What may be killing your brand and how to fix it

Your brand is everything. More specifically, the perception of your brand is everything. Without the proper branding efforts, all of your SEO and social media marketing efforts will be a waste of time. Your branding efforts are the entirety of all of your marketing efforts from your logo and slogan to the colors and flow of your website to your customer service. Your mission, your vision for the company is the brand itself but too often brands, and companies, find themselves struggling to repair the damage caused by employees.

• Word of mouth is crucial to your success out at your social media platforms. In fact, some recent research suggests that over 70% of people polled will spread the good word after a satisfying interaction with a brand. For your social media branding and marketing plans to succeed, there must be an overall company plan and everyone needs to know about it. The most successful brands have a social media handbook or rule book that everyone in the company must follow if they want to post to any of the company’s social media platforms. As a general rule of thumb, however, those allowed to post to the company’s social media sites should be extremely limited to a well trained and experienced few.
• In this same vein, your business needs to stay atop what your employees post at their own social media pages. They must be made to understand that whatever they post will reflect on the company. In fact, when hiring decisions are made these days, one of the first places hiring managers or owners go to is the person’s Facebook page. So often employees have damaged a company with personal posts that have gone unchallenged. Many companies are consistently monitoring their employee’s personal social media posts to ensure that potential damage doesn’t happen.
• Finally, The greatest brand killer of them all raises its ugly head – bad customer service. This is mainly the fault of poor or no training. That is truly the key to your branding success – training. Again, keep those responsible for customer service to a select and trained few but also recognize that every employee is a brand ambassador for you. Your customer service reps must be as highly trained as your sales teams. Your employees need to know that every time they open their mouth it is a reflection on the company. Train them, work with them, encourage them, get them fired up. If everyone is in on what it takes to make your brand, and your company, great then you will soon have a well oiled machine that will drive traffic and boost revenue.

-Written by Kevin Sawyer