{"id":5626,"date":"2014-10-19T23:13:20","date_gmt":"2014-10-19T23:13:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/?p=5626"},"modified":"2014-12-20T16:33:54","modified_gmt":"2014-12-20T16:33:54","slug":"the-only-way-to-build-a-brand-on-social-media-is-through-trust","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/2014\/10\/the-only-way-to-build-a-brand-on-social-media-is-through-trust\/","title":{"rendered":"The Only Way to Build a Brand on Social Media is Through Trust"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Whether you\u2019re building your personal brand, your business brand or both, one thing remains true: You need content to help you build trust and followers.<\/em><\/h3>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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If you\u2019re marketing your small business, it\u2019s important to remember to build your personal brand along with your business\u2019s brand. There are several ways to do this\u2014one is to make yourself the face of the brand.<\/p>\n

People want to communicate with other people, not with corporations. Too many companies try to build up their brands in the social world, without having a \u201cface\u201d of the brand, which in the end just hurts them. For example, Scott Monty has been the face of the Ford Motor Company in the social world for the past six years. Monty left Ford at the end of May, and his presence will\u00a0 go with him. However, the halo will remain around Ford, especially if the company gets someone else to pick up where Monty left off and continue with the conversation and humanization of its brand.<\/p>\n

Some companies worry that someone who is the face of the brand will eventually change jobs. But building the face of the brand can be done by more than one person. This can really extend a company\u2019s reach, credibility and authenticity. It can build trust and loyalty in customers.<\/p>\n

How to Get Your Brand Out There<\/h2>\n

Once you\u2019ve decided to be the brand, a blog is a great next step. Many people in social media just publish other people\u2019s links and retweet other people\u2019s thoughts. Then they wonder why social media isn\u2019t working for them. They need to do more.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a huge opportunity for people who can produce original content for social media. My advice: Write what you\u2019re thinking. By that, I mean write what you\u2019re thinking of as a small-business owner. Tweet about it. Start writing one-liners. Put them on Twitter and Facebook and then go from there.<\/p>\n

Write Blogs, Build Trust<\/h2>\n

Take your most popular tweets and posts, or the ones you feel most passionately about, and use them to develop blog posts. You don\u2019t have to write three pages; you don\u2019t even have to write four paragraphs. Seth Godin is one of the most successful bloggers in the marketing world, and he writes in two- to three-sentence paragraphs. He\u2019s a master at expressing ideas that are thought-provoking\u00a0and<\/em>\u00a0easy to read. People are time pressed these days and content can be overwhelming, so make it valuable and easy to read.<\/p>\n

Another way to get ideas is start commenting on the things you read, such as other people\u2019s blogs and newsletters, media publications and anything else relevant to your business. You\u2019re already absorbing the content and you probably have opinions when you\u2019re reading it; go ahead and comment on those blogs. One benefit of commenting is that people will start recognizing your name, another is it gives you material for a blog post.<\/p>\n

For example, I save the comments I write in my email Drafts folder. I use the subject line as a label for the topic. After I\u2019ve saved the drafts I can come back and turn these comments into blog posts. I can even make the comment itself the blog post. After all, it\u2019s still my writing. (Check out\u00a0Meddle.it<\/a>, which makes this whole process easy and allows you to share\/syndicate your comments to your social platforms with a few easy clicks.)<\/p>\n

The New Networking<\/h2>\n

Is this an easy process? No. Is your time investment going to pay off? Absolutely. Think of it this way: When you walk into a new networking group, one where you know nobody, and you start shaking hands, does everyone in the room offer to buy your product and connect you with their best friends?<\/p>\n

No. You have to come back five, six times, or maybe even more over the course of an entire year. People want to buy things from and work with people they know and trust\u2014and you can work on those relationships through your content every day from your office, from your home, the train. You can be building that trust by communicating on the social platforms and building relationships and\u00a0looking people in the eye digitally<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Return on Relationship<\/h2>\n

Every blog post I write I publish on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Google+. I also publish it on Tumblr and on Listly, which is a site just for lists\u2014people love lists. All these things will grow your relationships and enhance the trust and loyalty of people who follow you. In the end it produces what I call a\u00a0Return on Relationship<\/a>, which leads directly to your return on investment.<\/p>\n

We live in this new world\u2014it\u2019s the Age of Influence\u2014where anyone can build an audience and effect change, advocate brands (personal or business), build relationships and make a difference. You can, too.<\/p>\n

Read more articles on\u00a0marketing<\/a>.<\/i><\/p>\n

Photo: iStockphoto<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Originally posted\u00a0SEPTEMBER 15, 2015 American Express OPEN Forum blog<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u2014\u2013 Whether you\u2019re building your personal brand, your business brand or both, one thing remains true: You need content to help you build trust and followers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[137,7],"tags":[1370,394,32,358,479,30,1899],"class_list":["post-5626","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-all-posts","category-tedrubin","tag-ronr","tag-business","tag-marketing","tag-relationships","tag-ror","tag-social-media","tag-tedrubin-3"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5626","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5626"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5626\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5627,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5626\/revisions\/5627"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5626"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5626"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5626"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}