Imagine Amazon if it were starting out today (and in company terms, it is still a fairly new kid on the block) and you were Jeff Bezos sitting in front of a blank screen, preparing to start building your brand authority, how would you feel? Daunted? Excited? Wanting to run for cover?
That’s the prospect pretty much all business owners face, however far along they are in their journey – whether start-ups or established enterprises – because building brand authority online and creating brand collateral is an essential part of the process, it takes time, and demands consistency of effort.
Skip on to 2020, and Amazon – founded in 1994 – is doing pretty well (is that an understatement?) The company was founded totally online and the brand stands and falls by its online presence.
How can you achieve this for your business? How can you build brand authority, with so many competitors out there all vying for each other’s business.
Here are some ways for you to build brand authority, to drive your sales and beat off that competition.
What is Brand Authority?
Like all good essays – or blogs – let’s define our terms. Brand authority is the trust that you build up among your customers and how they go on to view you as a leading light in your field.
The US Most Trusted Brand Survey, published in January 2020, cited Gen Z’s five most trusted brands as Google, Netflix, Amazon, YouTube and PlayStation. For all age groups overall, coming out top was the US Postal Service.
This doesn’t mean we love everything these giants do all of the time, but we rate them and generally give them credit for knowing what they are talking about. In other words, they have brand authority. (As an aside, also in the top ten list where M&Ms and Cheerios – interesting!)
And it is vital to remember that the perception of your brand is largely in your hands, and can be controlled with your marketing, your advertising, your customer experience, your employee engagement, your internal and external comms… everything you do as a business influences your brand authority.
Nor is establishing brand authority about the brand that shouts loudest and longest. It’s all about engagement and building trust with customers – and shouting sales messages has never been an effective tool for this.
The world of online perfectly lends itself to building this trust, through social media, organic search, PPC – all your online activity.
Five ways to build brand authority online
1. Content is king
We hear this phrase over and over, but many of us pay lip service to it. But let’s take it seriously (because Google does): content really is king. By regularly posting content on your website and on your social media feeds and making it quality, engaging content that people want to read or view, then you will start to build authority.
So what content should you use? Any and all, but quality and relevance are key. Mix up copy, videos, animations. Cover topics that will interest your audience (and make sure you know exactly who your audience are). Don’t be shouty and salesy; be engaging, conversational, show you know what you are talking about.
Blogs are a particularly effective way of building brand authority, as they allow you to explore different topics, demonstrate your knowledge and expertise, and can be longer pieces, which is important for ranking by search engines.
And don’t forget advertising, newsletters, eshots… all content which will increase brand awareness, brand authority and drive sales.
Simple, clear messaging, that reflects your brand, that people want to view and share.
2. Offer a fantastic user experience
You have the website, you have the content, you have a strong brand, and you have some great products… make sure your user experience is second to none.
So if you have an ecommerce site, ensure people can buy in just one or two clicks (think about Amazon and their fast checkout system).
Is your website mobile friendly? Believe it or not, even though mobile accounts for half of all global web traffic, many websites still languish only in laptop web browser mode. They need updating.
And a word on updating. The world of digital moves quickly. If your website is more than a few years old, then it’s old. Give it a fresh look, and don’t just cut and paste the content across to the new site. Check it through, give it a facelift, make sure it really reflects your brand as it is now and not as it was a decade ago.
Check for consistency. Check all the links work. Ask some friends or colleagues to test it out and report back on their experience. The navigation may seem glaringly simple to you but it may not to a visitor.
3. Building credible links
To gain brand authority Google and the other search engines have to like you. And they make their judgement in part on how you are judged by other sites. So if you can build credible links from other sites to yours, then you’ve scored a hit in SEO terms.
How can you build links? Here are a few ideas:
- Write guest blogs for others, with links back to your website
- Write comments and testimonials on other people’s blog posts
- Encourage bloggers to talk and write about your products. There may be a cost to this content marketing (in kind or monetary) but Google will recognise that people trust you and your brand. And if Google trusts you, then so will others. And how do we know that everyone trusts Google? The US Most Trusted Brands survey said so!
The added bonus, of course, is that this activity will also enable you to reach other audiences, who may not have heard of your brand before. It’s a win-win.
4. Social proof
Here we are talking about gaining endorsement for your brand. This could be through testimonials, or review sites. You can be super-active on social media, and make sure you are really engaged (and engaging) when responding to any comments that are made about your brand – reply, engage, sort out any issues.
Here’s one great example that we loved. Remember when KFC in the UK ran out of chicken due to a delivery issue with new suppliers? It took out full page adverts, switched the KFC letters on its packaging to FCK and made a full apology. The result? KFC was forgiven, the apology advertising went viral, and – importantly – the company repaired any damage to their brand authority
You could invite reviews to be left on Google My Business, or Tripadvisor. When you get great comments and testimonials, use social media to share and thank people.
Make sure you reciprocate. Building brand awareness is not a one-way street.
5. Showcasing success
Tell your audience about the great things you have done. Don’t assume they already know. It will also make them proud to be part of your great story.
So let people know you are great at what you do, and share this. If you support charities, then let your audience know (without being too much of a show off).
Use your website to showcase testimonials, case studies, your qualifications, your membership of professional bodies… it is all part of demonstrating your brand authority.
Vitally, you are showing you have confidence in your brand – and inspiring this in others.
So go ahead – start building your brand authority. Build your audience, build that trust and your reward for this hard work online will be recognition from Google, and increasing sales.
To talk to the Danny&co. team about brand authority – in fact, all things branding – then please get in touch. We’d love to chat to you.
