Yael and I were asked to speak five to 10 minutes on social media at a networking breakfast. With such a short amount of time to give the huge subject of social media, we decided to go back to the source.
Effective social media marketing on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn requires an effective website. And an effective website requires a clear brand to make you and your business stand out.
When we talked of brand, we meant what’s called your Unique Selling Proposition — your USP. It’s what you offer to your niche.
And let’s first talk about niche — as in taking a large business area and narrowing it.
What’s interesting is that narrowing your niche may seem as if you’ll attract less business, but in fact you will probably attract more.
For example, if we say that our company is a marketing company — while lots of people need marketing for their businesses, there’s nothing specific for people to be attracted to.
But if we say our company helps clients use social media to attract business — we are only appealing to people who want this help, but these people are attracted by our offer of what they are looking for.
When you are working on your brand definition, think of it as a tagline for your prospective clients or customers. For example, think of Subway’s “Eat Fresh” – Subway wants you to know that its sandwiches use fresh ingredients.
Let’s say you have a dry cleaning business. You might say that your brand definition is: “We clean your clothes.” That’s a statement of what you do.
But a much better brand tagline would be: ‘We treat your clothes as if they were our own.” This is a benefit to you — the cleaner promises to be careful with your favorite suit or tablecloth.
It takes some time to get used to this kind of thinking. And sometimes it takes a while to work through what you think your brand might be until you discover what your brand truly is.
FYI — If you need help identifying your brand, read about our one-hour branding consultation.
© 2010 Miller Mosaic, LLC
Phyllis Zimbler Miller (@ZimblerMiller on Twitter) and her business partner Yael K. Miller (@MillerMosaicLLC on Twitter) are committed to taking the mystery out of social media so that individuals and companies can utilize the power of social media to attract more business.
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