Raising your profile
Reputation is very important! Think about your last significant or expensive purchase.
How did you decide what to buy? If you’re like most people, you probably made your decision based on the reputation of the brand or organisation.
Now imagine you’re the company that is trying to build a powerful reputation. How do you establish that reputation to meet your projected sales targets?
One way to build your brand reputation is to make your brand highly visible and raise your profile. You need to encourage people to talk positively about you, your products and your business. You want to make a lasting impression as quickly as you can, so that people immediately think of you and your products when they are looking for the things you provide.
You can do this through social media and publicity, which can both generate dramatic results. Follow a few simple rules to ensure it’s you and your brand that is being talked about, most positively and most often!
- Make yourself newsworthy. Find an angle or something which immediately sets you apart from your competitors. Something that most people within your target market will genuinely find interesting. Look to add useful commentaries or to post material which people can engage with on social media.
- Get to know editors and publications which target your customers – learn what they want. Get to know the relevant influencers on social media and follow people who have built a solid following among your target market. Take part and engage and be active.
- Research the editorial calendar and style of content for your chosen media. See when posts to social media are most active and when the most interaction occurs. Identify material which is most relevant and which is generating the most interest and engagement.
- Prepare an interesting and newsworthy press release. Prepare a blog or post which will encourage people to engage and share it. Make sure it is well-written and follows the accepted rules. If you are sharing pre-existing content, make sure you add something worthwhile to the commentary – don’t just push content around.
- Get your news out in a timely manner. Don’t miss the opportunity to respond when the time is right. Don’t be left behind. Monitor and track what’s being said and look to identify opportunities in advance – think ahead about how you will respond.
- Follow up the most important releases you sent – seek feedback and ask what can be done to improve them. Follow up your posts to social media, thank people for sharing and acknowledge feedback, comments and retweets etc.
- Make the most of any opportunity to be interviewed or quoted. Try to capitalise on any opportunity to position yourself as an industry expert. Identify the influencers in your groups and follow accordingly – you may gain credibility by following, and being followed by, the right people.
- Utilise both online and offline tools and integrate where possible. There are that many good and free print and social media tools available to simplify the process – take advantage of them.
- Don’t send news that will have editors yawning or that is inappropriate for their publication (i.e. a blanket press release to ten publications all with different needs and readerships)! Don’t post if you’ve not got something relevant to say, something worthwhile to contribute or an interesting comment to make – fluff will lose interest; be meaningful, timely and relevant.
A final point to note is that your message must be “fit for platform” – more on this in another blog soon but it basically means follow the etiquette for your chosen media. Each media has its own rules and ways of doing things – try not to violate or disregard these as it will show a basic lack of care and may even annoy or offend the very people you are trying to reach out to.
For more information or to talk about raising your profile to help you to win more profitable business, contact Marie on 0161 278 2788 or email mmc@elite-edge.co.uk