Branding has become one of the most talked-about topics on which PR and digital marketers have started focusing. If you have a brand that requires social media and online visibility to keep it going, then your concerns may lie in the same area. In that case, you might have looked into using PR tools to push certain aspects of your brand, but is this enough—and will it be viable if you’re struggling to move your brand during trying times?
Trends vs. algorithms
Your brand awareness efforts usually involve social media, emails and cold calls. Depending on what your brand is, there might be no need to include automated robotic calls to unsuspecting clients, but there’s still a need to send out PR messages to make sure that they are aware of your brand. In an age where the focus seems to be on the highest number of followers instead of the highest number of engagements, those messages are usually not enough. Let’s take a look at some of the features that social media apps focus on to increase the algorithms of posts:
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Presentation
You might have noticed how certain brands have started gravitating towards a particular look on their sites, and there is an excellent reason why. When consumers look at things they like on social media, you’ll often find they follow similar color patterns and similar post patterns. You might also have noticed online stores post the same images on their pages to get followers to keep coming back and clicking.
When your brand has a look that follows a specific trend, you’re much more likely to get new, untargeted followers or likes and reposts from people who share your interests. Influencers trying to break into the market also adopt these trends that popular brands set—they copy these techniques and complement their organic growth with hashtags and mentions.
When a newer brand wants to follow suit in the popularity stakes, it will serve the PR spokesperson well to stick to the popular instead of the untested—unless it is notably unique and has lots of money to pump into social media ads. In that case, the presentation doesn’t have to be similar. They needn’t worry about algorithms and gaining organic views and interactions because they could buy it through consistent flash advertising.
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Likes vs. followers
I spend a lot of time on social media investigating accounts that have a vast amount of followers. What I have noticed and then researched is the difference between someone who has many followers and few followers, but many likes. These accounts with maximum engagement instead of followers receive more brand offers and get more items sold. From the comments on the posts, you can see the engagement from people who have bought into what they are selling and want to give it a try.
The accounts with more followers than likes tend to attract a crowd who are more likely to engage with them for what they show, not what they sell. When you are trying to grow your brand, you want to look at accounts that have the most likes because they have natural, engaging posts that draw a crowd.
Collaborations with accounts with organic growth compared to just thousands of followers show that you are appealing to people who want an engaging post on their timelines. It shows that you have taken care to provide content that is meaningful and thought-provoking. From a PR standpoint, it would be more appealing for events to engage online or in person with people who impact their posts and not their followers. It adds meaning to your brand, which means fewer cancellations, more shares and reposts, and better algorithm results.
How does SEO make a difference?
In addition to offering apps, some brands link their apps to their websites and pages. Often, blogs give insight into the idea behind the brand and tell their audience what the brand stands for, but that doesn’t happen by chance. If you’re a small business owner or a sole trader, it makes it even harder to keep up without the help of a specialist.
When Google first appeared in 1998, the focus was merely to be a place for people to find what they were looking for quickly and efficiently. However, times have changed, and we are all battling it out on a vast platform that takes in information by the millisecond. According to the owner of Ignite SEO, Adam Collins, “The only way to make sure that your brand escapes the black hole is through Search Engine Optimization or SEO.”
Having a large following online doesn’t guarantee that people are going to flock to your website. Many followers remain on social media apps without actually going to the brand website simply because they aren’t engaged enough to visit. Hitting the transportation button known as “click here” isn’t just moving them from the app—it’s taking them to an unfamiliar destination where the focus is completely on your brand. This is one reason why many people avoid going to brand sites and prefer to stick to what they see about your brand on the apps. By using SEO links and keywords on your website, you tell people who otherwise ignore brand sites that you have what they are looking for.
SEO links take viewers from a random search onto your site, increasing your views and pushing you to the top of search engines. When it comes to Google, you need to focus on using the right language. The more SEO links you have, the happier Google is to push up your brand. For a public relations team, you want to make sure the product content you are trying to sell through backlinks and paid ads is informative and meets the required number of the following:
- Internal and external links
- Backlinks
- HTTP redirects
- Social media link connections
- Meta tags and descriptions
- Crawlability