Co-Founder of Y Not You Media, helping businesses and brands grow with content, strategy and attention.
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Building an online brand is a task that takes a tremendous amount of consistency, focus, time and money. It is a process that takes years but, in the end, is worth every ounce of effort.
In order to build a brand, you should prioritize building your social media presence based on these four pillars: uniqueness, influence, trust and relevance. Social media is an opportunity to build your brand and increase its reach and audience by focusing on these pillars.
There is plenty of competition in every industry, so differentiating your business and yourself from others is crucial. If you begin doing what everyone else is doing, you fall in line and will likely not be able to separate from the pack.
Uniqueness
Paying attention to the uniqueness of your content is pivotal, as is making sure that your business’s personality, as well as your own, shines through. The uniqueness of content and avoiding commonality within your industry is the separation you need to draw the attention you and your business crave.
Find ways that your differentiating factors can help your business better connect with your ideal audience on a deeper level, rather than just a quick sale. The uniqueness you show can create brand loyalty and result in true fans of your service or product instead of them remaining just customers.
Influence
Another pillar is influence. Having influence gives you the ability to persuade your audience in one direction or the other. Influence is something that takes time and tons of effort.
To accomplish this, you must be fully engaged with your community, which might include answering your audience’s questions or comments, giving them advice or providing greater insights into the industry and your business. To gain this kind of influence, you must first build upon the next pillar.
Trust
Trust is crucial for any business or individual. If there is no trust between you and your audience, you cannot gain influence. The way to gain trust is by providing your audience with content that is educational, entertaining, positive and unique.
However, if you are not authentic in your message, you run the risk of never gaining your audience’s trust or breaking that trust. Be transparent with your audience. Keeping important information from them will only hurt you.
Relevance
The final pillar of branding is relevance. As fast you can become relevant in your industry, you can become irrelevant even faster. Maintain relevancy by making sure to continuously release unique content that aligns with your values and your business.
However, be sure you’re staying on top of the trends and current information in your industry. If you’re releasing false or old information, you’re endangering the trust you established with your audience and potentially losing the influence you worked so hard to gain. None of the pillars can be created without the others — they are all connected.
Bottom Line
All in all, these four pillars are all intertwined and extremely important to pay attention to throughout the building of your business to turn it into a well-known brand. Social media is an amazing opportunity to grow your brand by focusing on delivering value to your audience, gaining attention, engaging with others and being consistent.
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Author: Tony Pec, Forbes Councils Member
