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I Gained Millions of Instagram Followers For My Brand With These 8 Expert Tips

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By Tonia Ryan Edited by Kara McIntyre

Are you looking to elevate your social media presence to new heights? Here are the tips and tricks I’ve used to grow my own following.

Key Takeaways

f you’ve been wondering how to spice up your social media posts and really start capturing attention, you’re in the right place. I grew my Instagram audience to over 3.8 million followers using the below strategies.

Social media is an incredible tool for small business owners and entrepreneurs — it connects us directly with our audience. But here’s the thing: Standing out in a sea of endless content isn’t easy. Don’t worry, though; I’ve got some tried-and-true tips for you that will make your posts pop and keep your crowd coming back for more.

For me, it all started with consistency — I made sure to post regularly and at optimal times when my audience was most active. Next, I focused on creating high-quality, relatable content that resonated with my niche. Visuals are key, so I paid close attention to aesthetics, like colours, patterns and overall branding. Engaging with my community was another game-changer; I always responded to comments, asked questions in my posts and interacted with similar accounts. Lastly, I leveraged trending topics and hashtags to expand my reach. These steps formed the foundation of my growth, and they can work for you too. Here are eight more tips to help you and your business stand out.

1. Start with a scroll-stopping visual

First impressions matter, and on social media, your visuals are your first impression. I teach my team at Tonia In Vegas that their entire image is their brand and they have to stick to their branding imaging for every post. Use high-quality images, bold colours or even memes (if they align with your brand). Tools or apps that design eye-catching graphics help a lot. Pro tip? Use images or videos that evoke emotion — whether it’s curiosity, joy or even a good laugh.

2. Keep your captions conversational

Talk to your audience the way you’d talk to a friend. Social media loves authenticity, so skip the jargon and keep it real. Use questions, emojis and a fun, conversational tone to draw people in. For example, instead of saying, “We’re launching a new product,” try something like, “Guess what? We’ve been cooking up something exciting, and we can’t wait to show you!” See? That’s way more engaging.

3. Know your audience

This one is key. Before creating your post, ask yourself, “Who am I speaking to?” Tailor your content to what your audience finds valuable or entertaining. Are they foodies? Share recipes! Are they busy parents? Offer quick tips to make their lives easier. When your posts solve problems or bring joy, people will naturally engage.

4. Call-to-actions (CTAs) are your best friends

Never underestimate the power of a good CTA. Want people to comment? Ask them a question! Want shares? Say something like, “Tag a friend who needs this!” Make your call-to-action clear, simple and irresistible. Trust me, you’ll see a big difference when you give people a little nudge.

5. Post at the right time

Timing is everything. You could create the best post in the world, but if you’re sharing it when your audience isn’t online, it might not get the love it deserves. Check your analytics to see when your followers are most active and post during those peak times. Not sure when to post? Experiment! Try mornings one week and evenings the next to see what works best.

6. Use hashtags strategically

Hashtags aren’t just for decoration — they’re your ticket to reaching people outside your current audience. Use a mix of popular, niche, and branded hashtags to boost your visibility. But don’t overdo it! Aim for five to 10 relevant hashtags per post. Social media analytics are great for finding the best tags for your industry. For example, If you are promoting real estate try to use more local hashtags instead of broad industry tags that are harder to rank for.

7. Engage, engage, engage!

Social media isn’t a one-way street. If someone comments on your post, reply! If they share your content, thank them! The more you engage with your audience, the more they’ll engage with you. Plus, it shows that you’re not just a business; you’re a person (or a team of people) who genuinely cares about their followers.

8. Use social media stories on Instagram

Instagram Stories are a powerful way to connect with your audience in a more casual and authentic manner. Stories allow you to share behind-the-scenes moments, quick updates or fun, interactive content that disappears after 24 hours. Utilize features like polls, question stickers and countdowns to engage your followers and encourage interaction. Consistently posting Stories keeps your brand at the top of your followers’ feeds and helps reinforce your presence in their minds. Remember to keep your Stories visually appealing and aligned with your brand’s tone and aesthetic.

Bonus tip: Consistency is key

One last thing before we wrap up — you have to stay consistent. Posting once in a blue moon won’t cut it. Create a content calendar and stick to it. Your followers (and the algorithms) will appreciate it.

Alright, it’s your turn now! Start experimenting with these tips and watch your social media game level up. You’ve got this!

By Tonia Ryan 

Entrepreneur Leadership Network® Contributor. Take the first step towards brand excellence

For over three decades, Tonia Ryan has made her mark as a highly accomplished entrepreneur, ghost-writer for best-selling authors and a trusted advisor to some of the most prominent celebrities and business owners. She leverages her expertise and experience to guide individuals toward success.

Edited by Kara McIntyre

Sourced from Entrepreneur

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5 Reasons Why Your Brand Needs a Strong Social Media Presence

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By Ksana Liapkova 

Social media has replaced traditional media, so it’s time to funnel your marketing budget into a better, more reliable strategy

Recent projections show that social media networks are expected to have more than 327 million regular users in the U.S. alone by 2027. In the global community, there are currently over 4.2 billion active users.

Consumer shopping habits are shifting more toward the online space, and traditional media is rapidly losing any meaningful effect on driving traffic, generating leads or encouraging customer loyalty.

Because of this, it’s no longer optional for brands to invest the time and resources needed to develop and maintain an engaging, active social media presence across all relevant platforms. Here are five ways the ConvertSocial team suggests to bring a solid social media presence that can work for your brand.

1. It is cost-effective marketing

Social media is free advertising for your brand. Even if you pay for boosted posts on Facebook or Instagram, it still typically costs less than a full-fledged digital marketing campaign.

In addition, it can often be more effective to have an active social media account because it allows people to share your posts with others, boosting your reach and engagement even further in an organic way. Brands like Moon Pie and Duolingo are great examples of this strategy. Duolingo’s TikTok presence earned them a clickthrough rate 9% higher than the market average and rocketed them to the top of the charts in the Apple and Google Play stores.

2. It boosts search engine visibility

Establishing active social media accounts increases user engagement and site traffic, but it also helps to boost your search results placement organically. It isn’t a direct factor in SEO strategy, but it does prove to Google that your brand has value and trust, which is critical for better search results.

It’s important to remember that social media sites have strong search engine capabilities in their own right because they know that users tend to search for what they want on their platform first. This means that including a little bit of strategic SEO when creating engaging social channel content can help more people connect with your brand’s profiles, increasing likes, shares, comments and backlinks.

All of this helps generate “social signals” that show Google people are interested in your content. In turn, this pushes it higher in search results.

3. It gives your brand a human touch

A recent survey found that 78% of users are more willing to buy from a company once they’ve had a positive social media interaction. This could be a customer support chat or a positive comment exchange on social media content.

Over half of the survey respondents feel great about a brand simply when they feel the company’s content is creative and relevant to them as customers, so creating these positive feelings is not difficult. In fact, a Sprout Social survey noted that 61% of consumers think that audience engagement is the most important part of a brand’s social media presence. These positive interactions show your audience that your company is made up of real people who are just like them, strengthening your “human connection” and customer loyalty.

Related: Here’s One Reason Why Your Business Could Be Failing

4. It creates a community within your target audience

Every successful brand has a brand community. This is the core group of people who identify with your brand’s persona and share many important traits with each other. Brands that can create a strong community within their niche are able to transform themselves from a storefront to a lifestyle, which goes a long way toward solidifying customer loyalty.

Communities are where you convert potential customers and deepen the emotional ties with existing customers. When people feel like they belong to something greater than themselves, they’re more eager to become further enmeshed in the lifestyle and share it with friends and family.

The important thing here is to create a genuine sense of connection. For example, Friendster’s community failed in the early 00s because it didn’t link people together in a truly meaningful way. Conversely, Red Bull has created a close-knit global community thanks to word-of-mouth and a dynamic social network.

5. It keeps your name at the forefront of customers’ minds

Statistics show that 55% of consumers learn about new-to-them businesses through social media. On top of this, at least 90% of shoppers buy from brands they follow on social media channels, and 40% actively seek out recommendations for products and services through social media platforms.

This means that an active social media presence is a simple way to keep eyes on your brand. In an era where commercials often result in a negative ROI, this is a meaningful way to generate interest in your brand.

Social media has an advantage over traditional media because it provides a two-way street for communication. Now, instead of brands simply talking to their audience, customers can talk back and engage in a dialogue. When people feel seen and heard by a brand, they are more likely to think of that brand first when making a purchase or recommendation.

Your business needs social media, so don’t wait for another second

It’s not too late to establish an active social media presence, but it’s essential to do it sooner rather than later. Customers want the experience of interacting with a like-minded community of other brand lovers and the brand itself. They need to see the human side of your company, and you need advertising channels that are proven effective.

By Ksana Liapkova 

Entrepreneur Leadership Network Contributor. Head of Admitad ConvertSocial. Ksana has been a speaker at world-class conferences on affiliate marketing and is in contact with more than 35,000 clients of Admitad ConvertSocial, involved in the blogging industry, which allows her to always be aware of the latest trends in the world of influencers.

Sourced from Entrepreneur

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This Tool Is the Key to Enhancing Your Social Media Presence

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Social listening tools can be a great addition to your social media and marketing incentives. Here’s what to look for when deciding on the best app for you.

Any marketer knows that social media is fertile ground for effective brand promotion and lead generation. A well-built business page on Instagram or TikTok brings thousands and thousands of followers that can eventually turn into a couple of hundred loyal consumers and brand advocates. Many businesses use social media listening tools to build a strong brand image and enhance their social media presence.

What is a social listening tool, and why do you need it?

The effectiveness of any social listening tool depends on the features it holds. Before we get to the features, let’s recap what a social media listening tool is specifically and who can benefit from it the most.

Social media listening tools are special digital solutions used for tracking diverse brand metrics on social media in real-time. These metrics include brand mentions, followers’ engagement, customer attitude to the brand or a product, target audience segmentation and many others.

You can use social media listening results for:

  • Evaluating the success of your marketing campaigns on social media
  • Tracking activities and marketing campaigns of your competitors
  • Discovering effective social media marketing strategies
  • Finding top influencers in your business area on various social media platforms
  • Learning about how to improve your product or marketing campaigns
  • Performing effective and timely brand reputation crisis management
  • Enhance SEO performance on your website
  • Learn about the latest trends in your business niche
  • Better adjust your content to your audience
  • Market research

How to choose a social listening tool

When choosing a social media monitoring app, you can easily find yourself like a kid in the candy store, not knowing where to look first. I’ve gathered the essential features that top social media listening tools should possess. Here is what to look for.

Mentions insights

Advanced social media monitoring platforms provide their users with an insights feature based on deep analytics. The feature detects any unusual activities in the created mentions and focuses users’ attention on them. This can be a sudden rise in the number of followers mentioning your brand, shifts in product perception and other unusual behaviour.

Historical data

Viewing data by history is another important feature any social media listening tool should possess. It allows users to track social media posts in certain periods. This can be useful when you run your marketing campaigns and want to track their success or find out how effective your previous campaigns were.

If a social media listening tool is empowered with advanced analytics, it will provide you with detailed results on the demographics of your target audience. This way, you can better understand who uses your product and your competitor’s products.

Alerts comparison

It’s great when a social media listening tool can provide detailed statistics on your brand performance and marketing campaign’s success. However, data analysis becomes even more valuable when equipped with cross-brand analytical tools. This way, you can deeply analyze your and your competitor’s brands and compare them by various metrics, from mentions, author gender and age, sources, and much more.

By comparing your data with your rivals‘, you can gain insights into how to position your brand on the market, make your offering stand out, or enhance your marketing campaigns to attract even more followers.

Sentiment analysis

Brands need to know what their customers and followers think about their products. For this, social listening tools provide their users with sentiment analysis features. They analyze customer attitudes to your brand, product and marketing campaigns and wrap this diverse feedback into simple and visual statistics.

Sentiment analysis can help you improve your brand positioning, quickly address negative mentions, heighten your followers’ interest and increase engagement in conversations, and analyze what you and your competitors are doing right and wrong in your and their marketing campaigns.

Share of voice

Share of voice is a compound measure that shows how much of your brand’s market share is compared to your competitors. You can measure it by comparing various metrics such as sentiment, mentions, hashtags, organic keywords, reach, and others. Professional social media listening tools can compare several brands and view the results in visual diagrams and graphs.

Whitelist

Sometimes you need to monitor only certain profiles or websites instead of gathering data from the entire web. For this, social media listening tools provide a Whitelist monitoring mode. It restricts the search to whitelisted web pages or social media profiles, focusing your attention on them. The feature allows tracking only your brand activities, critical social media influencers, brand ambassadors or competitors online.

Reporting

Imagine that you’re running a marketing campaign, but the results aren’t as obvious as they could be yet–the leads get generated slowly, or maybe everything just works smoothly, though you’ve just resolved a looming crisis.

How do you show your company’s head managers that you and your marketing team put a lot of effort into supporting your brand image and results are just pending? For this, most social media listening tools provide detailed reports with statistics and everything that’s going on with the brand.

With social media monitoring reports, you can show how much your brand has developed by comparing key metrics, e.g., how much awareness has grown or how customers’ sentiment has changed over time.

Social selling opportunities

Social media listening tools help marketers discover how to create relevant content for their social media, who are their potential buyers, and how to work with their followers. All these create the conditions for effective social selling.

By closely monitoring what’s happening with your brand on social networking sites, you’ll be able to keep up with the latest trends and stay on the same page with your audience, offering them precisely what they need and want. Apart from gathering valuable stats, some social monitoring tools allow users to quickly find and generate leads.

API integration

Marketers and business owners usually use several digital tools in an integrated environment. The social listening tool you choose should easily connect with any tools you’re currently using for your business development, whether a custom-built CRM or a ready-made solution.

Many social listening tools offer their clients integration with other digital systems via API. This way, you don’t have to use social listening tools’ to access and use their functionality.

Before you go

There is a wide variety of social media listening tools and platforms that offer diverse marketing services. Before opting for any of them, you need to consider all your marketing goals and objectives and understand what you will use this solution for. By doing so, you’ll make the most profit from the application, and it’ll be an effective instrument in your business development kit and a worthwhile spend in your company’s budget.

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4 Branding Strategies Every Startup Founder Should Know About

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By Zaheer Dodhia

Having a solid branding strategy is key for a smooth launch.

Getting your start-up off the ground takes a hefty dose of planning, as any seasoned entrepreneur will tell you. It isn’t just about listing your products and services and finding financial backing, either — though those are important keys.

One of the most vital aspects of getting a new venture off to a good start is the branding — and not just colours, fonts, and so on, but the strategy behind every branding decision you make. As an entrepreneur myself, I can vouch for the importance of strategizing, rather than a scattershot approach! Of course, newcomers to the start-up world may not have a solid grasp on this.

Here are four branding strategies that every start-up founder should know going in.

Related: The Secret Ingredients to a Successful Branding Strategy

1. Brand your promotions

It’s a common experience, and I’ve seen it myself — a new start-up launches, only to see a slump in expectations. The idea, concept, execution, brand personality, all of the details that matter are great. Logically, the start-up should succeed.

What was lacking? Many times, the founder and branding team neglected to demonstrate an immediate value to the potential customer. A customer that is on the fence about trying out a new brand can often be swayed by a promotional aspect. That could be anything from a free gift to a percentage off their first purchase and beyond. The point is that it adds extra impetus to their consideration of you as a newcomer.

Beyond that, however, there are other aspects to promotions that can enhance this branding strategy. Namely, branding your promotions. As we know, branding isn’t just about the visual aspect — it’s about the experience, the values, and other more intangible things. So when I say “brand your promotions,” I mean more than just stamping your advertising with your logo.

Ensure that your promotions fit the spirit, purpose, and values of your start-up. And it’s not about just the initial purchase from a new customer — you want to build a repeat client base. Choosing an initial promotion combined with a loyalty program is an excellent two-for-one branding strategy that can intrigue your audience and help them along down the consumer’s journey.

2. Establish and maintain your social media presence

A second branding strategy centres around social media. These days, what doesn’t? Social media is a useful tool for start-ups. More than three and a half billion people use social media worldwide, with numbers projected to continue to climb steeply. Consumers are increasingly turning to official social media accounts to research new brands, learn more about them, get the opinions of others regarding them, and interact with the brands themselves.

Here are a few important aspects of this particular brand strategy:

  • Know your audience, and know what social media platform they favor. Facebook is the top platform for most brands, but the demographic that uses it is gradually changing. For example, the percentage of teens on Facebook has gone from 71 percent to 67 percent over the last six years, and continues to drop. Teens as a demographic are increasingly turning to Instagram and other platforms that are still building, like Snapchat. So analyse your audience, and leverage their social media preferences to get the most bang for your branding buck.
  • Get verified. Sites like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube all have a verification process for brands, celebrities, and other types of accounts. Verified status elevates your content and can even affect how readily and frequently it is viewed. Check on the process for each social media platform and let your audience know that they’re interacting with the real deal.
  • Speaking of interacting, respond to everything. Everything. Even if it’s just a thumb’s up or a like, it’s a great way of building a connection with your customer on an individual level. If you can’t handle all of that yourself, outsource it to a social media manager with a friendly, respectful disposition.

3. Use cohesive visual branding

Through your start-up’s development, you’ve worked with graphic designers and brand developers to put together a style guide for your branding. Colour palettes, fonts, graphics, visual styles, and so on — everything needs to fit together coherently, as though it belongs to the same family. Because it does, but you might be surprised at how many small business owners and start-up entrepreneurs then forget about the importance of using that style guide once they get going.

Don’t forget about it. Keep going back to that well. Use your style guide to inform every visual and stylistic decision you make for every piece of product packaging, marketing, and beyond. This is especially important when it comes to your website. Ensure that your website is so well-branded that everyone knows what brand it belongs to when they visit, even if they don’t see the logo right off the bat. But also, make sure your logo is on there.

It’s true that branding strategies aren’t solely about the visual aspects. But that’s no excuse for letting that slide. With your site, social media accounts, and marketing materials, you’ve given your brand a place to live. Make sure you mark it and own it.

4. Evoke an emotional response

A final branding strategy that really works for start-up founders is a little more difficult to pinpoint, but no less effective for all that: get an emotional reaction. How you ask? Here are a few methods:

  • Tell your story. Get to the nitty-gritty of why you started this business, what motivates you to continue, the challenges you went through, everything. Everyone loves a good story.
  • Broadcast your values. Make sure that your audience understands where you’re coming from and what you want to achieve — and why. Ideally, your brand’s values will align with your audience’s values and make an emotional connection.
  • Be yourself. Audiences react well to brands that they perceive as authentic and personal. Don’t cover over the things that make you unique; celebrate the quirks of personality that made your brand what it is.

Each of these aspects — and more — contributes to an emotional connection between your brand and your audience. Research, real life, and common sense all point to the fact that consumers are more likely to work with a brand when they feel a personal connection it.

Your start-up can be the new best friend of your audience — and there’s no more successful way to help a new brand grow than that.

By Zaheer Dodhia

Sourced from Entrepreneur Europe

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5 Ways to Organically Grow Your Social Media Presence

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By Syed Balkhi,

It’s not always easy to grow your social media channels. There are a ton of factors that come into play and determine how consumers perceive your business.

There are plenty of ways to connect with consumers in today’s digital landscape and get more conversions on your website. One of the most effective ways people just like you are growing their business is through social media marketing.

An impressive 3.81 billion people use social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter to talk to their friends, engage with content, and buy products. Business owners and marketing teams know that whatever target audience they want to reach, it’s possible to find them on social media.

Despite the advantages, it’s not always easy to grow your social media following organically. There are a ton of factors that come into play and determine how consumers perceive your business. If people don’t know that you exist, there’s no chance that they will ever follow your account, visit your website, or become a paying customer.

Today, we are going to take a look at five of the best ways to organically grow your presence across various social channels.

Get to know your followers

Before you can get more followers, it’s recommended that you learn everything you can about your existing subscribers. The people who found and actively followed your channel are interested in your products and what you have to say.

Understanding the mentality of your followers can help you find new ways to generate more traction. For example, adding a poll can help you learn about common pain points and goals that users face in your industry. Using this information, you can start planning new content and marketing campaigns designed to help consumers overcome these issues and reach their goals.

If people who haven’t followed your page face similar problems, seeing someone share a relevant post could be the deciding factor when the user can either keep scrolling or click your profile.

You should also take the time to engage with followers in the comments section of your posts. People on social media are vocal about what companies are doing right and where they can improve. Responding to these folks is a great way to build trust with your existing audience while finding new ways to organically reach more prospects.

Host interactive events

Have you ever attended a live online event, such as a webinar? Most people have, and for a good reason. These events are excellent opportunities for learning and connecting with likeminded people.

Businesses host interactive live events to educate potential customers while connecting with them on a deeper level than occasionally responding to comments. We know that events like webinars work to organically grow email lists. In fact, 20% to 40% of webinar participants eventually become leads. By this logic, you can expect to see plenty of people follow your brand after signing up for a webinar.

If you’re running an e-commerce storefront and don’t plan on hosting webinars, there are other interactive events you can create for your social media channels.

Giveaways, for example, are an excellent way to build your social media following organically while getting people excited for your business. On average, giveaways have a conversion rate of 34%. In other words, a staggering 34% of people who see your giveaway on Facebook or Twitter will enter.

You can choose to give away anything from your most popular product to a gift card for your store. Let’s face the facts; people like getting stuff for free. The chance to win something for taking a simple, free action is enough to convince many people to follow your profile and engage with your brand.

The key to using giveaways to grow your social media presence is the rules. You should establish rules that encourage people to follow your profile and join your email list for two ticket entries. Using this strategy, you can dramatically grow your social media channel and email list.

We also suggest that you encourage participants to share your contest for a third chance to enter. Sharing is the best way to ensure that everyone can participate in your event, even if they are already following your channel and subscribed to your email list.

Share visual content

Visual content is the foundation for many social media platforms. Without images and videos, platforms like Pinterest, Instagram, and YouTube would be obsolete. However, sites like Facebook and Twitter also rely heavily on visuals to keep users engaged.

Content that features professionally made images and videos is more likely to be shared by consumers who are already following your brand. If someone is scrolling through their timeline and sees one of your graphics, they may pause to look at the image or watch the video.

When this occurs, the user may get curious and navigate to your profile. If you can impress these people with interesting content and an irresistible value proposition, they could become followers on the spot. At the very least, they will see your brand name and recognize you in the future. This type of exposure eventually leads social media users to follow brands shared by their connections.

Focus on creating high-quality videos that are jam-packed with valuable content. You can create guides, reviews, infographics, and much, much more. More people are using their smartphones to access social media, so we expect this format to grow in popularity over the next several years.

Connect with other companies

Did you know that 55% of buyers research businesses using social media? This statistic is telling because it shows us that while many people use these platforms to have fun, many use it to look for product and service recommendations.

Put in all of the work, and you’ll see more organic traffic. But there’s another way to boost your followers by reaching consumers outside of your network.

Connecting with other companies in your industry is a great way to spread brand awareness and grow your following. There are plenty of products and services that work together. For example, an email marketing firm might partner with a hosting company. Both businesses can benefit from reaching a similar target audience.

Why?

Because in most cases, customers looking for one service are also looking for the other. Merging your marketing efforts and posting content that promotes both companies is a great way to expand your network. There’s a good chance that the consumers following the partner brand you choose don’t know about your company, and vice versa. The result is a win-win situation for consumers and both businesses.

Analyse your performance and make changes

Finally, don’t forget to review your social media performance and make changes to your marketing strategy. Learn about your posts that see the most engagement, and find out why this is the case. Usually, enhanced traffic occurs on specific posts because they address common problems people face in your industry.

So, if you see a surge in traffic on posts about a specific sub-topic, you can assume that consumers are interested in that subject. Creating and sharing more related content can result in more social engagement and shares, which leads to new organic followers.

You can also test elements of your campaign to see if you can achieve stronger results. Let’s say you see low engagement on your scheduled 7 p.m. post. Try changing the time to 9 p.m. to see if this results in more engagement.

It’s possible to test virtually every aspect of your marketing to see if you can get more shares and comments. Experimenting with headlines, images, and content topics are three more of the most common ways to use your analytics to improve your performance in the future.

These experiments are based on your performance and worth pursuing if you want to get maximum value from your social media marketing strategy.

By Syed Balkhi,

Hello, I’m Syed Balkhi, a 27 year old award-winning entrepreneur with a strong 8 figure online business. I was recognized as the top 100 entrepreneur under the age of 30 by the United Nations. I was born in Karachi, Pakistan. At age 12, my family immigrated to the United States. Ever since I can remember, I have been extremely competitive which makes me hustle at everything that I do.

Sourced from business.com

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The Best Way To Grow Your Personal Brand In 2020

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By Luke Lintz

A personal brand is how your accomplishments, personality and work are portrayed to others. The major difference between a business brand and a personal brand is that a personal brand is built around you, so it’s easy to connect on an emotional level with your audience. A business brand is built solely around showcasing your business services, offers, testimonials and track record, with very little emotion involved.

Branding shouldn’t be a battle of whether to have a personal or business brand, but how you can effectively grow both brands together. Something spectacular happens when your personal brand is bigger than your business brand and you can effectively refer people who have built trust with you to your company’s products or services.

My marketing agency specifically works on high-level personal and business branding. The most common question I receive from potential customers is: “What sort of ROI is associated with building a personal brand?” I always respond, “It’s priceless, and it takes at least 12-18 months to get there.”

I find this a funny question because I think everyone is capable of comprehending the long-term value of building proper personal and business brands, but so many people are stuck in short-term thinking. The ROI of branding is that it’s an enhancement to your current direct marketing efforts. The value comes in the long term with many different streams of revenue. For example, we had one client who grew his following on Instagram from 3,000 to 100,000 followers by posting consistent, quality content. Through an Instagram direct message, he was booked for a speaking gig that paid $25,000, with travel costs, hotel and food covered.

There are three main categories for your branding presence: your online presence, social media presence and local presence.

• A branded website, press, dedicated articles, features and a Google Knowledge Panel all play a role in your online presence and determine how you are portrayed on search engines.

• Consistent and high-quality content, your short bio, and the number of followers you have all play a part in your social media presence.

• How you are talked about with other people (when you are not around), or if you’re not talked about at all, is your local presence.

I dedicated the majority of my time to my clients’ brands until recently branching out and working on my own personal brand. I am now working heavily on growing my social media and online presence by publishing consistent, quality content about my main projects, working with major influencers around the world and publicizing it all.

If you are just starting out with your personal brand, regardless of industry or experience, you should ask yourself some of these questions:

• Who is your target audience?

• What do you want to be known for in 10 years?

• Who are some leaders in your industry, and what do their personal and business brands look like?

• How are you going to dedicate time each week to work on your personal brand?

There are more people online than ever. With such an overwhelming number of people in your industry or niche, how do you stand out? The answer is simple: There is no such thing as competition. There is no such thing as two of the exact same personal brands. If you’re able to stay consistent and are willing to invest your time and resources into your personal brand, you will be bound for success in the long term.

If you don’t currently don’t have a personal brand, here’s an action plan for getting your brand started:

1. Open social media accounts on two platforms. If you’re a business professional, you should have accounts on Instagram and LinkedIn. Don’t overwhelm yourself by starting on every platform available.

2. Next, collect all your professional photos. You don’t have to be in a suit, but the photos should be very high resolution. If you don’t have any photos, find a local photographer, and book a photo shoot as soon as possible.

3. Hire a graphic designer, and ask them to make social media banners, Instagram stories, and graphics for your Instagram and LinkedIn profiles from your professional photos.

4. Create a biography for your social media accounts. This is crucial because it’s the first thing your potential audience sees, and we all know how important first impressions are. Keep it short and concise. It shouldn’t focus too much on you, but on how you can help your customers.

5. Plan out a strategy to post consistent content about what you do.

After all of this is done and you post content day in and day out, you will eventually see returns that you can’t put a price on.

Feature Image Credit: Getty

By Luke Lintz

Owner of HighKey Holdings Inc.

Read Luke Lintz’ full executive profile here.

Sourced from Forbes

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How to Make Your Website and Social-Media Presence Bulletproof Against Algorithm Changes

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By Dakota Shane

Experiencing a decline in Web traffic and social-media reach? Here’s how to fix it.

It happens almost every year without fail: organic reach on social-media posts drop, and Google comes out with yet another algorithm change that causes a decline in Web traffic.

The reasons for these updates are pretty simple. For social-media platforms, it boosts revenue because it forces users to “pay-to-play” if they want to see any sort of business results from the platform.

For Google, the company wants to provide users with the best possible answer to any question they search for, so the old-school way of “gaming the system” in terms of search engine optimization “hacks” is becoming less and less viable – causing many innocent casualties along the way.

The good news is there are ways to easily combat this decline for every entrepreneur from small-business owners to startup founders. Here’s where to start.

Web Traffic

1. Create pillar content.

We’re now seeing the pendulum swing in the opposite direction when it comes to content consumption. Now that people are getting overwhelmed with too much online content, they’re looking for more thorough, in-depth content to avoid toggling between 10 different articles to find the answer they want.

This is why pillar content has grown so much in popularity in recent years. Defined, pillar content is a long-form, in-depth piece of content on one topic that could technically be disassembled into a handful of standalone pieces. If you haven’t begun creating pillar content yet, it could be the secret weapon you’ve been looking for against Web traffic decline

2. Optimize your site for mobile.

With 52 percent of all Web traffic now coming from smartphones, Google has made it clear websites should now be optimized for mobile. If you haven’t already, begin browsing around your website on your phone to see where you need to make key changes to enhance your user experience on mobile.

3. Always keep user experience at the forefront.

In everything you do, be sure to keep user experience at the top of your mind. With all of the competition online today, it isn’t enough anymore to only have great content. Your content also needs to look good and load fast. This is why having stunning graphic design and great photography in your blog content and on your site goes such a long way.

4. Have a specific focus for your website.

The days of keyword-stuffing and trolling for traffic are long gone. Today, Google wants its users to be directed to the very best websites in any niche the user is searching for. If you’re a bike repair shop, then be sure your entire website and blog is filled with bike-related content, as opposed to unrelated topics. Write about your hobbies on your own time – on your website, you’ve got to stick to your niche.

Social Media

1. Know that you’re going to have to spend money.

The first thing you have to realize is, nowadays, in order to succeed on social media, you’re going to have to invest money into it. The days of free social media have come and gone – and with the precedence Facebook is setting with their pay-to-play business model, it’s unlikely the trend of slashing organic reach will slow down.

2. Hop on new features early.

One of the savviest things you can do to combat lower organic reach is hopping on the new features social-media platforms release early. For reference, an example of a new feature would be Facebook rolling out Facebook Live or Instagram rolling out Instagram Stories.

On top of the benefits of having less competition for attention earlier on within these new forms of content, they’re also given priority in terms of organic reach because the companies want more users to become familiar with them. This happened when Facebook launched both native and live video, when LinkedIn rolled out video, when Instagram launched Stories, and more.

3. Social media is no longer a volume game.

Across the board, social-media platforms have adopted an engagement-based style of algorithm, which selects the content it will display based on engagement as opposed to strictly sticking to chronology. Because of this, sharing on social media is no longer just a volume game – it’s a quality game. The highest quality content rises to the top of news feeds.

To start, be mindful of the content you share. Put your all into every post you publish, measure which content is performing best, then double down on the style that is.

As an entrepreneur, it can be daunting to see a decline in Web traffic or organic reach on social media. But it certainly isn’t impossible to reverse. In the coming year, begin fighting against the algorithms by applying the tips laid out in this article. Best of luck.

Feature Image Credit: Getty Images

By Dakota Shane

Sourced from Inc.

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