Relationship Marketing | Build Your Online Business

Yesterday we talked about 5 personal action steps that are essential to building your brand for success online.  Today we will focus on how to build your brand in practical ways.  What are some of the action steps you should start taking, if you have not done so already, to build your reputation online?  This is only a brief list, but it covers 4 of the most readily available steps you can take and they are all free. These are also the first four steps that were recommended to me by my Mentors and have proven to be very effective.

1)  Join Social Networking Sites and set up a well thought out Profile on each.  You want to be authentic but reveal only what is relevant and in keeping with the brand you are building.  The sites most frequently recommended are:  Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

2)  Blogs:  You may start your own blog, which is one of the easiest way to become known online.  If that seems daunting at first or you don't have the know-how, start by leaving comments on blogs in the category you will be focusing on initially.  Leave meaningful comments that add to the conversation and demonstrate your knowledge or expertise. People in your target audience will begin to know you and associate your name with quality information.  You will usually be asked to leave your website address when you leave a comment.  If you do not have a blog or other static website set up, use an addresses from one of your social networking sites, for example, your Facebook or LinkedIn address.

3)  Article Writing: If you like to write and are willing to share your knowledge then article writing is an effective way to build your brand.  There are many Article Directors on the Internet and you can easily find these through Google, but the only one I've used is Ezinearticles.com.  It's very easy to join and start submitting articles, being careful to follow their guidelines to avoid rejection.  These articles can be as short as 250 words.  At the end of each article is one of the most valuable ‘real estate' online – your Resource Box, which allows you to include information about yourself that is relevant to the articles you've written as well as include links to your blog, if you have one, or to your profile.

4)  Book Reviews:  When we read a good book we are usually excited about sharing the valuable information with others.  When you read books that are specific to your area of expertise, you have the opportunity to do book reviews for both Amazon and Barnes & Noble.  There may be others, but those I personally know of.  This benefits you significantly because you first create a profile, then by providing a thoughtful and beneficial review you add value to other readers and enhance your position as an expert.  These reviews are also indexed by the search engines, which further builds your brand.

5)  Be consistent.  A hit and miss attitude does not contribute to success; consistency does.

As you work to build your brand, keep track of your progress towards your goals and be prepared to add further steps or make adjustments to align your vision with your goals.

Simply put your brand is basically the reputation that you build through your online activities over a period of time and how people think of you when they see or hear your name and or the name of your main website.  You will first have to determine who you are, what sets you apart from everyone else and what image you want the world to have of you through your online activities, then work towards developing and building your brand for online success.

This can be challenging because for the most part your brand will be conveyed through words that more often than not appear on a computer screen.  In face to face contact there are opportunities for your emotions and thoughts to be expressed through conversations, body language, eye contact and voice inflection, among others.  On the other hand, being able to convey warmth, compassion, understanding, a positive attitude, etc. becomes a lot more complex. Following are just some of the personal action steps you can take to build your brand for success:

Personal Action Steps –

1)  Do you have a vision of where you want to be? What are your short-term and long-term goals?  You must identify your vision and determine what your goals are and set dates or time periods for their achievement.

2)  You must have a purpose for doing what you do and this purpose must align with you values for true satisfaction.

3)  Identify your particular strengths and amplify these to set you apart.

4)  Determine what online tools you will use to be most effective in building your brand.

5)  Set up a Marketing Plan that will maximize your work to build your brand, without which you are only doing a half of what's required to maintain success in your online business

In my next post, we will consider practical steps that can be taken to build your brand for online success.