MediaVision Blog : Search Engine Marketing

I’ve read many posts on the importance of social media and getting into the “click”, as well as how to get into the “click” and what to do when inside the “click” of a desired community. Now, I agree with most of them (as I’m an easily persuadable person), so I thought I would add my 2 cents worth on the methods and importance of creating brand awareness using the “clicks”.

There is an online community for everything you could possibly think of, from rabbit owners and their furry friends to skateboarders and well, their skateboarding, and one of my personal favorites; the psy trance community. Your choice of community depends on which ones best match the company you’re promoting. In this post I’m going to discuss two ways of creating brand awareness for a company.

For the first method let me start off by saying its better suited for small to medium sized companies, if you were working with a massive corporation this wouldn’t be a method to follow exactly. It’s a little risky, it needs 100% attention and is rather direct, but big risk equals big reward. Some research needs to be done on which community is best suited to a particular company. For certain companies the choice will be rather obvious, while others may need a little more digging. If the target community is small or rather niche, it doesn’t mean that there is only a single forum or blog available for it. Anyone that knows just a little about the internet knows that it’s HUGE! And so are the number of forums, blogs and everything else regarding online communities.

Building a profile and interacting as a company can be risky. It’s best to use the company’s name and logo. Jordan Kasteler, for example, interacts on a number of social media networks, including Sphinn, SEOmoz, Twitter, and MyBlog. He uses his company name (Utah SEO Pro) and logo in all of these. Now, the advantages of interacting in communities this way include advertising the business name and logo and establishing the company within its niche. It also gives a certain approachable feel to the company. The disadvantages, however, can be severe. Having a single person interact in a community on behalf of a company brings in major risks, as personal opinions may come into play.

When acting on behalf of a company there isn’t any space for opinion, no matter how strongly one feels about certain issues. All interaction has to be for the best interests of the company or else its reputation takes a knock, but it can be soooo hard. They are often times when one might think the company will benefit from a certain blog post or comment that disagrees with certain statements, but which then backfires. When interacting with a community on behalf of a company there are certain (and very strict) guidelines that need to be adhered to; whatever is written needs to be fact, there can’t be any room for error, as mistakes might come back and bite the company in its…well you know where. Disagreements will always occur, but as long as all the different factors are covered and the company comes out on top, it’s all good.

The second method is a little more on the safe side. The company’s name isn’t ever really put at risk, but there is still a bit of coverage for it. It involves having each member of the company interact socially by writing posts (on the company blog, maybe), participating in forums, and reading industry blogs while making comments etc. This way, the company isn’t held liable for each employee’s opinions because the employees are interacting on their own behalf. Obviously the employees should use their own discretion here, but slating competitors or throwing around abuse would not act favorably for the company’s brand.

The majority of the community sites give an option for adding a website or blog, so that interested viewers can find out a little more about them. How does this benefit the brand? By getting each of the employees interacting in industry communities to add the company’s blog or site to their profile, they create an online presence and raise brand awareness. For further motivation, each employee that writes posts or interacts effectively on the communities can link back to a page on the blog or site that is devoted to them. An example would be a team member page where there is a list of blog posts that they have written, as well as an introduction or little bio about the person. This way the employee can attract positive attention to themselves, as well as the company.

In my opinion this is the cheapest and most effective method for creating brand awareness online, it also allows company employees to get their names known online, which encourages loyalty to the company. I’m sure there are many different ways of creating brand awareness through social communities, and if any of you guys have other methods and wouldn’t mind sharing them, please feel free.