Your business success is determined by having loyal customers. It is just one of those “facts of life” for a small business owner.Social media is a great way to gain and connect with your target market. This is also a way to communicate with them and build strong relationships that will help your brand reach your goals. It’s essential to plan before starting an online campaign. Ask yourself – How can we start our online presence in bridging the gap between our customers and our personal brand (often what drives the brand for small business owners)?Most small business owners are their business. They will be Googled, along with their business name.We did an interview with Amy Martin. She is a social media guru and the founder of Digital Royalty, a digital integration and social media marketing firm based in Phoenix. Her business helps celebrities, businesses, and professional sports athletes and leagues to effectively use social media for brand success. She shared some best practices that she uses with her clients to build a solid online identity.Here are some tips on how to start your personal brand success:Identify your personal brand – Before you go online to attract and connect with your target market, you must first identify your personal brand. Doing this will give you a clear view of how you can use social media to your advantage. Doing this will help you identify your values and business goals. Once you see how social media can help you meet your business goals, you can start building up your brand online. Attract your target market, and in return, they will start communicating with you.Listen to your audience – Always pay attention to your audience, whether they are online, offline, or potential ones. Customers have insightful comments and suggestions that you can pick up to continuously improve your personal brand. Listening to their needs and wants will help you strategize your campaign, improve your products or services, and build stronger relationships.Be aware on how you provide value to your customers – Social media is a great place where you can see how people view you as a brand. You will see how effective your brand is with what customers are saying about you. Take note of the things that your customers like and dislike about your brand. Take the good ones and find ways on how you can provide that to all your customers. Take the bad ones and find ways on how you can improve them.Success takes patience, a lot of it – Success means you take whatever is necessary to reach your goal. Once you take your brand online, you have to make your presence felt. Post helpful articles and share photos and videos with your audience. Keep them interested. Doing this will engage your audience to share their insights about your posts or your brand. Once you get them interacting with you and with other customers, you start building a community around your brand. It’s going to take a lot of hard work, time and patience. But once you have loyal customers, your brand can have a strong foundation.Try things and experiment – Customer feedback is beneficial to any business and brand. If you pay attention to people’s feedback, you will get ideas on how you can improve your brand. Listen to their suggestions, refine, and take action. Make changes because it is the only way to find out which strategy, products or services will best work with your target market. And because the market is always changing, the only way to be successful is to keep looking for that something that will get your customers interested. Make sure you communicate your brand’s uniqueness and at the same time flexible to market trends.There is no shortcut to success and you will quickly get there if you plan and strategize properly, develop your road map and you are keen on executing on it.

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