The Internet is now ‘the’ number one space for online shopping whether for products or services.  For promoting, packaging, and positioning, online branding is where true opportunity lay for any business.

Nowadays it’s more important than ever for a business to maintain a consistent online presence or a strong online brand.  It’s the only way to build credibility & trust with your audience.

It also provides your customers with the social proof they need to establish the legitimacy of your brand.

You can do this via LinkedIn profile, newsletters, podcasts, social media platforms, blogs, or your company or brand website. Your presence on social media may consist of published articles, images, a company website, video or recorded speaking engagements such as Zoom meetings or podcasts.

The point is, if you’re not online in some fashion, to the general public, you might as well not exist.

In this day and age, can you think of a single person, young or old, that doesn’t search the Internet for products, services or information?

But why?  Why are we now so completely dependent upon Internet marketing?

1. Social Platforms
   An online presence provides you with a readily accessible platform. If you present your professional or personal brand online, you create a valuable space for sharing your expertise/knowledge about your product/service.
2. Amplification
   An online presence ensures brand amplification through exposure. If customers continue to see your presence online, they begin to trust your brand and even see it as an expert in its given field.
3. Visibility
   An online presence give you a level of visibility like nothing else available due ot the variety of outlets.  You can share videos via various channels, including IG videos, LinkedIn lives, IG live, podcasts, YouTube, etc. If you want their business, you’ve got to show up where your customers are.
4. Connection
   Although people buy services and goods, they tend to do so with a greater level of emotion than in the past. Your online brand creates a stronger relationship with your audience in a more genuine way.
5. Searchability
   Having your brand online makes it searchable. To gain the greatest advantage from this, you should use forms of SEO, like keywords.  Keywords are a great way for your target audience to most easily find you.
6. Collaboration
   The online world has endless opportunities for collaboration. These range from guests on podcasts, speaking on a virtual stage, or having experts for a partnership with your brand on an event. For growing your audience and expanding your reach, you should connect, follow and collaborate with a similar professional in the field.
7. Reviews
   When people like your online brand approach, this will build up their trust, and they will start recommending you. An excellent online presence allows you to connect with the audience to enhance likeability and trust.
8. Expands your reach
   With many similar platforms for choosing products and services, having an online brand widens your reach. Consumers do not have to visit you physically for information, recommend a service, or buy a product. All business occurs online, and if people like it, your chance of them sharing your content also increases.
9. Providing Value
   Consumers are more interested in information then they’ve ever been.  It doesn’t matter if you’re marketing a product or a service, they want to know more, more than the 3 minute commercials of the past.  They expect greater engagement.
10. Financial Imperative
    Without an online presence, there is no social proof showing your expertise and knowledge, you cannot offer the kind of value your competitors can, you cannot build a community. In today’s business climate, all of these elements are necessary to have a thriving, profitable business.