New Years has come and gone, and you’ve likely made a decision to work out more, or eat healthier… it’s always the things we know we should be doing, in the name of self-improvement. Why not consider the same for your brand? Here are three things all brands should be doing in 2010:
1. Create a Mobile Version of Your Website
We’ve been talking about mobile for a while, yet a surprisingly small number of brands have created mobile versions of their websites. With the iPhone pushing up mobile Internet usage dramatically, and new phones following the lead, 2010 will be a critical year to get your mobile website up and running. Here are a few things to consider:
Who’s trying to access you via mobile now?
Check out your website traffic statistics. You’ll be able to see the current number of visitors accessing your site via iPhone, Android and Blackberry. This is a good way to figure out which devices and platforms you should optimize towards.
What would a mobile visitor want?
Simply reformatting your website into a mobile-friendly version isn’t the right approach. Ask yourself what kinds of features and content would visitors find most useful if they were on the go?
2. Launch Your Facebook Page
Facebook Pages are free to set up in their most basic form, and even without customization allow your brand to provide a community for your most loyal fans. If you haven’t already set up a Facebook Page, 2010 is the year to start. You can always start free, and customize based on what your fans want. Here are a couple things to keep in mind:
Secure a Facebook URL
You must have 100 fans before you can secure a branded URL for your page, but it’s an important step towards driving traffic directly to your fan community from other media.
Cross-Promote Through Other Digital Channels
Use your existing digital channels to drive traffic first. Put a prominent link on your website and send an email to your customer database letting them know you’ve set up a Facebook Page.
Before You Promote…
Be mindful of how you conduct promotions. Remember Facebook just updated their promotion guidelines, and some of the “do-it-yourself” approaches others have adopted aren’t allowed.
3. Start Monitoring Buzz Around Your Brand
There are some simple ways to begin buzz monitoring without breaking the bank. If you find there’s a good amount of conversation around your brand, then 2010 might be the year to take the next step and build out a more robust buzz monitoring strategy.
Utilize Free Tools
There are many great free tools that can help you easily begin to monitor brand buzz. If you haven’t already, set up Google Alerts for your brand terms.
Twitter Buzz Tools
One of the best free sources to monitor brand buzz is Twitter. It can be as simple as setting up alerts for your brand name through a third-party app like Tweetdeck, or more thorough analysis through the use of a tool like Trendistic.
These three simple resolutions will help keep your brand relevant throughout the year, and on top of the new digital resolutions that are sure to come from whatever technology has in store for us this year.
1 Comment | Trackback | Categories: Tips and Tricks | Email This Post
January 13th, 2010 at 12:26 am
The past three weeks I have spent my evenings in a personal branding course. The course has helped me find and define my own personal brand. We have also been using social media to communicate our values to others. The goal of the course is to teach how to effectively create a positive brand and online presence. Although this is all new to me, I was happy to read your post and find out that we the course I’ve been taking has incorporated your three digital resolutions for 2010!