Five Tips for Building a Strong Social Brand
Build a Strategy. Passion can only take you so far.
At Simplify360, we are building a company that sustains. We are neither looking for quick revenue nor looking for a quick exit. So we build a strategy that builds a strong brand – a brand that is vibrant, valuable and strong. No short-cuts by lowering quality.
So we chose a strategy of keeping Slideshare as our focus. We planned to publish regular research reports, case studies, and white papers on the platform, and distribute through other social channels. Slideshare was chosen because the content on there does not die, and remains as an important document for a longer time. This is in sharp contrast to what happens on Facebook, Twitter, or blogs.
Business is a castle. Social channels are towers.
Some social companies believe that they can live only with Facebook pages. We agree that Facebook or other social profiles are important. However, we do not believe that one social profile, however powerful, can suffice all business interests.
We believe that businesses or company websites are the main ‘castle’ of a strategy war game. The castle is powerful but it is always good to guard it with powerful towers nearby. The benefit is huge – the powerful towers (in our case, the Slideshare channel) work as an indicator of territory ownership and create resistance for competitors.
Quality is king. Consistency is the emperor.
Quality is extremely important. Think of content and build a story around it. Then, give an extra effort to make it look awesome. Always remember, social media is still media – it loves anything that is provocative, attractive, and mind-blowing.
And so we make sure that the quality of content that goes out is maintained. It gets more visibility through shares, and also gives a good impression of a brand.
This much alone will not win you success. We have been doing it consistently on Slideshare for over two years. We have published content (research papers or other leadership content) every two weeks.
Share your story
Social media has flooded people with information. And amid all that noise, good stories sell. People like case studies but they will love your story, if you achieve some success. Share it and establish your leadership.
We shared our success with Slideshare in a presentation called “How Simplify360 Built World Class Brand Using Slideshare.” This actually became the second most successful piece of content we produced. It was good marketing material for Slideshare and they kept it as ‘Top Presentation of the Day’ for four consecutive days.
The presentation was shared in Twitter, Facebook, and Linkedin by huge number of people, and it hit the Linkedin Today front page too! The presentation received 130,000 views in the first week of publishing. This not only helped with brand recognition but also attracted several business leads.
Building on success
So what’s next? For us, it could be building a new tower as powerful as the Slideshare channel. This could be Scribd, YouTube, Facebook, or Twitter. It could be Pinterest too. I don’t want to disclose the channel just yet.
We have decided on one and are working on it. We will not, however, stop building our Slideshare channel. We’d like to have two powerful towers. We do have good SEO too, and are working on official PR as well. All these constitute a business strategy.
To learn more about what we have achieved through Slideshare, have a quick look at the presentation above.
About Bhupendra Khanal
Bhupendra Khanal is the CEO and co-founder of Simplify360, Asia’s leading media monitoring platform based in India. The company will complete its fourth year this month and now has presences in the US, India, Malaysia, Netherlands, and Korea. Bhupendra is a passionate analyst and he has co-authored the book ‘Demystifying Twitter Marketing.’
At Simplify360, we are building a company that sustains. We are neither looking for quick revenue nor looking for a quick exit. So we build a strategy that builds a strong brand – a brand that is vibrant, valuable and strong. No short-cuts by lowering quality.
So we chose a strategy of keeping Slideshare as our focus. We planned to publish regular research reports, case studies, and white papers on the platform, and distribute through other social channels. Slideshare was chosen because the content on there does not die, and remains as an important document for a longer time. This is in sharp contrast to what happens on Facebook, Twitter, or blogs.
Business is a castle. Social channels are towers.
Some social companies believe that they can live only with Facebook pages. We agree that Facebook or other social profiles are important. However, we do not believe that one social profile, however powerful, can suffice all business interests.
We believe that businesses or company websites are the main ‘castle’ of a strategy war game. The castle is powerful but it is always good to guard it with powerful towers nearby. The benefit is huge – the powerful towers (in our case, the Slideshare channel) work as an indicator of territory ownership and create resistance for competitors.
Quality is king. Consistency is the emperor.
Quality is extremely important. Think of content and build a story around it. Then, give an extra effort to make it look awesome. Always remember, social media is still media – it loves anything that is provocative, attractive, and mind-blowing.
And so we make sure that the quality of content that goes out is maintained. It gets more visibility through shares, and also gives a good impression of a brand.
This much alone will not win you success. We have been doing it consistently on Slideshare for over two years. We have published content (research papers or other leadership content) every two weeks.
Share your story
Social media has flooded people with information. And amid all that noise, good stories sell. People like case studies but they will love your story, if you achieve some success. Share it and establish your leadership.
We shared our success with Slideshare in a presentation called “How Simplify360 Built World Class Brand Using Slideshare.” This actually became the second most successful piece of content we produced. It was good marketing material for Slideshare and they kept it as ‘Top Presentation of the Day’ for four consecutive days.
The presentation was shared in Twitter, Facebook, and Linkedin by huge number of people, and it hit the Linkedin Today front page too! The presentation received 130,000 views in the first week of publishing. This not only helped with brand recognition but also attracted several business leads.
Building on success
So what’s next? For us, it could be building a new tower as powerful as the Slideshare channel. This could be Scribd, YouTube, Facebook, or Twitter. It could be Pinterest too. I don’t want to disclose the channel just yet.
We have decided on one and are working on it. We will not, however, stop building our Slideshare channel. We’d like to have two powerful towers. We do have good SEO too, and are working on official PR as well. All these constitute a business strategy.
To learn more about what we have achieved through Slideshare, have a quick look at the presentation above.
About Bhupendra Khanal
Bhupendra Khanal is the CEO and co-founder of Simplify360, Asia’s leading media monitoring platform based in India. The company will complete its fourth year this month and now has presences in the US, India, Malaysia, Netherlands, and Korea. Bhupendra is a passionate analyst and he has co-authored the book ‘Demystifying Twitter Marketing.’
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