Branding As A Relationship

Building customer loyalty and maintaining loyalty to your brand is key to your online image. The best way to get that is through social media, so don't pay attention to follower counts and instead use the following strategies to build a strong foundation.

First, remember that loyalty is important and that it will serve you better than a large number of followers for several reasons.

1. You want people who are buying your brand regularly not just following it. With so much competition you want to keep people coming back to you, not taking their business to your competitors. A person can create a relationship with a brand, you want that relationship to be lengthy to ensure the brand stays alive.
2. Genuine followers bring life to your brand. They talk about it, write about it and through action they draw interest from others to it. If a follower is a follower in name only, then chances are they aren't buying or leading others to buy either.
3. The best part of social media is that when you successfully reach one person, they tell friends and family and those are the people they trust for recommendations. If someone your follower knows is happy with something, they will try it because they feel it will work for them too. Advocacy of established customers is very valuable.

So, to increase your loyal following on Social Media there are several avenues to try.

1. You need a smart social media strategy. A plan of how you will use the tools of social media to reach potential followers is imperative. Simply posting on social media won’t take your brand to the level you need, you have to utilize PR SEO and link building as well as prospect mining to stay competitive. If you know your competition and your followers, then you can determine your strategy and use it to stay in the game.
2. Share valuable content. There is so much material valuable on the internet that you want to make sure you are sharing what your followers feel is relevant to them. You want them to focus on your words and inundating them with junk will cause them to not read or not pay full attention to your words. Quality over quantity is the way to go.
3. Find your voice. You want to speak to people and connect in a personal manner. People are receptive when they feel that they are being spoken to and understood, and not just a member of the masses. Finding a common ground or something that speaks to your followers such as similar interest or value will go a long way.
4. Be consistent. A lasting memory makes a strong impression, make sure it is a good one to keep people hooked. A chameleon is not to be trusted and you want to build trust, if everything you do is static then that is how you will always be remembered.
5. Answer and acknowledge. When you are asked questions, you can build trust by answering them with detailed information. Don’t limit this action to your established follower base, you can earn new followers by developing a rapport.
6. Quid Pro Quo. Your followers are going speak of you in other social media arenas, so find them and interact there as well. You can keep regular contact by using Twitter, it will keep you fresh in their minds. And rewards are a great way to keep followers loyal, offer something to encourage them to keep coming back.

Remember, growing your brand requires growing a relationship with your followers.