Little Known Ways to Build a Reputation - Guest Blog by Annie Cooley

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Little Known Ways to Build a Reputation

by Annie Cooley

Your brand aligns your company’s characteristics with its identity and helps extend its attractiveness.  A reputation takes a brand and establishes it in the market place.  Building a reputation is crucial to growing a successful business.

What are ways you can let people know you are the good guy, the ones with the innovative or needed product/service that will revolutionize the market?

Get people talking about you by providing valuable content
Content, if done correctly, supports and guides its recipients towards what you have to offer.  It builds trust and rapport, which in turn generates long term commitment from recipients.  In which ways can you reward readers for utilizing your content?  When you reward your followers, you have a greater potential of turning them into customers.  Copyblogger shares some helpful tips on rewarding your followers:  How to Create Better Content: Treat your Readers like Dogs (sounds funny, but read on).

Get yourself in the middle of the social media conversation
Social media is about engagement and participation and if you aren’t there you are missing out on a big reputation building opportunity.  Address key people in your industry to strike up a conversation with. Don’t merely funnel out your brand messages but think about people/businesses that are following you. Ask yourself, what do they want from you?  Also, browse the people you follow.  Why do you follow them?  You follow them because they provide valuable content and beneficial information about your products or services.  Don’t you want to do the same?  When you engage people and provide value to the conversation, your reputation will grow in a positive direction and your brand will be extended.

Help others build their reputations
Be generous with your referrals.  If you know a great company that not only has a great product but provides greater value to each customer, share it with everyone you know.  Colleen Stanley of SalesLeadership, Inc. shared the concept of the law of reciprocity in one of our Thought Leader Series webinars, The Business of Sales: How to Grow and Develop Sales Teams.  If you give something to someone, that person feels obliged to give back (most of the time).   In short, if you want a referral, why don’t you give a few referrals and see what happens?   Networking is a great way to do this.  Instead of finding and talking with people who can help you, why not talk to people who you can help?  Yes, it does seem backwards at times, but it’s a crucial stepping stone toward building a reputable reputation.

Take your branding one step further and focus on building a positive reputation that will cause people to talk about the value you offer.  Reputation building is not limited to the ways I have shared with you today.  How have you been successful in extending your reputation into the market place?