When you think branding, what comes to mind? Logos, colors, the name of your company, your company tagline — but how about sound or audio? As the popularity of Alexa and Google Home help drive the increasing use of voice and audio streaming, sonic branding is becoming more important. It's an often overlooked part of your business identity and an opportunity to reinforce and extend your brand.

Images, videos, sound bites, and other media are great ways to cut through the clutter online for small businesses or nonprofits. But a common mishap we often see with our clients is that all of those assets are only stored on social media where they were first used. On the surface, it may not seem like that big of a deal, but in reality, you’re severely restricting your ability to repurpose that content in the future. You never know when a certain photo could be useful for another medium or campaign — and your mantra is to make the most of your limited resources!

Here’s the bottom line. If you’re not making online video content for your business, you’re falling behind. Trends have been steadily shifting toward more video, especially on social media. Video is becoming, or in some places has already become, the preferred delivery method for content by people all over the world.

So why are podcasts your next best marketing tool? Not only is the number of podcast listeners on the rise, they are engaged in the content. And podcast listeners hit a demographic sweet spot for any nonprofit.

Long gone are the days when you only had a few social media accounts to worry about. Now there’s an ocean of information and options to choose from. It seems like everyone wants to pull you onto a different ship. So how do you know which one will get you where you want to go? You may feel pressured to make your decisions quickly but investing time in researching the right choices will keep you afloat as you navigate toward being a social media marketing pro.