Are you achieving enough value for what you produce online? In a recent post by Sarah Prout called “5 Tips for Authentic Connection”, she has listed 5 great tips for achieving online business success by pushing your own personal vibrancy into what you produce.
Sarah’s 5 tips (“write copy in your own words”, “add value”, “get involved”, “know when to outsource” and lastly “collect inspiration”) are without a doubt some of the cornerstones of building your business into a successful online brand.
I’d like to add the following 3 tips to Sarah’s list that in my experience plays a huge role in online business success.
1. Choose Your Brand
You must choose to either promote yourself (by name) or your business name as your brand, not both. Hereby I’m not saying you can’t use both, but it will be to your advantage to choose one primary brand. The key here is to take in account what your goals are and in what direction you want to take your business.
John Jantsch of Ducttapemarketing.com posted an interesting blog post in this regard named “Your Business is Worthless if it Depends on You”. In it he presses the point of the importance of knowing where you want your business to be in 5 or 10 years.
I think many people start promoting themselves and their name as “the business”, because it’s easier since they themselves already know of who they are and what they stand for. Also in the social media world, people tend to relate better to a person, than a brand.
There are numerous examples of successful brands finding success in social media such as ProBlogger (Darren Rowse) and CopyBlogger (Brian Clark) to name a few.
So it’s a good idea to weigh your options, before locking in on one thing or the other.
2. Brain Trust
Whichever social media platform you choose, it’s sure to be filled with people that can help you find success in your business as you can help them find success in theirs. In this vast pools of wisdom that are social media websites find people that operate in your business area and then make a point to learn what they know through their posts, their website, their feed, wherever they express their thoughts. Also remember Sarah’s third point of getting involved, interacting, asking questions and providing information.
3. Go offline
Offline promotion and conferences, meet-ups (or tweet-ups) or any kind of real life meet-and-greet, is a great way to get your online business out in the open, seen and talked about. Meeting your social media relationships and building upon them in person, will not only cement your relationship, but also open up for new opportunities that transcends the reach of online social media platforms.
As Sarah also points out in the post, utilizing social media to achieve worthwhile business results is about taking action, surrounding yourself with the right people, adding value to your business market and letting as much inspirational information encompass you and your business to create the perfect online environment to grow your business.
What social media websites do you find are the best fit for your business? Do you have any social media online business success stories, you’d like to share? Please feel free to leave comments below.
