5 Ways To Protect Your Brand During The Rise of Social Media

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I was recently asked the question "How do you manage online reputation and maintain brand identity with the rise of social media and user generated content?"

Here's an elaboration of my answer.

The advent of SM really does present more opportunity than it does risk. Social Media (SM) is quickly becoming the method of choice to enhance brand image, influence traditional media coverage, gain online visibility and build relationships with a targeted audience. That said, here are five ways to protect your brand and to mitigate the risks associated with the recent advent of user-generated content.

• Social Media & Brand Management Rule #1 - First and foremost, participate.
  Choose a select few, targeted SM channels to avoid the poor image resulting from weak profiles and to guard against "social media burnout."
  
  These targeted channels will be topically related to your industry, genre and audience, as well as those that afford an opportunity to distribute quality content that establishes your brand as a thought leader or authoritative source.
  
• Social Media & Brand Management Rule #2 - Leverage Social Media to increase your SERP (search engine results pages) visibility.
  If you receive negative "social media press" it can be quickly counter acted by stuffing those negative search results down in the results pages by quickly gaining new positive visibility. Knowing what content will appear in the SERP titles on various SM sites allows you to swiftly determine how you'll counter act negative brand impacts.
  
  i.e. - If someone posts a thread in a forum, "Company X sucks", (forum thread titles appear as the listing title in the SERPS) this press will probably appear on the first page for Company X's name. For quick brand management and damage control Company X can then distribute content that gets picked up in the search engines quickly - like YouTube, forums, blogs, squidoo, etc., making sure to include the business name in pieces of content that get used as SERP titles.
  
• Social Media & Brand Management Rule #3 - Always use the soft sell approach.
  Whatever SM channel you choose, one thing remains constant. Social Media users despise hard sells and anything that even remotely smells like one. This concept is so important that you may want to consider a consultant to distribute content specifically designed for social media.
  
• Social Media & Brand Management Rule #4 - Exercise consistency with tone and manner of your content and writing style.
  As we all know, consistency contributes to trust and over all brand strength. Align your SM participation with your brand standards.
  
• Social Media & Brand Management Rule #5 - Use Google Alerts!
  Google offers a function that allows you to choose a word or phrase to track and monitor. Any new appearances of these phrases online (i.e. your company name) will be sent to your inbox. The first step in online brand management as it relates to SM is to evaluate the landscape and understand your current brand position.

As Steve Pavlina says, "ready aim fire" is always better than a "ready, fire fire fire." So true in Social Media!

Megan Carruth is an online marketing and business development consultant who has been helping grow small businesses with innovative web strategies since 2005. With an emphasis on ethics and value, Megan founded BizDevMarketing with the vision of empowering business owners with a winning combination of online marketing knowledge and self-sufficiency. Her primary areas of expertise include search engine marketing, social media, content development, blog promotion  and strategic alliances. A musician, she performs with various groups in the Minneapolis /St.Paul area and spends most of her free time reading about topics such as cosmology, alternative medicine and spirituality.

"Helping small businesses make their mark online."
Online Marketing & Business Development Consultant, BizDev Marketing
651.808.0758