APU Business Careers Careers & Learning

Using Social Media to Build your Brand

By Shun McGhee
Contributor, Career Servicestwitter-carers

The other day, I was watching a commercial showcasing the talents of an up-and-coming designer of men’s clothes. I tried looking the designer up on the internet to I could learn more about his apparel, but I was unable to find the company’s website. How could he have been exposed to such a big advertising opportunity when he did not even have a website? After all, according to an esteemed talk show host, “If you don’t have a website, you’re not in the game.” Though I find the philosophy somewhat off-putting, I would be less than truthful if I did not recognize my own subscription to this idea. But does that make it true?

Building a website can be a very expensive endeavor. In the event you are unable to afford a website, the best thing to do is to continue doing quality work in the community and cultivate a fan base that will patronize your virtual and physical store fronts. Here’s how:

  1. Establish social media accounts and make them your own. Remember, websites are just a means of introducing folks to your brand, but, unless you are a web designer, it is not your brand.
  2. Maintain good customer service and deliver your products promptly.
  3. Encourage customers to write good reviews about on sites like yelp.com. This invaluable word-of-mouth advertising will help you establish a reputation potential customers can trust.
  4. Take the time to build strong working and interpersonal relationships, and ask those colleagues to post testimonials on your social media site.

Just because some people tend to rank companies with a website higher than a companies without one does not make it right or an accurate assessment of quality. In fact, it’s better to have a really good social media presence than to have an average website.

Comments are closed.