Internet branding

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Internet branding (also referred to as Online branding) is a brand management technique that uses the World Wide Web & Social Media Channels as a medium for positioning a brand in the marketplace. [1] Branding is increasingly important with the advancements of the internet. Most businesses are exploring various online channels, which include search engine, social media, online press releases, online marketplace, to establish strong relationships with consumers and to build their brands awareness. [2]

Contents

Online branding techniques

Some professionals[ who? ] believe that the goal of online branding is to increase brand recognition. [1] Others focus on integrating online branding with the overall brand experience of customers in relation to a company, product, or other branded entity. From this perspective, brand recognition is viewed as one component among many, such as brand differentiation (from competitors) and the "Collaboration Age" brand dialog facilitated by Internet and mobile communications. Website development is a key component of online branding as a website is used by companies and individuals to present products and services of a brand.[ citation needed ] Focusing on a website's appearance, functions, and company message to provide a positive experience to visitors is all part of online branding.[ citation needed ] Website development for online branding also includes utilizing a blog to generate content for readers interested in topics related to the brand. It has been both recommended and advised against to guest blog on other websites for the purpose of online branding. In 2014, Matt Cutts, the head of Google's Spam team, stated that guest blogging has become more and more spammy and recommended against using guest posting for building incoming links to a website. [3]

Internet branding also involves social media interaction and integration. Display and content networks used with repetition are one method of integrating a brand with social media. [1] Behavioral targeting, re-messaging, and site-specific targeting are used as a way to keep a brand in front of a target audience. [1] Branding through social media involves sharing knowledge about the brand and continuously interacting with customers. [4]

Advantages

Strengthening the customer relationship

The Internet is a powerful branding tool for many businesses as it offers numerous ways to promote a business. [5] Interactivity as one of the natures of the Internet helps companies communicate the brand messages instantly and talk to consumers directly, generating exclusive and individual interactions with them. [6] Consumers potential purchasing behaviours can be influenced by brand knowledge and familiarity, so that good online branding can establish closer customer connections with brands and strengthen customer loyalty and relationship. [7]

Developing brand alliances

Online branding involves different brand positioning and marketing strategies, which can not only differentiate separately branded products but also bring together endorser brands. [8] For example, Library Websites are a prime example of such linking between the university website and other database or publisher websites such as FirstSearch and SpringerLink. [9] In the new economy with the convergence of technology, online branding provides the opportunity for companies to develop brands alliances and networks to maximize the brand influence. [10]

Diversifying the brand meaning

Online branding makes the company have the chance to communicate with customers directly and also provides the opportunity to gather customer information to build a database of customer purchase patterns. [11] The data can be used to segment customers into specific groups with specific needs, even offer customized services. [12] Therefore, the customization and targeting to smaller groups may generate the diversity of experience with the same brand. [12] The same brands have different meanings for different groups of customer.

Measuring opportunities

In the realm of online branding, the ability to measure success surpasses that of offline brands.[ citation needed ] Digital analytics systems make it significantly easier for marketers to quantify the impact of their online brand.[ citation needed ] Through these digital analytics tools, marketers can assess how many individuals engaged with the brand online, understand their reactions, and evaluate memorability, among other metrics.[ citation needed ]

Challenges

Information overload

The Web is a complicated place, it holds a vast number of websites, each of which has numerous information contained within it. [12] It is an open place for every business, and how to differentiate brand image through the same communicate channels is a challenge for many companies, especially for those that customers have little brand knowledge about them before they implement online branding strategy. [9] Failed cases usually underestimate either the complexity or the connectivity of the web. [12]

Management of different communication channels

Online branding, in general, will cover most popular social media platforms with different websites or mobile applications. Companies need to make sure the consistency of the branding content across these channels. [13]

In addition, it is also a challenge for the company to find and solve the complaint comments on brands in time, minimizing the negative effect. [7]

Ethics problems

Online brands are exposed to scrutiny from consumers through various review and complaint websites with fake reviews being used to damage brands. In 2014, a restaurant owner in Enid, Oklahoma refused to serve a patron in a wheelchair. In an interview, the owner stated that he does not serve "freaks" and made prejudiced remarks about homosexuality. Within days of the interview, people left fake reviews on Yelp about the restaurant in what the media described as "online justice." [14] Social media is also used as a medium for people to leave fake reviews or defame brands. [15] A hotel owner in the United Kingdom won a defamation lawsuit in 2014 against a former employee who set up a Facebook page solely for the purpose of damaging the inn's online brand. [16]

Companies have also manipulated brands by leaving positive online reviews. In September 2013, 19 New York businesses agreed to pay $350,000 in penalties and stop writing faking online reviews about their businesses in an agreement reached with the New York Attorney General. [17] The same year, Yelp sued a lawyer from San Diego for writing fake reviews about his solo practice on the site. Yelp has also posted messages on company pages within its site that have been caught paying for positive reviews. This was after the site conducted a sting operation on Craigslist to find companies paying for reviews. [18] It has been argued that companies posting fake online reviews about their own business violates false advertising laws. [17] United States law requires that people who receive compensation for endorsing a product actually endorse it. [19] The company Legacy Learning Systems was fined $250,000 in 2011 by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission for paying people to post fake reviews. [19]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Guerrilla marketing</span> Unconventional advertising strategy

Guerrilla marketing is an advertisement strategy in which a company uses surprise and/or unconventional interactions in order to promote a product or service. It is a type of publicity. The term was popularized by Jay Conrad Levinson's 1984 book Guerrilla Marketing.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Testimonial</span> Statement extolling the virtue of a product or person

In promotion and advertising, a testimonial or show consists of a person's written or spoken statement extolling the virtue of a product. The term "testimonial" most commonly applies to the sales-pitches attributed to ordinary citizens, whereas the word "endorsement" usually applies to pitches by celebrities. Testimonials can be part of communal marketing.

Marketing communications refers to the use of different marketing channels and tools in combination. Marketing communication channels focus on how businesses communicate a message to its desired market, or the market in general. It is also in charge of the internal communications of the organization. Marketing communication tools include advertising, personal selling, direct marketing, sponsorship, communication, public relations, social media, customer journey and promotion.

Reputation management, originally a public relations term, refers to the influencing, controlling, enhancing, or concealing of an individual's or group's reputation. The growth of the internet and social media led to growth of reputation management companies, with search results as a core part of a client's reputation. Online reputation management, sometimes abbreviated as ORM, focuses on the management of product and service search engine results.

In marketing, promotion refers to any type of marketing communication used to inform target audiences of the relative merits of a product, service, brand or issue, persuasively. It helps marketers to create a distinctive place in customers' mind, it can be either a cognitive or emotional route. The aim of promotion is to increase brand awareness, create interest, generate sales or create brand loyalty. It is one of the basic elements of the market mix, which includes the four Ps, i.e., product, price, place, and promotion.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Advertising campaign</span> Advertisements based on a theme

An advertising campaign is a series of advertisement messages that share a single idea and theme which make up an integrated marketing communication (IMC). An IMC is a platform in which a group of people can group their ideas, beliefs, and concepts into one large media base. Advertising campaigns utilize diverse media channels over a particular time frame and target identified audiences.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yelp</span> Directory service and online review forum

Yelp Inc. is an American company that develops the Yelp.com website and the Yelp mobile app, which publishes crowd-sourced reviews about businesses. It also operates Yelp Guest Manager, a table reservation service. It is headquartered in San Francisco, California.

Engagement marketing, sometimes called "experiential marketing", "event marketing", "on-ground marketing", "live marketing", "participation marketing", "Loyalty Marketing", or "special events", is a marketing strategy that directly engages consumers and invites and encourages them to participate in the evolution of a brand or a brand experience. Rather than looking at consumers as passive receivers of messages, engagement marketers believe that consumers should be actively involved in the production and co-creation of marketing programs, developing a relationship with the brand.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Influencer marketing</span> Type of social media marketing

Influencer marketing is a form of social media marketing involving endorsements and product placement from influencers, people and organizations who have a purported expert level of knowledge or social influence in their field. Influencers are someone with the power to affect the buying habits or quantifiable actions of others by uploading some form of original—often sponsored—content to social media platforms like Instagram, YouTube, Snapchat, TikTok or other online channels. Influencer marketing is when a brand enrolls influencers who have an established credibility and audience on social media platforms to discuss or mention the brand in a social media post. Influencer content may be framed as testimonial advertising.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Digital marketing</span> Marketing of products or services using digital technologies or digital tools

Digital marketing is the component of marketing that uses the Internet and online-based digital technologies such as desktop computers, mobile phones, and other digital media and platforms to promote products and services. Its development during the 1990s and 2000s changed the way brands and businesses use technology for marketing. As digital platforms became increasingly incorporated into marketing plans and everyday life, and as people increasingly used digital devices instead of visiting physical shops, digital marketing campaigns have become prevalent, employing combinations of search engine optimization (SEO), search engine marketing (SEM), content marketing, influencer marketing, content automation, campaign marketing, data-driven marketing, e-commerce marketing, social media marketing, social media optimization, e-mail direct marketing, display advertising, e-books, and optical disks and games have become commonplace. Digital marketing extends to non-Internet channels that provide digital media, such as television, mobile phones, callbacks, and on-hold mobile ringtones. The extension to non-Internet channels differentiates digital marketing from online marketing.

A touchpoint can be defined as any way consumers can interact with a business organization, whether person-to-person, through a website, an app or any form of communication. When consumers connect with these touchpoints they can consider their perceptions of the business and form an opinion.

Customer engagement is an interaction between an external consumer/customer and an organization through various online or offline channels. According to Hollebeek, Srivastava and Chen S-D logic-Definition of customer engagement is "a customer’s motivationally driven, volitional investment of operant resources, and operand resources into brand interactions," which applies to online and offline engagement.

Consumer-to-business (C2B) is a business model in which consumers (individuals) create value and businesses consume that value. For example, when a consumer writes reviews or when a consumer gives a useful idea for new product development then that consumer is creating value for the business if the business adopts the input. In the C2B model, a reverse auction or demand collection model, enables buyers to name or demand their own price, which is often binding, for a specific good or service. Inside of a consumer to business market the roles involved in the transaction must be established and the consumer must offer something of value to the business.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Content marketing</span> Form of marketing focused on creating content for a targeted audience online

Content marketing is a form of marketing focused on creating, publishing, and distributing content for a targeted audience online. It is often used by businesses in order to achieve the following goals: attract attention and generate leads, expand their customer base, generate or increase online sales, increase brand awareness or credibility, and engage an online community of users. Content marketing attracts new customers by creating and sharing valuable free content as well as by helping companies create sustainable brand loyalty, providing valuable information to consumers, and creating a willingness to purchase products from the company in the future.

Marketing buzz or simply buzz—a term used in viral marketing—is the interaction of consumers and users with a product or service which amplifies or alters the original marketing message. This emotion, energy, excitement, or anticipation about a product or service can be positive or negative. Buzz can be generated by intentional marketing activities by the brand owner or it can be the result of an independent event that enters public awareness through social or traditional media such as newspapers. Marketing buzz originally referred to oral communication but in the age of Web 2.0, social media such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube are now the dominant communication channels for marketing buzz.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Social media marketing</span> Promotion of products or services on social media

Social media marketing is the use of social media platforms and websites to promote a product or service. Although the terms e-marketing and digital marketing are still dominant in academia, social media marketing is becoming more popular for both practitioners and researchers.

Virtual engagement is a metric to determine the level of affinity between a company and its customers.

Online presence management is the process of creating and promoting traffic to a personal or professional brand online. This process combines web design, and development, blogging, search engine optimization, pay-per-click marketing, reputation management, directory listings, social media, link sharing, and other avenues to create a long-term positive presence for a person, organization, or product in search engines and on the web in general.

The reputation marketing field has evolved from the marriage of the fields reputation management and brand marketing, and involves a brand's reputation being vetted online in real-time by consumers leaving online reviews and citing experiences on social networking sites. With the popularity of social media in the new millennium reputation, vetting has turned from word-of-mouth to the digital platform, forcing businesses to take active measures to stay competitive and profitable.

Social media use by businesses includes a range of applications. Although social media accessed via desktop computers offer a variety of opportunities for companies in a wide range of business sectors, mobile social media, which users can access when they are "on the go" via tablet computers or smartphones, benefit companies because of the location- and time-sensitive awareness of their users. Mobile social media tools can be used for marketing research, communication, sales promotions/discounts, informal employee learning/organizational development, relationship development/loyalty programs, and e-commerce.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Wallace, Christopher (7 April 2010). "5 Key Strategies To Build Your Brand Online". Search Engine Land. Archived from the original on 25 September 2017. Retrieved 20 February 2014.
  2. ↑ Shih, Bih-Yaw; Chen, Chen-Yuan; Chen, Zih-Siang (2013-11-01). "Retracted: An Empirical Study of an Internet Marketing Strategy for Search Engine Optimization". Human Factors and Ergonomics in Manufacturing & Service Industries. 23 (6): 528–540. doi:10.1002/hfm.20348. ISSN   1520-6564. S2CID   111355888.
  3. ↑ Cutts, Matt (20 January 2014). "The decay and fall of guest blogging for SEO". Mattcutts.com. Retrieved 21 February 2014.
  4. ↑ Ali, Syed Noman (17 August 2013). "4 Steps to Building a Credible Online Brand". Social Media Today. Archived from the original on 14 November 2013. Retrieved 21 February 2014.
  5. ↑ Barreda, Albert A.; Bilgihan, Anil; Nusair, Khaldoon; Okumus, Fevzi (2016-12-01). "Online branding: Development of hotel branding through interactivity theory". Tourism Management. 57: 180–192. doi:10.1016/j.tourman.2016.06.007.
  6. ↑ Neelotpaul, Banerjee (2010-01-01). "A Study on Interactivity and Online Branding". Advances in Management ([object Attr]). Archived from the original on 2017-11-07. Retrieved 2017-05-04.
  7. 1 2 "Branding on the Internet". archive.ama.org. Archived from the original on 2017-11-07. Retrieved 2017-05-04.
  8. ↑ Shirley Leitch; Neil Richardson (2003-08-01). "Corporate branding in the new economy". European Journal of Marketing. 37 (7/8): 1065–1079. doi:10.1108/03090560310477663. ISSN   0309-0566.
  9. 1 2 Jennifer Rowley (2004-04-01). "Online branding" (PDF). Online Information Review. 28 (2): 131–138. doi:10.1108/14684520410531637. ISSN   1468-4527. S2CID   206387250. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2020-02-18.
  10. ↑ "Branding in the digital age: You're spending your money in all the wrong places". McKinsey & Company. Retrieved 2017-05-04.
  11. ↑ Glass, Russell; Callahan, Sean (2015-01-20). The Big Data-Driven Business: How to Use Big Data to Win Customers, Beat Competitors, and Boost Profits (1 ed.). John Wiley & Sons. ISBN   9781118889800.
  12. 1 2 3 4 Sheehan, Brian (2010-01-01). Online marketing. Basics marketing; 02. Lausanne: AVA. ISBN   9782940411337.
  13. ↑ "Global E-Commerce and Online Marketing: Watching the Evolution, 2002". Archived from the original on 2014-09-29.
  14. ↑ Chesky, Morgan (12 February 2014). "Enid Bar owner's anti-gay comments met with online justice". KOCO Oklahoma. Retrieved 20 February 2014.
  15. ↑ Anderson, LV. "Can You Libel Someone on Twitter?". Slate.
  16. ↑ Bothwell, Ellie (17 February 2014). "Bell Inn owner wins damages after Facebook defamation case". Morning Advertiser. United Kingdom. Archived from the original on February 24, 2014. Retrieved 20 February 2014.
  17. 1 2 Clark, Patrick (23 September 2014). "New York State Cracks Down on Fake Online Reviews". Bloomberg Businessweek. Archived from the original on September 25, 2013. Retrieved 21 February 2014.
  18. ↑ Nelson, Laura (19 October 2012). "Yelp cracks down on businesses that pay for good reviews". The Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 21 February 2014.
  19. 1 2 Learmonth, Michael (30 October 2012). "As Fake Reviews Rise, Yelp, Others Crack Down on Fraudsters". Ad Age. Retrieved 21 February 2014.
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