You have your new website and you have a brand that you wish to sell. How do you do it? What are the best ways for you to get your message across?
The obvious method of getting discovered which most people think about is SEO or Search Engine Optimization. There are never any guarantees when it comes to SEO, but there is one thing that stands out from the rest. The phrase “Content is King” has been mentioned by many professionals in the industry and with good reason. It really does work.
So, we have the start of something. Great content is the key. However, you must understand that there are countless other site owners that also have great content and they are all vying for attention. What if you don’t have a dedicated website to call your own? What other ways can you get your message across?
It has long been understood that social media (and by that I mean sites like Facebook, Twitter and Google+) are a great place for building your brand. Facebook, Google+ and Twitter all allow you to create brand pages. There are differences though.
For instance, if you try to visit a Facebook page and you do not have an account, you will be unable to view the content. I know a lot of people that don’t use Facebook and that have no intention of ever using it. How will you get your message to them? Google+ and Twitter don’t have that issue. You can view content on their sites with or without an account. So it is important to decide who your market is and whether your choice of social media platform is the right one for you. Who will you be excluding if you rely too heavily on one platform?
The answer to this is of course to use them all. That is if you have time. I have spoken to many business owners who simply don’t have the time to dedicate to even one social media site, let alone three or more. So again, the choices you make here are really important.
Twitter and Google+ are great for broadcasting messages to a wide audience. Twitter is great for short sentences and sound bites, but is hampered if your message is any more complex than the 140 character limit it imposes. Google+ on the other hand let’s you create much more in depth messages and (speaking from personal experience) generates a lot more engagement from the people reading them.
Did you notice the new things on the Google search site? They have recently integrated Google+ with search, meaning greater significance will be given to a site if people have used the Google +1 button to ‘like’ a site.
All of this points to the important role that Google+ has to play in the future.
But…
…there is more. Content may be King (either on your own site, or on a social media site), but it should never replace the traditional methods of building your brand. That is advertising, personal recommendations, face to face networking, etcetera. If you made a chair with one leg, it would fall over. So build your chairs with more than one leg. The more the better.