8 Foundations to Build Your Brand Using Social Media and Digital Marketing in 2016

Many smart and social savvy marketers and business leaders look forward to the starting of a new year! I personally love taking the time to slow down to speed up and plan, strategize, and prioritize. Our agency, Marketing Nutz lives for helping our clients stomp random acts of marketing and help ensure every dollar spent is providing the highest return on investment possible.

Digital and social marketing is changing the game. Customer experience is the new brand. It's no longer just about your logo, brand colors or fancy words crafted by a paid marketer. Instead brands must learn how to embrace real-time engagement, conversation that inspires and connects with their audiences, community, partners and stakeholders in a human way.

We must think mobile first as well as customer first. We must know our customer intimately before our customer knows what they want or need from us.

This can get very overwhelming to many brand leaders. It's normal to struggle in trying to keep up with the technological changes, industry leaders or even your top competitors. The only guarantee we have in this crazy tweeting, Facebook and always on, social savvy, media hungry world is change!

Regardless how overwhelmed you may feel, don't fall to spammy social and digital marketing tactics. Avoid falling back to old ways, old marketing strategies and tactics that are a recipe for failure in the new always on, always connected digital and social savvy connected SnapChatting, Twittering, Instagramming, Facebook posting world.

Brands can no longer hide behind fancy corporate speak and pretty brochures. Today, marketing and communication is real and raw. It's human. It's not perfect. It doesn't have time to wait until words and visuals have been perfected.

Given these challenges, how do you build a brand utilizing technology and social networks that are always changing? How do you utilize social media and digital marketing to establish thought leadership, earn trust and grow your business?

The truth is you must know where and how your brand is positioned in the market. You must be certain of your own intent, goals and objectives. You must have a solid plan for content, conversation and be aware of your own digital body language. You must build an integrated digital marketing platform that works when you are not working, or else wind up working 24/7/365! The choice is yours. Are you going to work smarter, not just harder? Or are you going to keep running in the social and digital hamster wheel and wondering why you lack real business results.

It's time you get off the chasing shiny object train. It's time you quit trying to be first on every social platform ever launched on planet earth. It's time you learn, and invest in the solid foundational elements that will help you build a brand online that will deliver real and measurable results for the short, medium and long term.

Are you ready to learn the foundations for how you can leverage social media and digital marketing to build your brand in 2016? Take a listen to episode 195 of the Social Zoom Factor podcast for 8 foundational elements to build your social and digital brand upon in 2016.

Be sure to subscribe to the entire series on iTunes, Stitcher or SoundCloud!

In this 20 minute podcast you will learn: 

• 8 foundational elements to build your brand using social media and digital marketing
• Why you must decide first how you want to position your brand in the larger ecosystem
• Why intent is so important in the online, social and digital world
• How intent drives behavior, and how behavior determines how people perceive your brand
• The importance of content and conversation in building your brand platform and perception
• Why your brand is so much more than just your logo, brand colors and fancy corporate speak
• Why you should build an integrated platform that works even when you are not working
• Importance of understanding the impact of your strategies and tactics and how to set goals that will help you achieve your business objectives
• Why customer experience is your brand

Supporting Resources:

• Power of Intention and Trust in an Attention Starved Digital Economy
• Customer Experience is Your Brand – Adobe Summit Inspirations 
• 10 Ways to Use Social Media to Improve Customer Experience and Customer Service
• Differentiate Your Brand with Personalized Customer Experiences
• Brand Storytelling in a Nutshell: 10 Foundational Elements of Brand Storytelling
• 7 Foundational Steps to Build Your Personal Brand
• Welcome to the Inspiration Age 
• Welcome to the Participation Age
• How to Connect with Your Audience in a Human Way in the Inspiration Age
• Brand Strategy in a Nutshell
• Digital Body Language: 105 Factors Impacting Your Brand (white paper)
• Know Your Audience! Audience Analysis Worksheet
• 15 Characteristics of Human Brands (episode 55)
• Content Editorial Calendar Template (worksheet / template)

Free webinars: We are also launching a series of webinars and training opportunities to dig even deeper. Sign up here-> You are the Media – Building Your Media Foundation

How to Subscribe to Social Zoom Factor Podcast 

•  iTunes
• Stitcher
• SoundCloud