Are your branding mistakes costing your business? Learn the top branding mistakes and how to avoid them. 

You’re building an online brand, which means you’re trying to dominate your target market and rise above your competitors. You believe you have all of the right tools, but for some reason, your online presence is not as large as you wish for it to be.

This means you are making some of the common branding mistakes that businesses around the globe have made when they first began building their online brand. These mistakes are prevalent amongst newcomers to building their online brand and can hurt their credibility and authority online, which is why it is so crucial to avoid these branding mistakes. Without further adieu, here are seven mistakes to avoid when building an online brand.

The most common branding mistakes to avoid when building and monitoring your online brand include the following:

1. Not Standing Out

Why do you think that companies like Apple, Facebook, or Twitter stand out among the crowd? This is because they were some of the first companies to do what they were doing. Instead of modeling other businesses and competitors, they took their own approach and did their best at becoming different from everyone else. Instead of attempting to blend in with the crowd, try to stand out and become something unique.

Internet users love to boast about finding the newest application, product or service online. By differentiating yourself from industry standards you can put your company on the map quickly.

Many business owners examine what their competitors do, and simply mimic those strategies. They think, “Well if this company is succeeding while using this method, I will simply emulate what they’re doing and succeed as well!”, sadly this is often a direction for mixing into the group, instead of standing out.

2. Inconsistency

Consumers do not like to feel like they are confused about what you have to offer. Confusion can usually lead to consumers being distrustful and ultimately steer them away from your brand. For example, if one day you are posting updates on Twitter about how you are empathetic about a certain situation, and then the next day completely changes your tone to something more angry and harsh, then your followers will be extremely confused on what you are really feeling. This is why making sure that what you post is consistent and reliable and easy for your consumers to understand will steer them toward you instead of away.

In addition, remain consistent by always posting at the same time throughout the day. This creates further engagement as after awhile individuals will go onto Facebook at 5 pm because they know you will be posting new content. They want to see what is new with you and what new products/services you may have to offer.

Learn how on how to effectively grow your brand and combat negativity by learning how to remove articles from the internet.

3. Branding Elements & Value Don’t Match

You want to make sure that your colors, fonts, voice, etc. are all consistent with your values and overall what your business stands for. It is important to make sure that your branding elements and values match up to make sure that your consumers do not get confused about what you have to offer.

Believe it or not, if your branding colors do not match up with what you have to offer, this can deter individuals from purchasing from you due to the uncertainty of what your product really may be. Matching branding elements and values are key for building your online brand.

4. Losing Your Cool on Social Media

This happens quite frequently today and can cost companies tons of business. If the owner (you) of a company is seen online tweeting or posting racial slurs, arguing with consumers, or dishing out insults to competitors, it may cause customers to avoid doing business with you in the future.

I know it sounds like something most people would know not to do, but at the moment it can be hard to reason with yourself why you should avoid this. Overall, interacting with consumers in a negative way (especially online) can just lead to customer loss and hurt you more than anyone else. Therefore, avoid losing your cool on social media!

5. Not Monitoring Online Views

It is essential to monitor your online views when trying to build your brand. When consumers are trying to find a company to do business with or buy a product from, they usually will look to the reviews to see what others have to say.

If you are not monitoring your reviews online, you are not only not viewing what positive things customers are saying about you, but also not viewing what customers dislike about your business. Also, you are leaving these customers without a response from you. When you leave a response, it shows consumers that you are working to improve your business and your product.

Overall, monitoring your reviews online will aid your business by developing more consumer insight and locate the aspects of your business that customers can do without.

6. Customers Can Not Find You Online

If customers can not find you online, of course, you are not going to be able to improve your personal brand. If your social media platforms and website is not properly optimized for your customers to be able to find you easily, then you are missing out on significant opportunities, followers, traffic, and leads for your business.

You need to ensure that when someone Google’s your business name that you are on the front page (preferably the first result) and that you are able to easily be found. Read more about Google reputation management!

7. Not Monitoring Mentions of Your Brand

If you are unaware of what people are saying about your business online, then how can you address any feedback or potential concerns? Staying on top of what people are saying about you online will ensure that you are immediately available to people that have any questions.

You can make sure and always be aware of what people are saying about you online through utilizing tools such as Social Mention, Hootsuite, and Google Alerts.

Another way to manage and control your online presence is through the utilization of online reputation management. Online reputation management has become a key component within businesses that wish to improve their overall online presence and further build their brand online.

Online reputation management can also remove personal information from Google that comes up about you or your company online and ensures you to have a positive online image to your future employers and consumers.

Guaranteed Removal – Contact Us

Guaranteed Removal (GR) is an online reputation management company that works around the clock to effectively eliminate any negative information about you online. Online reputation management is key for businesses that wish to take control of their online presence.

GR can adequately enable you to do the following:

• Establish a positive online reputation

• Remove or Suppress any negative content related to your business

• Learn how to generate more positive online reviews

Take your online reputation into your hands and make sure that you are presenting the most positive image of yourself online. Click for more information on online reputation management mistakes!