So, now that we have established that to make money, we need to be useful to other people and build a brand around what we have to offer. Now the problem becomes, how do we get attention? Where do we find the people who will listen to us and want what we have to offer? When I started out trying to figure this online thing out, the main thing all the gurus pushed was bad SEO tactics. They had specific techniques to drive you to the top of the search results.
They put everything on search because there was a Myspace, but no Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or any of the other social media channels we hear about today. Getting to the first page in search and building your email list is what you want to do. Now, search traffic is still very powerful, if you can get there.
But, social media has evolved into the powerhouse of brand building. So, how and what type of social media channels do we use to help build our brand and ultimately build an audience willing to buy what we are selling? I have a list of five of what I consider the most potent brand-building social media channels there to work hard for you right now.
Brand Design Platform #1; Facebook
Of course, let’s get the 800-pound gorilla out of the way first. People are very polarized when I begin talking about Facebook. With all the Facebook, Congressional hearings, and the recent algorithm changes, people are more polarized than ever. I like Facebook and always have. It’s not a challenging platform to use (I currently cross-publish all my blog posts automatically to Facebook), and its ads are still reasonably cheap.
Creating a Facebook page is easy. Groups can be created to build a community around your platform. Groups can even be private so that the joining members need to be screened. Users can be blocked from your feed if you choose. There are way too many options to help you customize your users’ experience to ignore their use. The only downfall to the use of Facebook is the demographics. Many younger users are getting away from them and moving to Instagram or Snapchat. Other than that, I believe everyone needs to have a profile or page on Facebook.
Brand Design Platform #2 | Instagram
I never used Instagram much until a couple of months ago. Now, I can’t leave it alone. I’m just starting to build my platform there, but I can already see its potential. This is an image-based marketing platform. To build a brand on Instagram you need to be able to put your message in an attractive picture-based package that people will want to look at and share. From what I can see from my early exploration of Instagram, Genres like fashion, travel, weight loss, and food do the best on Instagram.
Information marketers are using Instagram, but I don’t know if they are seeing a return just off this channel as the more visual niches do. They have added a video aspect to it with their stories. I think this will help information marketers a little more, but we will have to wait and see how this works. I would say that if you are an information marketer on Instagram, you need to be doing stories. Have you heard the term ‘influencers’?
I guess I was late to the game, but these are people who have built large followings on several social media channels and are getting paid by big brands to advertise on their channels. This can range from clothing brands sending them free clothes to actual cash modeling deals. The interesting thing is that this shows another side of the shift from the old economy to the new.
In the old economy, you needed to get noticed or had to get hired as a model to get deals like this. Actors, actresses, musicians, models, athletes, or just about anyone needed to build notoriety in another area of their career and then get offered deals to promote products. Now, you no longer need to the accepted by the media or be put in the spotlight by someone else to gain notoriety. Now, you can build notoriety on your own on Instagram and build a profitable brand off of that.
Brand Design Platform #3; Twitter
Twitter is almost the exact opposite of Instagram. It’s a message-based social media channel. They do have a little image-based power to it, but it is more to attract click-throughs to another source. I like it for its fast-paced interaction style. It’s almost like an interactive news source where, as things are happening, people can be there commenting and adding to the story. I think Twitter can be an information marketer’s dream. It invented the # (hashtag) search system which has been adopted by so many other social media channels.
Make sure your posts are equipped with the appropriate hashtags to get picked up as people are searching for information. I like Twitter, but admittedly I don’t spend enough time on it and need to explore it more. This is one where I can see the full potential of it, but need to get on the channel and dig in myself.
Brand Design Platform #4; YouTube
YouTube is outstanding for building your brand, platform, circle of influence, or whatever you want to call it. The problem for me is, I don’t like shooting videos. I just like watching them. I’ve been hooked on travel vlogs recently. I’m a traveling nut, so I can sit and binge-watch travel videos like other people binge on Netflix. This is another area where people are becoming celebrity-like influencers by creating entertaining videos for people to watch. I don’t think it is even tailored to visual or entertaining videos. People in the information niche can create videos around their brand and benefit also.
There are so many ways you can use YouTube to build your brand. Create a themed channel around your brand like having your TV channel. Upload all your videos there then you can always embed them into your website. Information marketers are also used to redistribute content into a different medium. Let’s say you make a blog post. You can take that blog post and make it into a slide presentation on YouTube. It’s the same blog post just set into a video format.
Brand Design Platform #5; Pinterest or LinkedIn
The last of the branding platforms you need to be aware of is LinkedIn. LinkedIn is a very specific business-to-business marketing platform. If you are a person with a resume wanting to find a new job or a freelancer looking for more clients, LinkedIn is the place to set up camp. You can create information articles and publish them to attract attention to your profile or get involved in different discussion groups around your niche. It is a social media group, be social, spread your content, and get involved.
Social media is one of the strongest and fastest means we have to build our audience today. To get a ranking in Google can be difficult, or in some niches, almost impossible. Plus, is search traffic that good anyway? Wouldn’t you much rather interact and build trust with your audience? This also acts as a filtering mechanism. Socializing with people in different parts of the web first will ensure that the people who follow your link back to your site or sign up for your list have already gotten a taste of who you are.
This can save you money in the long run by not having to market to people who are not interested in what you have to say. You just need to pick the right social media channels that fit with your niche and the message you want to deliver. The internet moves to fast for me to keep updating old posts with new information. So, the best way for me to do it is through my email list. If you’d like to sign up for my email list, I have several places on the site to make that happen.
Be safe,
Kevin