What is brand authority?
Building a brand that is well-known and has a stellar reputation is no longer as simple as placing an advertisement in your local Yellow Pages. With the advent of Google and social media, establishing your brand as an authority has become overwhelming and complicated to those looking to make a name for themselves in an online and virtual world. Brand authority promotes established skills, abilities, and connections within your realm of business or the industry you represent. When you have authority as a brand, visitors are more likely to turn into consumers and help spread the word of your business and the products or services you have available to offer. Learning how to build authority online requires a bit of research and plenty of hard work, but often pays off with higher revenue streams and referrals long-term.
Produce fresh content frequently
One of the biggest downfalls when creating a brand from scratch is the inability to update as frequently as necessary for most fans and follower. Even hardcore fans of your brand may one day forget about what you have to offer without regular updates, new ideas, and innovative or inspiring messaging. Producing fresh content frequently not only keeps those who follow you in the loop, but it is a much more organic method if gaining new followers and potential consumers in the long run. Many times fresh content is referred to as "evergreen" content, meaning that its essential point is not newsworthy, but useful, and will be likely for years to come.
Select a niche market
Establishing brand awareness and a presence online is not exactly simple if you are only advertising a product that hundreds, if not thousands of already established companies promote on their own, and often with more funding. Having or creating your own entire unique product is one way to establish brand authority on a niche idea. Think niche audience, wide distribution. There are various networks you can tap into once you are well-known, established within popular search engines, and generating revenue without assistance. Building the largest brand or company overnight is nearly impossible, so it is essential to take the necessary steps to get you there.
Use a variety of mediums to assert your expertise in the subject you are covering
Not only is it important to use a variety of sources to assert your own expertise in the brand you represent, but it is imperative in the ever-growing competitive virtual and online world we interact with each day. Just choosing to build a website or simply stick to Facebook only is a way to miss out on potential sales and unlimited reach, based on sharing and becoming social with other users around the world. Even if you prefer to simply use Facebook for business advertising, consider possibilities with Instagram, Snapchat, and Twitter based on the audience and demographic you want to reach.
Networking and guest posting
Another method of improving brand awareness and establishing authority is to network with other professionals who are in your industry, in addition to guest posting for those who have similar web traffic and comparable social media influence. Find potential blogs you may have the chance to guest post on by browsing commonly-searched keywords that are relevant to your website and own brand, reading comments, and writing personal responses or email to those who have similar goals or blogs as you.
Get active on social media with your brand
Even once all of the work is done for your brand's social media pages, they still require maintenance and updating to keep those who have an avid passion for your services and the products you offer interested and potentially willing to become a customer. Use Facebook's analytics along with Google Analytics to determine the demographic that best suits the ads you put out there in the world (based on engagement rates). Update your brand's social media pages not only with test walls of what you have to offer or the latest discounts you want to promote, but also photo and video media. Sharing ironic or relatable imagery and videos with your social media is one way to engrain your company's name into their minds. If you are capable of maintaining updates and relevant photo share/engagement rates then it may be time to switch to video, which often spreads quicker and more massively than traditional social media updates, regardless of whether you are using Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram, Twitter, or even YikYak.
