Digital Marketing can be a blast and a bust. Marketing through digital platforms is important in order to expand your business and overall brand and propel your business to its highest success. Here begins a three part series for what obstacles your business may face, and the solutions that will save you.
Define Yourself and Generate Awareness
Obstacle: Defining yourself and your brand can be the most difficult step in a digital marketing strategy. If you are going to use a brand statement that says, “We are unique and innovative” then you have to publish content and create a brand that is actually that.
Solution: It is best to start with “who you are” and “where you want to go.” Define your brand using professional and ethical values that you stand by using a national code of ethics or your own personal set. Establish your foundation standards and generate awareness about your brand using those keys values to build credibility and trust.
Research the Competition
Obstacle: As a second step in digital marketing, knowing who and what competition you are up against, and how to separate your brand as a bigger and better option can be intimidating. How do they reach their customers? Is it effective? How can you do it better?
Solution: Use the competitions digital marketing to enhance your own. Research will become your best weapon when battling the competition. Key ways to research the competition would be gathering customer interests through Facebook activity, Twitter Audiences, and Google + Influences. Repeat this research every three to six months to keep up with your competition.
- Facebook Activity
Facebook is useful to search what pages businesses are pairing with to gain their customer’s attention. For example, if your company has to do with jeans and apparel, search pages that associate. Simple enough, right? Like or follow the page so that customers can then see your brand as a valuable option.
- Twitter Audiences
Hashtags are clickable, and they redirect Twitter users to a dedicated page. Enter a competitor’s brand profile name in the search box under “Analyze a Twitter Profile.” On the results page, check out which hashtags are working for this brand and use some of them in your posts.
- Google + Influences
Google Ripples is an integrated feature that is beneficial when researching your competition. First find a post that says “Shared Publicly” by your competition. Choose the drop-down arrow in the upper-right corner of the post and choose “View Ripples.” Each ripple represents a public share of the post and can be tracked. The bigger the ripple, the greater the influence.