Tips to Establish Your Digital Brand

Over the last 12 years, thanks to social media, I have had the privilege to meet a variety of amazing marketing, leadership, and customer experience experts. One of these experts is Zen Yinger from North Carolina. We recently had a discussion about marketing, and highlights follow below Zen’s bio.

Zen Yinger is the CEO of ZenSocial, and as a digital marketer for over a decade, she loves to help technology and cybersecurity companies and C-Suite teams begin and scale their digital presence to become thought leaders within their industries. She also coaches entrepreneurs and professionals who are in the process of making a delayed entry into the digital world. She has been recognized in Onalytica’s Top 100 for Social Media Marketing Influencers and Top 100 PR Influencers. Also, she is passionate about #WomensAdvocacy #WomenSupportingWomen #HeForShe and #TechForGood. Her website is www.zenyinger.com; her Blog is www.zenyinger.com/blog; and she can be found on Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn/Instagram/Pinterest as Zen Yinger.

QUESTION: On your website, you wrote about the importance of, "Establishing your brand as an industry expert, promoting your thought leadership and keeping your communities, brand advocates, and clients coming back for more." What key ways do you recommend accomplishing this?
ZEN YINGER: When it comes to building your social authority, it’s all about ‘show – don’t just tell.’ By sharing relevant information, your thoughts, and insights consistently; engaging with your community by participating in social chats, and through meaningful engagement, you begin to build your community of peers, fans, brand advocates, and prospects who become clients. If you are genuine and do your best to help folks without the hope for a get (aka, something in return), you become a well-respected member of your community. As I discovered when I first began my journey with social media, “The Power Of Your Community Will Make Your Brand The Next Big Thing.” It was true a decade ago, and just as true today.

TWEET THIS: If you are genuine and do your best to help folks without the hope for a get, you become a well-respected member of your community. -@ZenYinger #DebbieLaskeysBlog

QUESTION: Many people remember the famous OREO Tweet during the 2013 Super Bowl. With that in mind, what's your favorite social media marketing campaign?
ZEN YINGER: B2C brands get a much better opportunity to use creativity and visual marketing to their advantage to connect with their audiences through high impact, high recall, social media marketing campaigns.

It’s time we see more B2B brands create high impact, high recall social media marketing campaigns. That said, I loved Coke’s #ShareACoke campaign and Dove’s #ShowYourself campaign with messages that were simple, yet they connected deeply with me. The Zoom Background Competition via Twitter last year was fun too.

QUESTION: What's your favorite marketing or social media buzzword, and why?
ZEN YINGER: I love:

#Organic Content: Non-paid branded content which is how brands used to post and engage on social media, to be social instead of “doing social” via paid content. Unfortunately, brands have to pay now for impressions and reach on most social networks, because social media algorithms have started showing only a tiny percentage of organic content to a brand’s community.

On Twitter, I often use #WomenSupportingWomen #HeForShe #MarketingTwitter #socialmedia #digitalmarketing and #Marketing hashtags. I also LOVE using emojis whenever relevant, especially during Twitter conversations (or in Twitter speak, convos).

QUESTION: What's your least-liked marketing or social media buzzword, and why?
ZEN YINGER: I do not like the buzzword #hustle that many marketers use. I prefer the word being in the "#flow," which is when we are working at our best using less energy, more receptive to creative solutions, achieve positive results and greater success.

QUESTION: What do you think will be the central focus of our social media marketing discussions a year from now?
ZEN YINGER: All through 2021-2022 and beyond, we are going to experience a marketing makeover with our digital world adapting to a post-pandemic target audience which has adapted to a new remote work or hybrid environments. People all over the world have developed new habits, with accompanying new wants and needs.

Brand marketers will need to do more social listening, engage more to understand, so they don’t drop the ball on clear and effective messaging to connect with their post-pandemic audience.

There will be a massive uptick in social media customer service, where even smaller brands will have to join the digital world and be available 24/7 if they want to keep their clients/customers happy. Almost everyone will have to become digitally savvy to navigate our ALWAYS ON digital world.

TWEET THIS: Brand marketers will need to do more social listening to connect with their post-pandemic audience. -@ZenYinger #BrandTip #DebbieLaskeysBlog

My thanks to Zen for sharing her social media marketing insights and for appearing here on my Blog.

Image Credit: Debbie Laskey.