By Jen Brister
Small companies need concrete ways to determine their progress toward business goals. One way of assessing your company's success is to track your online brand awareness. A successful brand is recognizable, unique and informative. Customers should be able to look at your brand name and instantly know what you are about.
When you create a company brand, it should be everywhere: prominent on your website, business cards, signage and anything else that your customers and potential customers see. Creating a memorable brand is a great way to get more recognition for your company and gain more customers.
Tracking your Brand
If you want to know if your brand is being noticed online, you will need to find a way to track online brand awareness. This is actually easier than you may think. There are many ways to track how your brand is trending on the Internet.
Google Alerts
Create a Google alert by logging into your Google account and creating a weekly or daily alert for your brand name. You will be receive emails which give you detailed information on any websites that have mentioned your brand. You will be able to click on links to these websites and read what was written.
Facebook Fans
Facebook fan pages are an excellent way to analyze your branding. Create a Facebook fan page for your company and see how many new fans you get per month. You may even want to try to increase your Facebook fans by 20 percent each month so you have a goal you're working toward.
RSS Subscriptions
If your company has a website, your customers should be able to sign up for updates through the RSS feed. Track your subscriptions to get a good idea of how interested people are in your company brand. Create a goal for a certain number of new subscribers per month.
Brand Searches
There are several pieces of software which allow you to track how many times per month your brand name has been searched for online. If you have hired a Web developer for your company website, the developer should be able to deliver detailed monthly statistics for how people are getting to your site. You can also use the Google AdWords Keyword tool, which is free, to determine how many people are searching for your brand name online.
Tracking your company brand is an important way to judge the progress of your business. If your brand popularity is increasing, you know your marketing methods are probably working. If tracking shows that your brand awareness is decreasing, it might be time to hire a marketing expert or retool your advertising methods.
Having an easily recognizable brand is one of the marks of a successful business. Once you learn how to promote and track your online brand awareness, you will be able to give your company a boost when it needs it.
About the Author:
Jen Brister has been a writer, researcher and Internet marketer for three years. She makes her living writing full time, publishing videos and creating websites.