Your brand is what causes people to think of you above all the competition. For example, what do you think about when I say Kleenex? Tissues, of course. The brand name has almost become generic for tissues. What you want to do with branding your online business is to make people think of you when they see or hear a certain logo, icon or phrase just as people think of Kleenex when they think of facial tissues. We help you accomplish that by utilizing social networking and mobile apps to create a buzz about your brand. c

What is Social Networking?

It used to be that the only reliable way to find information online was to use a search engine.

However, with the advent of what we call Web 2.0 (interactive, dynamic websites that promote or operate as social networks), people can now easily find information and websites that other human beings recommend.

One way of doing this is through “social bookmarking”. Websites like Del.icio.us, Digg, and Furl allow users to share their personal favorites (bookmarks) with others. Users tag each bookmarked website with the keywords they feel are most applicable.

Now, instead of using a search engine to find information, people can search tags that will display all websites bookmarked with that specific tag. This amounts to a human referral or vote for the site and its relevance to the subject being searched.

Other versions of social networking include blogging social networks – primarily Technorati.com. Technorati indexes blogs based on the amount of incoming links those blogs have, as well as the tags associated with their posts.

But the most popular social networks are Facebook, MySpace and Twitter. Though these social giants enjoy millions of unique visitors every month, few businesses or website owners have thought to penetrate this incredible resource.

How Will Social Networking Help to Brand my Business?

Most website owners do not have a clue about the power of social media and how it will help their websites or mobile marketing. Take a good look at the following statistics from digital buzz blog and prepare to be amazed:

In 2012:

• An average Facebook user has 130 friends and likes 80 pages
• 56% of consumer say that they are more likely recommend a brand after becoming a fan
• Each week on Facebook more than 3.5 billion pieces of content are shared
• 34% of marketers have generated leads using Twitter
• 55% of Twitter users access the platform via their mobile
• 30% of B2B marketers are spending million of dollars each year on social media marketing
• Nearly 30% of these [business] users are not tracking the impact of this marketing
• 20% of Google searches each day have never been searched for before
• Out of the 6 billion people on the planet 4.8 billion have a mobile [device] and only 4.2 billion own a toothbrush

This is a staggering list of statistics and clearly illustrates the powerful potential of Social media for branding your business.

It is also the best traffic-generating medium available to day. Experts say that social networks are starting to eclipse traffic from the major search engines Yahoo!, Bing and Google.

So if your company is not present on any of the major social networks, you’re missing out on the easiest, fastest way to access the majority of internet users.

How Do I Get Involved in Social Networking?

Working with social sites is similar to working with the media. Give them a good enough story, secret, tip, or resource that they can sink their teeth into and you’ll have an army of talkers spreading the word about you and your business.

And this translates into referrals, which convert into sales on an average of 667% better than cold leads (search engine results). So even if you reach less people through social networking, your conversions will be far higher.

We target various social networks through a variety of methods including:

Article or Blog Promotion

We manage several blogs for our various clients (as well as article pages) that contain posts written purely to capture the imagination and interest of our client’s target market. For example, if you sell pet beds, gifts, and items, we will develop a series of blog posts or articles that discuss a controversial or “hot off the press” topic that pet lovers either find highly valuable as an information resource, or highly intriguing or emotionally stimulating. We will then promote it to various social bookmarking and blogging networks, as well as popular bloggers – who will then circulate the story and generate traffic back to your website.

Social Promotion

Particularly effective for clients who target teens, young adults, musicians, or other highly active social groups, we implement social promotion campaigns on networks like FaceBook, Twitter, Squidoo, and CraigsList to spread the word about your business. Even if your business does not target the “facebook crowd,” we can almost always devise a creative campaign to get the net buzzing about you – thus branding your business for huge market potential.

Branding your Business with Mobile Apps

If social networking is the powerhouse for getting people to talking about your brand on the web – mobile apps are the way to get them to using your brand. Almost everyone owns some kind of mobile device – a smartphone, tablet, ipad, etc.;  4.8 million people are using them on a daily basis. This is huge. Even with a small percentage of those users downloading an app branded just for your business, you can begin to engage users in a way that was heretofore unknown.

Imagine being able to send a push notice about an upcoming sale or event to your customers. Think of the potential of inviting them to visit your place of business to redeem a QR code coupon for goods or services. Can you see the potential this gives you to engage your customers in repeat business – over and over again?

The mobile app business is at the threshold of taking over the way people do business – and you need to get in on the ground floor with your brand. We can help you by creating an app for your business and showing you how to get your clients to download and use the app, thus increading your traffic and building good long-term relationships.

Contact us today for more information about branding your business with social networking and/or mobile apps.