3 ways to make your brand more visible online
Publishing more content and increasing your digital activity might seem like obvious ways to make your brand more visible online.
This article is part of our Branding & Online Reputation resource section.
Yet more activity doesn’t guarantee that you’ll reach the people who matter to your business. You could invest considerable time in producing content without giving potential customers more opportunities to discover you.
Instead, think about visibility in terms of relevant encounters. The more opportunities potential customers have to encounter and engage with your brand in the digital spaces they use, the more visible your business can become.
Here are three ways to create more opportunities for the right audience to encounter your brand online.
- Build a social media presence
Focus your efforts on the social media platforms your target audience actually uses rather than trying to maintain a presence everywhere. Choose channels based on where relevant people spend their time and engage with topics related to your business.
Regular participation in the right places creates more opportunities for relevant audiences to encounter and recognise your brand. Maintaining that presence also makes these encounters more consistent rather than occasional.
For example, a B2B technology company might focus its social media strategy on LinkedIn, where it can share useful insights and participate in relevant industry conversations.
The right channels will vary considerably by industry. A consumer-facing company, for instance, may take a different approach and use more visually focused platforms alongside other ideas for marketing a new fashion brand to increase recognition among its target customers.
Consistent visibility can also support a broader strategy for building scalable brand growth, particularly when your marketing efforts are designed to reach the right audiences as the business expands.
Prioritising consistent visibility on a few relevant platforms helps you build familiarity with the audience you want to reach, making your brand more recognisable over time.
Improving visibility is also closely connected to building brand awareness, as repeated and relevant exposure can help potential customers become more familiar with your business and what it offers.
- Earn mentions on authoritative websites
Give credible third-party websites something useful or noteworthy to mention about your brand. Look for opportunities where your knowledge or information can make an existing industry conversation more useful to readers.
Established publications and industry websites already have their own audiences, so relevant mentions can put your brand in front of people beyond the audience you’ve built yourself while providing independent credibility.
Focus on giving authoritative sources genuine reasons to mention you. For instance, you might use proprietary research or timely expert commentary to contribute something valuable to relevant industry coverage.
Product launches can provide another reason for publications and audiences to pay attention to a business. Planning how your brand introduces new products can create timely opportunities for coverage, conversations and additional exposure.
If your team finds it difficult to earn these opportunities consistently, consider seeking support from PR digital marketing specialists.
Businesses that need broader strategic support may also consider working with experienced branding companies to develop a more consistent identity and strengthen how the brand is presented across different digital channels.
Online and offline visibility can also work together. For example, businesses can use tools such as a bulk QR code generator to boost brand reach by connecting physical marketing materials with relevant digital content and campaigns.
- Establish your experts as industry authorities
Make the knowledge of your internal subject-matter experts more visible online. Focus on colleagues with genuine first-hand knowledge of the subjects that matter to your audience and your business.
Making employees and their expertise more visible can have benefits beyond customer-facing authority. Internal practices can also influence employer perception, which is why some organisations implement a hybrid workplace to improve employer branding while strengthening how employees represent the organisation.
Recognised experts give relevant audiences another route to discovering your brand while supporting E-E-A-T signals around first-hand experience, expertise, authority and trustworthiness. Their contributions can demonstrate that knowledge rather than simply claiming it.
For example, a cybersecurity specialist could share informed analysis of emerging threats through relevant content and industry conversations.
Identify where your team have genuine expertise and make that expertise easier for relevant audiences to encounter.
Make visibility an ongoing priority
Digital visibility does not have to operate independently from physical branding. Even practical promotional products such as branded water bottles can reinforce recognition offline while directing people toward a company’s website, social channels or digital campaigns.
Online visibility grows when you consistently create more opportunities for the right people to encounter your brand.
Assess where your target audience currently encounters your brand online and identify the biggest gaps in that presence.
Addressing those gaps can expand your digital footprint and increase the likelihood that potential customers discover and recognise your brand.
Where could your brand be showing up that it isn’t today?
