Act Like A Brand

[tommymaczoidberg]

The thought occurred to me while writing a reply to something in the Search Engine Optimization forum. I wonder how much weight social mentions carry with search rankings these days. I would guess that it's a pretty heavy influence (feel free to prove me wrong, though. I really do not know) and, if it is indeed, then what we should be focusing on with Social Network marketing is acting like a brand.

While here in this forum certainly don't have the marketing power of Amazon or eBay and can’t spend billions of dollars on brand recognition tactics, we can tap into the brand awareness we already have. Certainly you have fans and followers (otherwise you wouldn't be here). Engage with them. Reward them. Don't just tweet links and hunt for likes. Rather, you should build relationships. Worry about the health of your brand outside of SEO.

Or, am I just blowing smoke here?

 

[BigBigFan]

No, you're not blowing smoke, people need to see a brand before they decide to follow.

Look at the Gangnam style video craze. Psy, the singer, is from Korea and he's been singing k-pop songs (korean pop culture) for years. Gangnam was on his sixth album. If you go to the Google trends site and look up k-pop you'll see that it's suddenly become hugely popular and people are looking for k-pop in record numbers now.

So what does that have to do with branding? Well, it took the Gangnam brand for people to become interested in k-pop. Before Psy they got 10% of the searches they do now even though there are thousands upon thousands of other bands. Brand matters, people follow them.

 

[tommymaczoidberg]

No, you're not blowing smoke, people need to see a brand before they decide to follow.

Look at the Gangnam style video craze. Psy, the singer, is from Korea and he's been singing k-pop songs (korean pop culture) for years. Gangnam was on his sixth album. If you go to the Google trends site and look up k-pop you'll see that it's suddenly become hugely popular and people are looking for k-pop in record numbers now.

So what does that have to do with branding? Well, it took the Gangnam brand for people to become interested in k-pop. Before Psy they got 10% of the searches they do now even though there are thousands upon thousands of other bands. Brand matters, people follow them.

I knew K-pop had to be a thing once the Gangnam style video hit the JibJab site.

Anyway, another example, going along with the music thing, is Justin Bieber. The kid built his fame by making himself a brand and getting exposure over the Internet.