As we usher in the new year, you might have made a wide variety of resolutions related to losing weight, spending less money, or drinking less, but if you own a small business or work as a freelancer, a resolution you might have neglected to make is to build up your online brand. So many times our resolutions are geared toward reducing the negative effects of something, and not increasing the positive effects of something else.

Building a brand online requires a multitude of incremental steps that start with your acknowledgment of the importance of having a clean bill of health. There are a wide variety of services out there, such as ReputationManagers.com, that can help you dispel slander or negative reviews. But when it comes right down to it, you need to proactively manage your image you put out onto the Internet. Here three ways to take control of your online brand:

Use your Facebook fan page to make personal connections with your fans and customers

If you’re a one-man/woman show this is easier, but if you have a big personnel, it’s time for you to designate one person, or even a team, to handle your social media relations. This is a big part of PR now. The position is often called Social Media Director, and this person(s) is responsible for using sites like Facebook to reach out to customers. A Facebook fan page offers an incredible opportunity to create one-to-one friendships with your followers. If you run a business, this could translate to excellent word of mouth. Take, for example, the Southwest Airlines ‘free tickets’ meme that has spread like a wildfire through Facebook.

Tweet it up

Twitter is billed as a micro-blogging site, but it’s also a great way to micro-manage your online perception. A dicey article about you on Huffingtonpost.com can yield hundreds or even thousands of negative comments. Counter this by Tweeting a brief explanation or just something positive to lessen the damage. This should in turn yield a fresh wall of positive Tweets that will be seen as more current than the original article. Twitter is way to stay on the offensive and to be seen as working in real-time communication.

Use viral video to your advantage

In the aftermath of the disastrous BP oil spill, the company took to the TV and the Internet with videos in which the CEO made personal appeals to the public, claiming that the company was going to do everything it could to fix the problem. While the videos might not have convinced everyone, they received thousands of views on YouTube and probably lessened the public outrage over this horrific accident.

There dozens of ways you can approach your company’s online identity, too many to list here. However, they all revolve around the core idea that social media is a storm of energy that can and must be harnessed. Staying active on these sites is an incredible way to evolve your PR strategies and refurbish your online brand.

About the author
Guest post by Nick Jameson. He is a freelance writer specializing in business and marketing

Guest post by Hasan Shirazi, Logoinn

The significance of a unique logo for the purpose of marketing and branding of a company or its product is not hidden from anyone. Having a perfect logo could be the ultimate wish of any business owner who knows the real importance of visual identity. However, many a time, due to lack of knowledge or some other factors, business owners do some common logo design mistakes while building their business brand. These mistakes eventually develop a wrong brand image, and then a business has to face decline even when all other branding elements are fine. In this article, we have pointed out 5 common logo design mistakes most commonly made by business owners.

Not hiring a professional designer to do the job

On the surface you might think that designing a logo is not a complicated task. You may assume that nearly anyone with some taste and artistic inclinations can design a logo for you. However, reality is quite different. Designing a business logo is not a work of new or pastime amateurs.

While seeking a logo designer, you need to understand that getting a logo designed by a professional and experienced logo designer does matter. Logos which are designed by non-professionals are usually unable to portray the right message. Therefore, hiring a professional is fundamental when it comes to ensuring that you obtain the most attractive and the most effective logo for your business.

Failing to describe the purpose of the business

Many businesses struggle in building a unique brand identity with a weak or vague logo that portrays a different image than what the company is actually about. When it comes to the relationship issue between your logo and your business, you need to pay attention to target marketing. Not only does your logo need to illustrate what your business is all about it also needs to be designed in a manner to attract the attention of the niche market that contains those consumers who will be most interested in what your business offers.

Over-crowding the logo with too many design elements

Logos with a simple design never go out of fashion. Whereas, complexity in your logo kills your brand image. Too many colors, complicated images and unreadable fonts make your logo hard to process and visually unattractive.

Hence, when selecting a logo design for your business, keep in mind that a clean, simple, and uncluttered look normally is the best selection and the best choice for your business operation.

With a simple and uncluttered logo you will find that consumers will more readily connect with your business. A quicker, sounder connection will increase the number of customers or clients that your firm or company will do business with both in the short and the long term.

Failing to provide resizable formats for different media

Resizability or scalability refers to the manner in which your logo can be effectively resized for all the available marketing and advertising media. If you are like most business owners, you will use your logo in a number of different ways. As a consequence, you need to have a logo that can be utilized in a variety of different sizes.

Unfortunately, not all logos are scalable in an appropriate manner. Certain logos simply do not look good when they are shifted into different sizes for different purposes. Therefore, while designing it, make sure it will look great in all sizes wherever you will use it.

Having poor black & white logo versions

Beyond attractiveness of the color scheme that you will use in your logo, you will also want to consider the black and white aspect for using your logo on the media where you cannot use it in full colors. For example, when you need to send a letterhead to your client.

You logo should have an ability to grab the viewer’s attention even in black and white. Therefore, with other tasks of defining colors, fonts and design, you should also focus on the black and white version of your logo.

Conclusion

Because your logo is such an integral part of the marketing, advertising and promoting of your business, you need to undertake a research about your logo to make sure it will be as effective and as appropriate as possible. By taking care of these mistakes that I’ve pointed out, you will be able to make the most appropriate decision as to what you should avoid in your approach of choice to designing a logo.