What You Need to Know to Build a Successful Media Presence
Every successful business owner understands that building a brand is much more than putting together a paid advertising campaign or creating an eye-catching logo and website. While these elements certainly do help, it’s worthwhile noting that over 53 percent of the worlds’ population use social media, and individuals around the world spend over 7.5 hours each day consuming some form of media. As such, many marketing experts consider owned media channels – blogs, podcasts, social media, webinars, and more – to be one of the most effective ways to forge a brand presence and create a valuable touchpoint with potential customers.
The benefits of building a multi-channel media presence are well known. Aside from access to a huge, global audience, a report from Sprout has found that 89 percent of customers will buy from a brand they follow on social media, and 84 percent will choose the brand they follow over a competitor. Additionally, brands featured in various media sources, either in print or online, are considered more credible than brands with no coverage. As such, investing in a businesses’ overall media presence has the potential to deliver significant returns.
While small-to-medium enterprise, or SME, leaders may find the prospect of building and running an effective media presence to be accessible only for bigger businesses with deeper pockets, this isn’t necessarily the case. Armed with a computer, smartphone, and internet connection, anyone can get started and excel in building their media presence. To help you on your way, below are two overarching aspects crucial to building a successful media presence; Read on to learn more.
Understand ‘who’ your brand is and what it stands for, then showcase it consistently
A brand is not just a logo or name. Instead, it’s the culmination of communications and experiences that existing and potential customers receive from every interaction with a business or organization. Effective brands typically have simple, clear, and consistent themes that reinforce who their brand is and what it stands for. A prime example of this done correctly is evidenced in the online outlet SalesPOP! which was developed by Nikolaus Kimla, CEO, and John Golden, CMSO at Pipeliner, a customer relationship management, or CRM, platform. Originally created as a generic content platform to engage with existing and potential customers, as well as professionals from the industries they serve, the platform was so well-received that it grew into a media entity unto itself, SalesPOP! which now features over 800 contributors and its own podcast. In addition to these accolades, SalesPOP! has fast-grown a reputation for being an effective tool industry professionals can use to establish their credentials, which can be leveraged to further their careers.
John Golden, the Chief Strategy and Marketing Officer of Pipeliner and Executive Editor of SalesPOP! credits the success of utilizing the outlet to build the brand and digital presence of both itself and Pipeliner with following a number of core principles, including:
- A solid understanding of the brand
- Understanding the businesses and clients the brand aims to serve
- Considered, respectful, personable and professional messaging, and
- A focus on building trust and fruitful relationships via rigorous honesty and consistency in both messaging and content.
Fundamental to the success of Sales POP! is the content strategy. Golden says “Content is king as we know and thanks to Claudia Kimla-Stern, our VP of Content Relations with Sales POP! who researches and finds an amazing and eclectic collection of thought leaders from across the globe to contribute to the online magazine, we can deliver so many diverse insights from multiple subject areas. The depth and breadth of content is unrivaled.”
Finally, Golden credits spending time building relationships, or as the team at Pipeliner call it, “truly putting the R into CRM” to the success of SalesPOP!. This has been done by engaging and communicating with audiences using the principles of empathy and respect, the specifics of which we’ll dive further into in the following section.
Interact, engage and amplify (with the goal of building mutually beneficial relationships)
The biggest value proposition of building a media presence is that it provides a direct line to customers. As such, it’s vital that when customers attempt to interact with your brand via any media channel, you seize the chance to begin a conversation. If a customer comments on a post or article, for example, take it as an opportunity to build a relationship. Even if it doesn’t convert to a sale on the spot, the customer will come away from the interaction with a positive association with your brand.
According to Golden, empathy, respect, and the goal of success for all parties – ensuring potential customers and the brand itself can win together – should be the pillars that underpin any interaction with your audience. This means finding ways to build mutually beneficial relationships, either through the provision of valuable information to your audience or by giving your audience a platform to promote themselves. SalesPOP! does this by featuring interviews with sales and other industry professionals on both their website and podcast, as well as by hosting panel events and live chats.
Actions like these have the additional benefit of amplifying your brand. Every brand or professional who is featured on your media channels will likely promote their upcoming feature on their own channels, which should drive new audiences to, and further strengthen, your own media presence. Additional ways to amplify your media efforts include strategically engaging relevant industry influencers, as well as ensuring cross-promotion on every owned channel – from social media to your weekly or monthly digital newsletter – which should also work to drive interested parties who ideally, will engage with your brand and become a customer.
Although beginning the journey in building a media presence from scratch can feel like a monumental task, it isn’t as difficult as many might expect. Through breaking the process down into simple steps and sticking to guidelines around brand identity, consistency, engagement, and amplification, as well as having strong principles that build trust and mutually beneficial relationships, business leaders with organizations of any size can build and maintain a successful and profitable media presence.
This article has been published in accordance with Socialnomics’ disclosure policy.
