Facebook Branding For Online Business

Branding today goes far beyond logos on t-shirts, cute coffee mugs, or even expensive television commercials. The Internet has transformed the way branding takes place and businesses need to adapt. In particular, because so many people are active on the site, Facebook enables businesses with a strong branding strategy to move light years beyond the competition.


Importance of a Strong Logo

A vital part of successful branding on Facebook starts with a digital logo. The best designers keep color, visibility, and pixel-size in mind as they create business logos to best suit their brands. More than any other elements, simplicity and clarity are essential for a memorable, effective logo.

Next, businesses need to showcase their logos in the right places on Facebook to reinforce their identities. Because the profile and cover images on a Facebook page are focused on the most, the logo should be placed in either of these spaces to have the biggest impact. For example, on the Facebook page for the national restaurant chain Applebee's, what initially started as their name paired with an image of an apple has been reduced to only the apple; simplifying their brand identity for quick consumption. Importantly, the image is currently showcased as their profile image.

Although Applebee's 5 million likes on Facebook didn't come entirely from their logo, it can be assumed that the memorable, simple, red apple did help draw people in. Even for a smaller business, a strong, well-featured logo on the site will serve as an effective cornerstone to a comprehensive brand-building strategy. Good images are heavily featured on Facebook and are required for gaining new likes and user engagement on the site. Businesses that take advantage of strong logos will likely gain more followers on Facebook and solidify their brands.


Facebook Profile "Identity"

Brand identity on Facebook also relies on what is shared on a business page and the language used to share it. A business that creates a unique, relatable "voice" in their posts will be more likely to gain an identity and build their brand on the site. Applebee's, for example, recently posted, "Steak the long way home. Stop at Applebee's tonight" and featured a picture of one of their steak dishes. With the quick, humorous, enticing post, Applebee's helped build a memorable, unique identity for itself.

As a business increases visibility with an active and detailed Facebook page, their web presence also increases. Consistent and pertinent updates will keep a Facebook page high on the list of common search engines, which is essential to business success in the Internet age. Notably, this attention to branding is useful in increasing a business's Search Engine Optimization (SEO) ranking as well as increasing viral commercial activity. Better SEO means more business.


Reputation

Facebook enables clients or prospective clients to have an interactive experience with a company. As the marketplace is flooded with new businesses, the Facebook platform provides away for clients to compare services and goods. Ultimately, maintaining an accessible presence via Facebook shows brand consistency and company vitality.

Watching the competitors has also never been easier, nor has developing creative ways for a brand to stand out. With easy access through a few clicks and scrolls, the entire competitive marketplace is available to peruse. To take advantage of this, many companies are hiring new designers and using their most effective branding teams to scour the Internet - and Facebook in particular - to scope out the competition. With Facebook, the brand can easily evolve, keep up with trends, and maintain corporate quality assurance.


Company Identity and Lifestyle Branding

Facebook branding allows businesses to not only increase site traffic, but also strengthen their corporate ideals in a fun, non-threatening, "lifestyle" based fashion. This is seen through the incorporation of not only a strong logo and identity, but also good content. A well-executed, highly visible brand presence on Facebook only heightens traditional marketing principles. For steadfast branding with a modern flair, Facebook brings virtual commerce to life.


About The Author: This is a guest post by Sarah Brooks from free people search. She is a Houston based freelance writer and blogger. Questions and comments can be sent to brooks.sarah23 @ gmail.com.

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Related articles:
Five Effortless Things Business Owners Can Do To Boost Their Social Media Presence
How Pinterest Can Help Your Small Business

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Stronger Branding: How To Brand Your Business Online

Why are Pepsi, Wal-Mart, and Apple all household names? In a word: branding. When you hear the name, you instantly have an image in your head of what the company stands for. You connect emotionally with the brand. Maybe you hate a particular company. Maybe you laugh when you hear a company's brand name. Maybe you feel an intense sense of joy. Whatever the response, the fact is that that company has gotten inside your head. Here's how to get inside the head of your customers with your own brand.


Create a Personality

When Apple founder Steve Jobs created the Macintosh, he wanted it to have a certain feel. He wanted people to think about the company a certain way. He couldn't do it alone, though. He had to hire managers, engineers, and other talent that would foster a community within the company. Eventually, his leadership and salesmanship created a defined culture and corporate personality.

Apple's personality was built from the ground up. Without a defined culture, no firm personality would have developed. Without that, there would be nothing special about the company today.

You might not like it, but its designs are loved by millions of people. Apple has created a personality of friendliness. Apple's customer service is one of the most competent and generous in the industry. The company also has earned a reputation for designing products that "just work." Jobs himself almost never wore the cliched "shirt and tie" during his later years with the company. Instead, he kept things very casual.

All of this led to the company being seen as industrial, yet "laid back." Friendly, but competent.

This is, in essence, what you must do with your company. Decide on a personality you want for your company and work to build the culture from within your organization. Hire the best talent you can afford. Eventually, the marketplace will start to see not just a corporation, but a living thing.


Create a Signature Look

Some companies have a signature look. Their products have consistency. For example, think about any major brand like McDonalds or Five Guys Burger and Fries. Think about Microsoft or Apple. Think about Coke and Pepsi. What do these companies have in common? They all have a strong brand image.

From the corporate colors to the way commercials are designed and shot to the way products are delivered to the marketplace, each company has carved out its own special look. Customers come to depend on that, and they associate the look with the brand.

In your own business, it's going to be important to flesh out a strong corporate image - a logo. Along with that, you'll want to incorporate corporate colors into your website, business cards and other marketing as well as your letterhead.

Basically, every form of communication, marketing, and product packaging (even products) needs to be doused in your brand image.


Develop Consistency In Communications

There's nothing worse than inconsistent communication. When your brand doesn't have consistency, your message is muddled. For example, let's say you have a letterhead with your logo and a few colors incorporated into the letter's design. But on your website, you have different colors - the same logo. You product packaging is a generic brown box with sans-serif font because that was the cheapest available at the printer.

This kind of message says that you're not in business for the long-haul, that you're not yet serious about your company, and that you just don't know what you're doing yet. It's hard to build trust, and relationships, with a company that hasn't got a firm sense of itself. Fix this, and half of your troubles will just disappear - overnight.


About The Author: Kurt Smith is a marketing consultant with a specialty for branding. He mainly writes for marketing blogs and websites. Visit the NextDayLenses.com and see how they reach out to their customer base.

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Related articles:
Adding Real Marketing Value To Brands
Taking Your Brand Social? Follow These Steps!
What Is A Brand And Why Is It Important
Brand Awareness: The Real Purpose Of SEO

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Adding Real Marketing Value To Brands

With all the buzz on internet marketing, every company seems to be doing it. Their aims? To gain more clients, open up opportunities for revenues, and even step their game up a notch.

Indeed, internet marketing can promise you these favorable circumstances. However with the onslaught of Search Engine Optimization, Link Building, and Content Marketing, the competition's beginning to be tough once more. Not only that, as the giant search engine is making ways to improve their searchability; internet marketing just gets more complicated than ever.

Even if you're a white hat advocate or a black hat enthusiast, there's still that question left unanswered: Are you really doing something for your client's brand?


At A Standstill

Internet marketing has been on the hype recently due to the increased exposure it brings to different products and services all over the globe. It is without a doubt one of the most effective marketing strategies. With online marketing, even startup companies can go with the flow against the giants in their corresponding industry.

Yes we do have different strategies employed to go neck to neck with the competitors of our clients, but we use them all the same. It all boils down into proper execution; the more Google loves your techniques, the more that you'll rank for a certain keyword that you're optimizing. This is where the marketing standstill begins; as you rank higher in the SERPs, you begin to gain more confidence. Thus, this confidence may either make or break your efforts; there is a tendency to neglect or taper down your previous efforts.


Real Marketing, Less Worries

The secret to making online marketing work is the outreach you have for your client. Remember that what you do reflects the vision and mission of the company you work for. Think of online marketing as your own business or company as well. You'd want to be a great company that offers the best of the best. A real business, with a real product or service aimed to deliver only the best to the consumers or target market.

Marketing is simply promoting your product or service in order to gather consumers who are interested to avail or purchase what you offer. They are attracted to what they see, what they hear about your project, and what could they benefit from using your product or by availing your service. It might sound easy, but if you aren't a pioneer in the industry, clawing your way up is a tedious task.

However, because of the digital age, there are innovations in marketing that can be utilized to easily promote our brand in the market; hence, marketing itself is a dynamic cycle that involves factors that greatly contribute to the welfare of one's brand.


The Brand Speaks for Itself

Let's cut down to the chase; the three most important things you need to establish are:

• Presence
  
  An online presence is what that matters. It all starts with a website, a blog, and social bookmarks. Establishing your online presence is a first step in getting yourself ready for the long link battle ahead. It pays to check back Google's Webmaster Guidelines and watch out for Google Webmasters updates on YouTube. Update your blog frequently with relevant and informative content. Do site optimization while considering the user experience of visitors.
  
  
• Authority
  
  Or the so-called off-site optimization, authority is one factor to back up your online presence. You may have an online presence, but you're still among the billions of web pages in the world without a voice. Proper outreach and rubbing shoulders with the influences in your industry can help leverage your status from zero to hero. As you share the fame from their followers, they will begin to follow you, too. It's an incorrigible and effective method to build authority and spread influence far and wide.
  
  
• Crowd Engagement
  
  Of course, if you are influential, you'll have your own set of followers. Followers who will promote your brand even without you saying so. They will be your mini-marketers; word will spread like a disease on outbreak. It's important that while you maintain your influence, you communicate with your audience through your social bookmarks. Hold a contest, share some Tweets, make some viral content; anything just to keep your audience entertained.

Keeping these three in mind and continually running, your efforts can definitely add value since your not just interacting with Google's robots or crawlers; you're dealing with REAL people, who would help you get REAL results in marketing your own brand.

Online marketing is not all about metrics and how many links you have gained; it's about the value you bring to your client and how useful your strategies were to increase their presence, authority, and engagement.

Now, ask yourself; are you adding real marketing value for your client's brand?


About The Author: Alexis Trinidad is the Head of Outreach for SEOteky Philippines and Martin Lindstrom - speaker, author and advisor.

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Related articles:
Taking Your Brand Social? Follow These Steps!
What Is A Brand And Why Is It Important
Brand Awareness: The Real Purpose Of SEO


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What Is A Brand And Why Is It Important

Brands have been with us for a long time, even before Mr Kellogg came up with his cornflakes. A brand says something about a company and their values as well as their product. Brands are important because they are a means of identification, a good brand is what makes a particular product stand out from the crowd and inspire customer loyalty. How do we develop a brand, and how do people distinguish one brand from another?


Brand Recognition

Most companies and some sole traders hire someone to help them develop a brand. In the first instance a brand is recognisable by its logo, letter head and name. While logo etc is an important part of brand development, they only make sense when they are allied to the real values of a company.

Logos only become memorable and recognisable when a client associates that logo with value, good customer service and consistency. How people feel about your brand when they see it in the shops or in an advertisement is a very important part of brand recognition. Customers view a brand's consistency as its promise of value and in delivering what the client needs.

The look and taste or feel of your brand, not only says something about you and your company, it also says something about the people who use it - why else would advertisements for certain products present the user as famous, stylish or knowledgeable?


Building a Brand

Building a brand takes time, money and hard work. You want your brand to have a good position within its particular field, and the way you do that is to appeal to a certain type of customer. A good brand has to have something that makes it stand out from the crowd.

Take a look at a few company websites; see what they say about themselves and whether that connects with their brand. You need to market your brand and people use strategies like giving free printed mugs and printed carrier bags that carry their logo.

A brand has to be something memorable if you want it to stick in the minds of your clients and keep them coming back. Many people say that it is little things that make them aficionados of a particular brand, swift and pleasant customer service gives you return customers and helps in building your brand.

Over time people come to expect certain things from a brand. You only have to look at how some of Coca Cola's fairly recent innovations have actually deflected from their brand. Customers got something they were not expecting and didn't feel comfortable with. People are loyal to a brand because they associate it with particular things and feel comfortable with it.


Why is Your Brand Important?

Done properly and marketed consistently, your brand says something about you and your company that the clients like. Your brand is important because it affects your sales and position in the market. People associate your brand with either good or bad customer service and with a particular taste, smell or feel. People like what they like, and that includes brand consistency, they like to know what they are getting.


About The Author: Wayne Barker writes for UK Print Price, experts in promotional printed items and promotional gifts.

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Related articles:
Brand Awareness: The Real Purpose Of SEO


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Brand Awareness: The Real Purpose Of SEO

For those tasked with handling a company's online marketing, there is all too often an over-focus on gaining in search engine rankings. This of course, is a very important pillar of online marketing efforts, but there are larger gains to be made in terms of marketing an overall brand that digital marketing is a perfect avenue for. Value-wise these opportunities afford marketers a chance to see huge returns for small investments of human capital. By incorporating an entire branding strategy as a focus of online marketing efforts, managers can grow and cement market positions throughout a number of targeted demographics.


Branding: The Most Important Part of Marketing

Branding is intrinsic in the success of any product or business. It is the public face and creed of a product or service and can create lasting loyalties and positions in markets. Every product or service you have ever used has a narrative associated with that brand. From the timeless Americana of Wendy's burgers to the young, hip culture of Mountain Dew. Branding is the sculpting of a business image, and is done through print, radio, TV and internet ads, alongside newer social networking platforms. A well done branding campaign cements yourself in the consumer's mind easier, and also gives them a reason to choose your product over another. A great example of this is organic fruits and vegetables. Side-by-side they appear exactly the same as non-organic goods, yet they cost markedly more. However, it is the story associated with the organic produce that convinces the buyer to pay more for the organic items.

The biggest key to a successful branding campaign is to have a simple, concise message. The simpler the better, as to prevent any misinterpretations by the public at large. An easy self-assessment can usually help marketing managers find the best positioning of the brand. Begin by asking yourself about what a customer would want when shopping for your service or product. What integral factors would a consumer most focus on when assessing a company in your niche from a distance? By brainstorming answers to this question you will give yourself a foundation upon which to build your branding strategy.


The Billboard in the Woods

Anyone with any experience in SEO has dealt with clients who wouldn't make aesthetic changes to a site to help their rankings. Often saying their site design is beautiful and any changes to it would hurt their business. Despite typically having no empirical evidence on hand to advance this claim, this inherent belief is almost impossible overcome with clients. This is the equivalent of putting up the most ornate, informational billboard in the world, in the middle of a dense forest. Despite being a wonderfully crafted item it is doing a business no good for no one is there to see it. A visual "if a tree falls..." if you will.

This is a trap to avoid with your branding, make sure people know this is the image you are looking to set forth. Once your management team has agreed on a branding strategy the next step in the process is to ensure that this image permeates every communique the company creates. In doing so you create a solidarity with the consumer and your marketing platforms. By having this simple similarity throughout marketing platforms you increase your brand awareness which in turn increases the retention rates of your ad campaigns in general. This connection is the key to making large gains through a marketing campaign.


Branding Through the Web

Many avenues with high-volume reach are very expensive in comparison to the possibilities of a well-thought online branding campaign. Even better, an online campaign carries with it the benefits of demographic targeting. Thus more of your ad dollars go towards the demographics you prefer. Couple this with the ability to fit online platforms to your branding strategy and the gains here by far have the highest ROI.

Sites like YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest (among others) all allow for the personalization of the company's page/channel/board to varying degrees. Take advantage of this personalization and use it to advance your brand strategy. Timeline photos on Facebook, fitting skins for Youtube Channels, careful attention to Pinterest images, and intelligent use of trending hashtags are all places to start with advancing your brand and thus awareness. If done correctly, these simple branding techniques can even act as linkbait and thus improve search engine rankings passively. Also, the content of your actual posts and messages also reinforces a brand strategy as well. By displaying different affiliations and actions related with the brand, a marketer solidifies the association of their product and a particular avenue of society.


Branding Power

Almost all companies recognize that they need an empowered image or brand message to help stand apart from the cacophony of competitors in their industry. To do so it requires consistency and a simple, strong message. To help sustain this consistency, the brand strategy must be implemented across all online channels and platforms. By taking advantage of the personalization of a page/channel and controlling the messages you put out to conform with an overall branding strategy you can expect to see great retention levels, staying power, and stand out from the competition even better. All because you have stayed on message with your consumer base.


About The Author: Thomas Farley is the CMO of a Dumpster Rental Company, he has been helping to implement large-scale branding strategies for over five years in various industries. You can follow him on twitter @nerf_mittens.

Do you like this article by Thomas Farley? Please let Thomas and myself know by leaving us your valued comments below.


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