marketing channel, your focus on Facebook should be in trying to reach the people who are the right target market for your product or service. If that’s a local clientele, then you should focus on local. If it’s national or international, then you should strive for that audience. Branding, after all, is only as effective as how well you identify your market.
Finding the right audience for your product or service on Facebook isn’t easy. You can’t just go up and search for people who are looking for what you have to offer. Instead, focus your efforts on building relationships with people. You are a person trying to build relationships with other people. In the process, you can identify the needs of those people and make subtle offers.
Should you use Facebook for branding? Yes. But do it smartly. Don’t be overly aggressive or obnoxious.
Using PPC To Brand Your Company
Advertising has always been about multiple points of action. On one hand, advertisers expect to earn a return on investment. But they also want to brand themselves in the marketplace. Sometimes you can do one or the other but not both.
The first step to using PPC advertising as a branding tool is to set your goals. Determine what your point of ROI is for each click price point. Can you achieve branding effects by limiting your ad spend to a maximum so that you can also realize an ROI? If not, then you have a choice to make.
Is branding more important or is that ROI more important?
The key to using PPC as a branding tool is to plant your company name or product brand in the top of your prospect’s mind. You want them to think of your company when they think of the benefits of using your service. To do that, you’ve got to establish your brand as a top brand through psychological condition. That may require throwing out your advertising budget and just focusing on being No. 1.
Large corporations have been making these decisions for years. Online, with PPC particularly, it’s a decision that even small companies can make.
Is Rebranding Necessary?
Google is rebranding two of its products. Those products are Picasa and Blogger. Picasa’s new name is going to be Google Photos. Blogger is going to be called Google Blogs.
Why would Google rebrand these products that have been a part of its family now for more than five years? Picasa has been a Google product since 2003 and Blogger since 2004. That’s 8 and 7 years, respectively. Why the sudden change?
Answer: Google wants to roll out Google +. According to Mashable, Google Photos and Google Blogs will be a part of that social media project.
All of that’s understandable, but it makes me want to ask the question: When is it appropriate to rebrand yourself? Does rebranding really have benefits?
Of course, rebranding can and often does have benefit. In Google’s case, the products aren’t going to change. Only the names will change. So where’s the improvement? The improvement could be in how the services are integrated into Google +, so it may not be known until it happens. But if you are considering a rebranding for your Web products, then you should consider how it will affect your overall brand and marketplace position.
Keep this in mind: Rebranding doesn’t necessarily lead to a better service. That requires hard work.
5 Things To Consider Before Starting An Internet Business
Internet businesses have become their own entity. Even if your online presence is an extension of your real world business, it would be wise to consider a separate business plan for your website. Here are 5 key things to think about before starting your Internet business.
- Branding – There is a lot that goes into branding a business. Even an online business. Should your domain name be keyword-based? Many branded online businesses aren’t (Google, Yahoo!, Bing, just to name a few). Nevertheless, it is important to think about how you will brand yourself online.
- Search engine marketing – This includes search engine optimization as well as your paid search options. How will you ensure your website receives its just deserts at the search engine table?
- Social media – You’ll have to think about incorporating social media into any new business you start online. That includes which social media websites you’ll use and how you’ll use them.
- Traffic conversion – Traffic conversion is more than simply driving traffic to your website, though it does include that. You must think about how you will drive traffic, what methods and techniques you’ll use to perform that function, including possibly video marketing techniques, and how you will convert that traffic once you get it to your website.
- Web design – Central to any Web business is your website design. In truth, all of the above considerations will be integrated into your website design. You might as well consider how each of the above initiatives will be included in your web design right from Day One.
Every business is unique. By the same token, every Web business is unique. You must consider each of these five initiatives for your business right from the start. Don’t settle for any cookie-cutter plans because your business is not a cookie.
Now You Can Add Your Personal Touch To Facebook Pages
One of the problems with Facebook Pages has been the lack of personal interaction. You could interact, but it was always as the administrator and this tended to depersonalize any relationships. Facebook Pages have gone through another mini-evolution, and one of the changes introduced is the ability to switch between your admin role and yourself.
No one wants to discuss anything with an admin. Once you, or one of your staff members, start to interact using their real identity, conversations take on a degree of realism – suddenly there is a real person there. Facebook have taken this facility a step further and now allow you to Like and post comments on other Facebook Pages. This will become an important feature for those businesses that have more than one Page, or who want to connect their visitors with services related to their business.
Included in the changes to Facebook Pages are a new layout and the random display of images. The latter is a negative in some ways given the creative use of images in the past.
For users looking to build a brand, and who wish to interact with their visitors, the ability to switch from admin to yourself is by far the biggest change – and for the positive. By putting a face to comments on your Facebook Page, you are increasing your credibility while at the same time creating a human connection. Everyone knows that the admin is a human, but by using the term ‘admin ‘the perception is of someone unknown, someone not willing to show their face. You can now prove to the world that there is a real person interacting on your Facebook Page.
How A Simple Branding Mistake Can Harm Your Reputation
What is your reputation worth? Reputation and brand awareness go hand in hand – in fact, they both rely on each other when it comes to building a successful business. Mention a brand, any brand, and you will have positive or negative views on that brand (unless the brand is unknown to you, of course). As a business, you spend a lot of time promoting that brand, and a lot of time building a positive image around the brand. So what happens when you lose that brand?
That’s an issue that is facing TwitterMoms.com right now. They have built their website and brand to a point where they have a huge following. More importantly, they have a good reputation amongst both parents and businesses that provide goods and services to parents. I can imagine their horror then when they received a notice from Twitter to cease using their brand name.
TwitterMoms is about to become SocialMoms.com, and while the transition will no doubt be smooth, they will still have to do a lot of work to rebrand themselves, and to transfer their reputation from TwitterMoms to SocialMoms. Being a very successful website, they will be back on track in a very short time. But what if your business wasn’t quite as successful? What if it was only doing reasonably well in a highly competitive niche?
That one simple branding error could cost you business. It is difficult to build a positive image that is attached to a brand. Lose that brand and you have to rebuild a new one, and with it a reputation. In highly competitive niches, that could prove to be impossible. Your brand and reputation are closely tied together – lose one, and you potentially lose the other. When deciding on a brand name, the more unique you are and the easier it is to remember, the better. While riding on the wave of another brand may make life easier initially, it could, over time, prove to be a huge mistake – just ask TwitterMoms.
Does Blog Design Matter?
At this juncture in Web history it is pretty commonplace for a business to own at least one blog. I think it will someday be commonplace for many businesses to some day own and operate several blogs. As the Web becomes more and more competitive, there will be more websites and blogs targeting specific niches, and niches within niches. That will undoubtedly make the search and social marketing stakes go higher.
One of the points of differentiation for any business with a website is design. Not only can it distinguish you from the competition, but it can also brand you, your company, and your products. Blog design, of course, is no different.
It has already been established that blog design is important. But does it matter for each blog? Does every blog have to have its own unique design, or can a company have a branded look to which each blog and website under the corporate umbrella must conform? My answer is, of course, yes.
Yes, to both. Either is acceptable.
When deciding on a design look for your blog, keep in mind your company goals. If you want all of your Web properties to have a consistent look for branding effect then that’s an easy decision. But if you want each blog to have its own design and branded look then you’ll have to make some hard decisions for each. Either way can be effective. You just have to narrow down your ideals.
Is An Exact Match Domain Name Necessary?
There are three trains of thought concerning domain names. There are the exact match domain name advocates, the “close enough” domain name advocates, and the branded domain name advocates. Each camp has its good reasons for believing as they do and have some good points of defense, but is there a right way?
Not really.
The reason some people think an exact match domain name is necessary is because of SEO. There have been times when exact match domains ranked better as a result of a keyword appearing in the domain name. Now is one of those times. But there have also been times when it didn’t matter. That’s because Google is always tweaking its algorithm and things change.
This might sound like a reason to ensure you have an exact match domain name because, after all, if you’re living in such a time that it does matter for SEO purposes then you’ll want to cash in. But not so fast.
There are plenty of online businesses who have a branded domain name and they’re doing just fine. Google is one of those. Facebook, the most trafficked website online, is another. Obviously, they’ve done pretty well without exact match domain names, haven’t they?
There is something to be said for building a brand. Traditional business and marketing techniques suggest that branding yourself has a lot more long-term benefit than an exact match domain ever could have. If you can do both, great, but if t comes down to one or the other, you’d be better off with going with a name that will give you long-lasting benefits.
Learn more about search engine optimization and Internet marketing from Reciprocal Consulting.
Reputation Management Begins With Brand Monitoring
Reputation management is not rocket science. It’s more like story telling. There’s a beginning, a middle and an end. The beginning is monitoring – monitoring your name brand to see what people are saying about you. The middle is what you do in response to that. And the end is the follow up.
You can go online and start posting all kinds of stuff about yourself and do it in a vacuum. Build a website. You should have one anyway. Start social media marketing. Do a little Twittering. YouTube your videos. And so on. But what are you doing it for? Do you have a plan? A strategy? Are you winging it?
Don’t wing it.
It’s better to start off with a plan. You can modify the plan later if you have to. But start with a plan. And the first item on your plan should be to see what people are saying about you before you start talking about yourself. How you approach your own brand reputation management could have something to do with what’s already being said. You can’t change what you don’t know.
There are some tools available for you to help you do better reputation monitoring. Here are three tools that you should start using right away:
- Google Alerts – It’s free. Enter your name brand and receive e-mails any time someone online mentions it.
- Twitter – Start paying attention to Twitter. If someone is saying something about your brand right now then you want to know about it. Conduct a Twitter search for your brand name. See what’s being said.
- Facebook – Facebook is now the most trafficked website online. If someone is talking about you they are probably talking about you on Facebook.
These won’t be the only tools you’ll use to monitor and manage your reputation online. But they are a good place to start. If you have no online presence yet then start with these three tools. Effective reputation management branches out from there.
The Best Reputation Management Tool On The Planet
There are reputation management tools and then there are reputation management tools. The best tools for managing your reputation online are more than just reputation management tools. They are tools that can also – and should also – be used for other things.
For instance, a good reputation management tool will also optimize your website for search engines for the key terms that are important to your website as well as the key reputation term that you are managing. It is a branding tool, and SEO tool and a reputation tool all rolled into one.
So what tool is that?
Your blog. And this is what your blog does in each of those areas using normal, every day tactics that the search engines approve:
- Adds fresh daily content to your website – This alone takes care of all three of your goals: Branding, Reputation Management and SEO. Your blog is a unique branding tool, but it also can be used to SEO your website around your key terms. Every key term that is important to your marketing efforts can be taken care of through your blog. Then there’s reputation management. If you write your blog yourself and sign your name to every post, that’s a big reputation plus. Even if you hire a ghostwriter, you can have blog posts signed as they are a reflection of you and your values.
- Link building and internal navigation – Yes, this is also a three-time bread winner. Your anchor text not only acts as an SEO element for your website, but it also is great for branding. And links that include your key reputation terms perform an added boost as well.
- Increases your chances of being found – Every blog post is counted as a unique web page so the more often you blog the more often you brand and SEO your website and manage your reputation.
- Gets your website crawled more often – If your website is crawled more often then the search engines will update their indexes more often to rank your important pages for your key terms, key reputation terms and, of course, that makes you more brandable.
So, as you can see, your blog makes your website more brandable, increases your SEO and adds a reputation management element that other SEO and branding tools do not. It’s the perfect reputation management tool.
Branding As Reputation Management
Few online marketing concepts are as misunderstood as online reputation management. It is often thought of as a reactive model, but in truth it is proactive. Reputation management in its best sense is nothing less than effective online branding.
A recent survey shows the top online brands in 2009 are:
- Yahoo!
- Amazon
- Ebay
- Microsoft
- YouTube
- MySpace
- Apple
- Sony
The one thing that all of these companies have in common is a strong brand. Each one built its online reputation by building its brand. And the attributes that make them all reputable brands – and recognizable brands – are trustworthiness, helpfulness, and relevance.
The lesson here for the rest of us is to build trust by being helpful and being relevant. If you can do that in your niche then you will simultaneously be building your brand and your reputation. There’s no better reputation management than building a positive and recognizable brand in any niche.
Web Design Tip
Here’s a quick web design tip you can implement right away and it will only take a few minutes. It’s really a branding element you can use to help establish your brand online but it just takes one line of code.
A favicon is a little icon that displays next to the URL in the address box of your browser. You can create one out of your logo, or any image, in just a few minutes. Go to Favicon.cc and upload your image or create one. Follow the directions and save your favicon to your hard drive. It should end with the .ico file extension.
You want to keep your favicon simple. Not too complex. Just like your company logo. If done right, it will brand your website online.
Place the code for your favicon in the head section of your html in every page of your website. You’ll need to upload your image to your server then include the following line of code (enclosed in brackets) in your html:
LINK REL=”SHORTCUT ICON” HREF=”http://www.yourwebsite.com/favicon.ico”
That’s it. Now you have a favicon.