Building a Brand through Social Media - IM Spring Break

Written on April 8, 2009 – 3:52 pm | by Shana Albert |

If you wanted to know how to use Build a Brand Using Social Media then this session was the one to attend. Jeff Quipp, Brian Chappell and Li Evans were an amazing combo…. Together they were the perfect mixture of How-to, tips, suggestions, visuals….. absolutely all the facts needed to give you a good start in Branding.

Jeff Quipp discussed the How-to’s of branding by going into great detail on what Social Media can do for Branding. Brian Chapell added his thoughts and tips on monitoring your brand and Li Evans finished off this amazing session on Building a Brand with video and photo sharing.

All three speakers made sure to cover everything from the most basic to more complex. They gave us the social media recipe to whip up the best branding dish for any company…. large or small.

Here how it all went down…

First up was Jeff Quipp

Define Your Brand - How do you want your Brand to stand out?

Many Businesses often wonder what Social Media can do for them. Jeff did a really great job at explaining this in great detail.

Social Media Helps….

Create awareness of the Brand
Communicate the Company’s / Product’s Key Messages
Instill trust in the brand
Naturally propagate the crafted message(s)

He goes on to explain the 3 Steps to Branding via Social Media

List the Key Messages
Determine the best content formats to convey your messages (video, audio, text)
Craft the content - Must support the key messages you wish to convey…. at least for branding purposes.
- "just in time" blogging
- make the news- do something sensational!
- resource/educational posts
- the message must reflect positively on the company!!!
Determine the best Social Media to Employ
Test the Content
- If the Key is in getting others to carry the chosen messages forward…. test it first (if its not news)
  - StumbleUpon Ads
Refine content and retest

Using the solicited feedback, refine the content. Retest, again soliciting feedback.

Network to Promote
- Get involved in the chosen social media
- start befriending others and promoting their GOOD content
- Be sure to promote good content!!!
- Seek out key influencers and particularly support their stuff.

Brian Chappell was up next

Brian immediately reminds us that "You have to make sure you know your target audience…. otherwise you are wasting your time. Social Media is not a salt shaker. You can’t apply social media marketing tactic onto regular strategies to see success. Social media can not be an after thought…. has to be thought of at the core of marketing initiatives."

You need to be creative…. there is no cookie cutter approach to Social Media.

Brian urges us to extend our brand off of our site…. secure names elsewhere so no one tarnishes our brand. He suggests Streko’s site CheckUserNames.com as a good place to do this.

Must Monitor & Interact in Real time

Social Monitoring Benefits:

Product Development
Customer Service
SEO / Marketing Initiatives
Monitor your Competition

Don’t forget about SEO

Empower your customers - Let them build the ad, create your idea and implement new product offerings.

Next up was Li Evans

Building a brand through Social Media - Through Video & Photo Sharing

I love that Li went into using Video & Photo Sharing to build a brand through Social Media. For someone like me who is very visual I can understand the importance of branding this way.

Li starts with, "So you have serps and links….now what? How do you get people to remember you?"

Branding is essential. Even your avatar is important. Li reminds us that our avatar is who we are…this is how people relate to us.

Tips

Make sure your avatar is your brand.
Make sure your pictures are saying things about your brand
Start your own group and encourage people to share their pictures / videos and join the group.
Extend your brand and talk to the people that are part of the group.
Bring influence of the brand into the picture.
Don’t forget the Tags!!
Keep your marketing consistent - ex. icon / logo on videos and photos
Brand your Channels - w/ consistent colors
No matter how small your company Branding Matters!!
Don’t forget about branding even in Local.
Optimizing is fundamental
Research where your audience is.

**YouTube - YouTube beats Yahoo for searches. That’s pretty cool. And, it shows us how important videos can be in Search.**

Li ends with saying that “Branding and Being Social Is Key”

So, as you can see it was another amazing session at IM Spring Break. Follow the Branding Recipe that Jeff Quipp, Brian Chappell and Li Evans suggested and I have no doubt you will be off to a great start with using Social Media for Branding purposes.

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2 Responses to “Building a Brand through Social Media - IM Spring Break”
By Matt Siltala on Apr 8, 2009 | Reply

Another great post here! I am amazed at the power of brand building with social media these days. For those who are afraid - you are going to be left behind. Great write up - Man I wish I could have been there!
By Mike Griffin on Apr 10, 2009 | Reply

Great article. The statement that YouTube beats Yahoo in searches is pretty interesting. I would suppose though that more people would look at Yahoo for a search with the intent to buy than to do a similar search on YouTube with intent to buy.

Even if my supposition is correct, that is a great piece of information and video does move traffic and it does sell.