Blogging and SEO and Social Media Tips

Online branding is really a form of art. You’re painting your image. You’re projecting a picture of what you do, who you are, what you want to say to the world. Just as any artist would need tools for colored pencil art, the same is true for an online brander. Luckily, there are some fabulous tools out there that can be utilized quite effectively in order to get your online branding done right.

Article Directories – Directories created specifically for articles provide an untapped arsenal for those who are anxious to spread the news of their brand online. Typically, these directories do not charge for people to upload their informational articles with backlinks to their websites. Since article directories have a huge amount of content on them, with countless links, they often pull a lot of weight with the search engines. This means your articles have a great chance of ranking on the search engines and therefore helping you to spread your online branding. Some great examples of these sites would include Ezines, Scribd, TheFreeLibrary and Hubpages.

Video Sites – Not everyone who surfs the net is a fan of reading. Videos can get through to some target demographics much more effectively than articles can. Online branders who take the time to create short, informational videos that incorporate their brand can dominate the search engines and their target market. Uploading these informational videos to sites such as YouTube, GoogleVideo and MySpace TV can spread the word about your brand to groups of people who might not have ever read your articles online. (more…)

When people talk about online branding, it takes me back to my ninth grade English class. My eccentric English teacher would continually ask us what the first rule of writing was.   Since it was hard to ignore her constant challenge on the subject, we always responded with the answer she was looking for. “Determine your audience.” Well, the same rule applies to online branding.

You have to determine your target demographic. For instance, if you’re running the retirement community Prescott, AZ location, it’s pretty safe to say your target demographic is senior citizens or those nearing retirement age. A target demographic is a specific group of people who all have similar characterizations pertaining to age, race, gender, income, etc. Your target demographic should be determined according to what your product or services are as well as what type of people are most likely to respond to them. (more…)

Online branding is not like traditional branding. Online branding is a whole new world. In this world, no longer do brands need to be limited to products, corporations or celebrities. Nowadays, online branding has the potential to work masterfully not only for a business, but for the business owner, him or herself. People love to invest in products that have a face behind them. That’s where personal online branding comes in and that’s why you have to decide if your online branding efforts should gear towards branding you or your business.

After you have gathered together the essentials for embarking upon online branding, no doubt a strategy is the next thing that is needed. Those who develop the steps in their strategy that they are going to take are those who will be prepared to see their online branding through. The important distinction to make before you go any further than planning your strategy, though, is to decipher which would be a smarter entity to brand – you or your business (more…)

A strategy for online branding is as important as protecting your cement basement floor with concrete sealer. Every task should begin with a strategy; whether it is how you’re going to beat your opponent at chess, earn enough money for your kids’ college fund or in this case, develop your online branding.  Bypassing a strategy and practicing trial and error is equivalent to stumbling around in the dark until you finally find what you were looking for. Sometimes, those stumbling in the dark never find what they are looking for. That’s why it’s essential to have a strategy first… unless you enjoy the suspense of whether or not you’ll ever get to your goal.

So what is a strategy and how do you begin building one for your online branding efforts? First, a strategy is the act of marking out the steps you will need to take in order to get to your goal. Begin with the promise of what it is you want your company to be considered. What is your mantra? What will you be known as? What promise would you like your brand to deliver?
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It’s important to recognize the essentials needed in order to get your preferred results. This not only applies to online branding, but to any task with an end goal. After all, Midwest farmers don’t harvest their crops without first recognizing that they need to plan out their fields and what equipment they’ll use on their farms in Iowa, Kansas and Oklahoma. Rocky mountain construction companies don’t build Utah homes without first pouring the concrete and identifying what other materials will be used. Just as someone with any project that has an end-goal needs to recognize the essentials, so is the same for those on the quest to online branding.

So what are the essentials of online branding? The answer is as simple as asking these questions: what tools do all the online branding pros utilize to build their online brands? Where do you want to get to with your brand? What do you want to be known for and more importantly, who do you want to be known to? (more…)