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Branding Your Brand

Most small business owners know a little bit about branding.  At least, insofar as they know they need to be thinking about branding.  Too often, branding becomes secondary or tertiary behind other strategies to make sales or generate leads.  But the digital marketplace is filled with opportunities for branding and it becomes a great way to develop long lasting relationships, customer engagement, and encourage sales in industries with long sales cycles.

Digital branding is more than just having a Facebook page, though that might be a good place to start.  Beyond the standard strategies, Search Engine Land had this article I saw on Twitter that I really liked, listing seven of the most often overlooked branding opportunities and I agree with all of them.  I think the most often overlooked and missed opportunity is in the email (#1 in the article).  Emails should absolutely be descriptive, effective, and always seen as a way to grow your business, make sales, and grow your brand. Emails have been integrated into search results (in a limited capacity/beta test at this point but it will grow – see more information here) and having descriptive, relevant content (beyond basic sale alerts) makes big gains not only in the short term, but from a branding standpoint.  Now, how well the search results and emails tie in together, only time will tell.  But the efficacy of email as a branding tool has been proven over and over again.

What branding techniques work for you in search?  In social media: YouTube? Twitter? Facebook?  Email?  Search?

How do you define your brand?