Tips to build your brand and credibility online to drive business

Monday, December 30, 2013

Tips to build your brand and credibility online to drive business

Tips to Build Your Brand and Credibility Online to Drive Business

Posted by John Seroka on Tue, Mar 26, 2013

For mortgage companies and any business-to-business company in the industry, having a brand that is credible and trustworthy is essential. Since many people tend to either visit your company online before they call you or find you online as they search for information, it's quite clear your online presence could help you...or hinder you in establishing the credibility and trustworthiness they seek.

To build this trust and credibility online, having a solid strategy for publishing plenty of content will be an important part of your success. The quality and quantity of your content is part of what drives people to learn more about you, follow you and therefore builds your community of followers so that you're top of mind when it comes to determining with whom they will ultimately conduct business.

Community-building online starts with an audience that comes back regularly to your site. Keep them coming back with posts that are focused on a handful of specific subjects that you know will be of interest, but that also speak to your core capabilities and your brand.
To get started, you might consider conducting some competitive research. Review competitive blogs, Facebook posts and other social media activity to learn a bit about topics being covered and those that are getting the most action (likes, comments). Watch what the pros are doing. Also, pay attention to hot news topics and frequently asked questions by your target audience(s) as these also provide great topics around which you can write blog posts and start discussions. Once you have a list of good topics, then develop your own content around them that's aligned with your own thoughts and brand.
Developing this content has to be part of an overall online strategy that has offline components designed to boost awareness of your corporate brand and expertise. Encouraging and driving online interactions from people that are researching mortgage companies, financing options or interactions with others that seek out your product/service (if you're on the business-to-business side of the industry) allows those not yet connected with your brand to form an opinion about you, what it’s like to receive services from you and what you and your company stand for. It also provides an environment that encourages those who have done business with you to post their experience, which is very important to your growth.
To prove this, let me share a statistic with you. According to the 2012 Local Consumer Review Survey, 72% of consumers surveyed said that they trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations. 52% say that positive reviews make them more likely to use a local business.

Here are some basic rules you should follow as a content creator:

Put together an editorial calendar. An editorial calendar helps you organize your thoughts for future content. This takes away the pressure of coming up with subject matter “on the fly” which can lead to a lot of pressure. You will also be able to evaluate what’s working and what’s not and then make adjustments along the way as you see fit. Quality content delivered consistently enhances your brand and trust level within the community which will help build your reach online as people will share it.

Develop a regular schedule of publishing. A consistent flow of content will build and keep the attention of your audience. Accordingly, having a blog is an important consideration. As for distribution of blog posts, key venues you may wish to focus on include LinkedIn (for business-to-business purposes), Facebook, Twitter and Google+. Many are skeptical of certain venues and their relative importance, so to learn more about them and discover hard facts and statistics, you may consider downloading "How to Build Your Corporate Online Brand" which was written for the mortgage industry.

As a host, you need to be prepared to “stoke the fire.” Your brand needs to actually participate and promote conversation around your content to build a community and also help drive up your search engine rankings and rankings within the specific venues. You may wish to invite people from your company to comment on your posts...but only after a conversation is started organically so that you aren't artificially boosting your own content as this is looked down upon. Commenting by others in the company is ok, but only after a conversation is started organically.
Be sure to respond to comments added to your content and add your own comments to content posted to your community. Go out to like-minded web sites, LinkedIn and Facebook groups. Participate in chats and reply or re-tweet on Twitter. Just make sure you’re engaging in actual conversation and not straight promotion. No one minds you mentioning your brand when it’s appropriate but you will be flagged right away if you are spamming a conversation. Just so you know, spamming a conversation is when you comment with an advertisement of your services. Anyone involved in discussion groups or blogging has seen this before at least once...and it's quite annoying.

Stay above the fray. The more you interact online, the more likely it is you will run into someone “off-kilter” or having a bad day. Case in point…I belong to several industry groups within which you'll find me commenting and starting conversations. Some key groups I belong to include Mortgage Bankers Association, Mortgage Professionals Network and National Mortgage News among others.
These groups provide a great way for you to interact, share ideas and also post links to your blog content and develop relationships by commenting on others posts. However, there are always a couple bad apples who tend to be active in many venues and just enjoy being combative…whatever you say, you’re wrong and they’re smarter. When this happens, engage once assuming they didn’t mean to be rude, keeping the conversation upbeat and positive. If they don't follow your form, ignore them. Don’t react to any comments they post, unless you can do it keeping it positive and upbeat on your end. Using phrases like "in my opinion" or "what do you think of..." or "I think I understand but could you give me more insight about..." are great ways to move a conversation in a positive, non-combative direction.
Engaging “bad apples” at their level does not help your brand at all no matter how “right” you are. If someone is clearly misinformed and providing bad information, be a lady or a gentleman about it and don't call them out for purpose of making them look bad. Use tact in addressing their mistake of fact, a private reply or just don't engage at all.

Do you have any other good rules to share? Please comment…would love to know!