Boost Your Marketing and Branding with 4 Tips from Successful KC Influencers and Social Media Experts

Your approach to marketing and branding can make or break your business. As a founder, you must find the most effective ways to tell your story, reach your target customers and make meaningful connections. When it comes to engagement, building loyalty and driving sales, social media content creators and influencers have plenty of expertise to share. The best part? Their winning strategies can help entrepreneurs of all kinds. (This includes you!)

Read on to learn the tactics four Kansas City-area content creators and influencers (who all have hundreds of thousands of followers across multiple platforms) use to enhance their brands and promote their products and services.

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1. Differentiate your brand from the competition

Kasim Hardaway describes himself as a culinary artist and videographer. He’s the former owner of a marketing agency where he worked with clients such as Parlor KC in Kansas City, Missouri, and Strang Hall in Overland Park, Kansas. Today, as a full-time content creator, Kasim collaborates with brands like Aldi, Idahoan and Chinet and creates food-focused videos and original recipes that highlight global flavors. He has 157,000 followers on Instagram.

“Entrepreneurs should ask themselves: How is my business or my brand different from the people I’m competing with?,” Kasim says. “I strive to create recipes you can’t find anywhere else. It takes me a long time to do that, but I think that’s why I have the audience and engagement I have. Do your homework, see who else is out there and figure out how you can be different. You also have to be patient. Building anything takes a lot of time, consistency and effort.”

2. Experiment with your strategy and evolve

In 2016, Riley Brain founded Wandering Bud, a ceramic design and production studio where she and a small team of artists craft handmade smoking accessories. Specializing in down-to-earth video content that highlights her aesthetic goods, she has 324,800 followers on Tik Tok and 147,000 followers on Instagram.

“My marketing strategy is constantly changing,” Riley says. “I experiment a lot, and I don’t get too attached or too precious with anything. As soon as you feel attached to a specific format or way of doing things, you’re going to become complacent, and what you’re doing is probably going to become obsolete or fall out of fashion. User trends on social media can change in days or weeks or months. You have to be willing to evolve as these platforms and trends are evolving.”

“I’ll try something, and I’ll look at the data and see what worked and what didn’t work. If it works, I’ll try to replicate that strategy even with a different video topic. If it doesn’t work, I move on to something else. There have been big stretches of time where whatever strategy I was using is no longer working, and it can sometimes take months to experiment and find that next strategy that’s going to work.”

3. Grab your audience’s attention by adding value

As a touring standup comedian, Jaron Myers uses social media as a creative outlet and a marketing tool to book live shows. He also co-hosts an educational comedy podcast, sells branded merch and manages a Patreon community. Jaron has 936,600 followers on TikTok, 295,000 followers on Facebook and 123,000 followers on Instagram.

“Oftentimes, I see people posting about their products or about themselves and it doesn’t create any added value for their audience; it’s not shareable,” Jaron says. “The social posts that push your brand forward are the ones that make people want to tag their friends or share it in a direct message and say, ‘You’ve got to see this!’”

“For most of my social posts, I’m thinking about what’s the thing in the video that’s so specific and so funny that it will make people want to share it. I’m also thinking about how can I hook people within the first second-and-a-half to three seconds. You can’t waste that time because people will quickly scroll past if you don’t grab their attention right away and keep it.”

4. Be consistent and value your customers

Corissa Enneking launched her brand, Fat Girl Flow, in 2015. She writes blogs and creates video content about body image, eating disorders, plus-size fashion and lifestyle topics. Corissa also sells merch, manages a Patreon community and co-hosts an annual summer retreat centered on body positivity. She has 213,000 followers on Instagram and 166,000 followers on Facebook.

“Be consistent and value your customers,” Corissa says. “If you find you’re attracting an audience that doesn’t align with your brand values, then adjust your strategy. You’re never stuck. I gave up trying to keep up with social media trends and algorithms several years ago. All I know is if I want longevity, chasing trends isn’t going to get me there. I continue to try to be the best possible resource for my audience and use that as a guiding light.”