So how is your brand’s authority coming along? This may sound like an odd question, but it’s something you’ll want to ask yourself as a new year quickly approaches. How your brand is regarded among consumers makes all the difference in a competitive marketplace.
Customers have countless places to spend their money. If they don’t form a close connection with your brand from the start, they won’t feel compelled to come back to it. But your brand’s authority goes beyond what you are selling. It also includes how you show up in the world, including what your brand values and how you are perceived by others. It’s a key factor for growth, which is why you’ll want to consider these three ways to increase your authority in 2024.
1. Create a Strong, Positive Brand Image
Unfortunately, there’s a lot of negativity in today’s world. Whether it’s worldwide catastrophes, corruption, war, or something else entirely, most news today is bleak. While you likely don’t have any control over what becomes breaking news, you do have control over your own brand image. By building a strong, positive brand image, you’ll capture the attention of potential customers while engaging existing ones. When a customer forms a positive association with your brand in their mind, you’re further establishing your credibility and authority as a business.
Of course, a positive brand image doesn’t happen overnight. You’ll need to work to build up your reputation, starting with your publication relations strategy. Traditional PR focuses on garnering print, radio, and television mentions to showcase your product or service. While traditional PR still has a purpose today, digital PR has come to the forefront due to the internet and online communication channels. A digital PR agency can help you boost your online presence to capture your audience’s attention.
This isn’t to say that you should focus solely on digital PR. Rather, traditional and digital PR can work together to engage audiences and strengthen your brand’s image in the marketplace. For instance, a social media campaign for your luxury handbag company may move the needle among younger generations. Meanwhile, earning a feature in Elle or a mention in a New York Times “Wirecutter” piece could also be worthwhile to your brand image. Both of these tactics demonstrate your ability to create buzz in a crowded space where garnering positive consumer attention is of the utmost importance.
2. Interact With Your Customers
Customers aren’t looking for one-way relationships. They want to purchase from brands that care about them, prioritize their values, and listen to their feedback. Engaging with your consumers on a regular basis shows that you care about them beyond a sale. It’s also a way to establish authority by providing them with useful, pertinent information.
In today’s digital-focused world, there are numerous ways to interact with your customers. Sending a thank-you email after a first purchase with a link to share their thoughts shows that you value their opinion. Another easy way to interact with customers is via social media. Engaging with followers through their comments indicates that you want to form deeper connections with them. It can also be a way to get a platform’s algorithm to prioritize your content and push it to other similarly minded individuals online.
Live forms of engagement are also proving to be successful. Live videos gained popularity during the pandemic, and they remain internet favorites today. Your brand can use live videos like mini-webinars, providing valuable info morsels that will bolster your authority and keep audience members engaged. Podcasts are another way to grow your audience while providing listeners with premium content that aligns with their interests and your core mission. Soliciting listener questions and providing helpful answers will encourage interaction and earn your audience’s trust.
3. Become a Guest Author in Trusted Media Outlets
Another way to gain authority in the market is to become a guest author for notable online publications. When a reader sees your name on a credible, authoritative site, they are more likely to see you as authoritative as well. Not only does this strategy help build new audiences, but it also juices your SEO rankings.
With guest posting, your brand’s site is often included as a backlink from the reputable site. While backlinks aren’t the SEO goldmine they once were, they remain important. If you take a quality over quantity approach — as this strategy does — Google and other search engines will view your site more favorably. By gaining backlinks from sites with high domain authority, your page rankings will likely increase along with your perceived trustworthiness.
Of course, being a guest author takes some work. First, you need to find sites that accept guest posts. You also need to ensure the information you’re writing about is meaningful to the publication’s audience. Research the site’s content to ensure you aren’t writing on something that’s been covered exhaustively already or goes against the publication’s main point of view. Also, don’t promote your product or service outright; you may not even need to mention it in your post to make a compelling point.
Takeaways
As you begin to focus on your goals for the upcoming year, think of how becoming a more authoritative brand can impact your overall success. Increasing brand authority by strengthening your digital presence can generate conversions, boost sales, and increase industry influence. It will also differentiate you from the competition, putting you above other brands who are merely chasing sales. Brand authority is something that is earned over time, meaning you’ll need to consciously focus on it to see tangible results.
