Building and Maintaining your Credibility

When we think or talk about building your profile and making yourself credible, many people rush to technology and think Social Media. Its true that Social Media is very powerful is connecting with prospects and building Credibility, but this is not the only way. So if you do not use Social Media currently, or worry about it, let us share a broader range of tools you can use.

The idea is to create channels to enable your message to reach existing and prospective customers, so it all depends where they like to hang out. So there is nothing wrong with good old fashioned networking, if your target customers are going to attend specific events (business networking or even the golf club) then you can make connections here as well. There is no fixed rule here, look at your Customer Profile and work out the best options.

Now, to really be Omni Channel, think about doubling, tripling, quadrupling etc, so work on multiple things. The statistics show that prospect will often need between 7 and 11 connections before they are ready to buy. For existing customers, they will probably be receiving content from your competitors and so you need to make sure you remain present in their thoughts.

You will be more memorable when you publish content which is interesting, relevant, educational, informative and remarkable ... ie worth making a remark about. You will be soon forgotten, or become irrelevant, if your content is repetitive, boring, out of date, salesy and certainly not remarkable.

If this is sounding like a lot to do, then break it down. First pick a platform you are comfortable with. Are you good with words or Images? Facebook and Instagram are obvious here, but don't forget Linked In and of course a WordPress (or other blogging site). Maybe you prefer to be natural and talk live, so look at YouTube and Facebook Live or Twitter Live. If you are not comfortable with any of these, why not just have a chat with people who are talking about keywords you are interested in? Get yourself a Twitter account and search for people with the hashtags you want to be involved in.

As I said earlier, if social media is not your thing, there's nothing wrong with good old fashioned Networking and if thats what you prefer, then take the same approach. Pick one networking platform, get comfortable and then go to another. I have seen businesses be successful purely on networking, with a low social media presence, you can still build and maintain your credibility.

Get comfortable with one platform and then move onto another which complements what you are doing. This way you can build up credibility across multiple platforms. There is no requirement to be on every platform out there, but if you can pick 2 or 3 you are comfortable with, then you have a better chance of reaching your target market. As an example, we focus on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and face to face networking. We ignore Instagram, which has a lot of attention right now.

Our Credibility Creator tool is designed to help you build up your Profile and Credibility and stand out in a Crowded Market. We talk about putting in place a Content Creation Plan that you can use to plan and control your content creation. You will focus on specific keywords and make sure that you become known for certain things. When you are known for certain things, or a niche, people will know you. When they know you, then they will come to you, from other niches because of your reputation.

To find out more at this or other tools, contact us today.

Found this useful? Why not head over to our Business Insights Page

TAGS: awareness building, Brand, business development, Business Strategy, Diversification Strategy, omnichannel, SME, Strategic Growth