If two contradictory headlines were to appear on The Sydney Morning Herald and Daily Mail Australia, which publication would you prefer to trust? It really doesn’t matter where your political leanings lie, the answer is almost always going to be The Sydney Morning Herald by far. Part of it is the reputation held by the two publications of course but those reputations are well-earned. Take a look at the website for both and you’ll surely understand why I hold The Sydney Morning Herald to a much higher standard than I do with the Daily Mail.

Trustworthiness is an important quality not in journalism but also in every business. Just as how you want your Prime Minister, cabinet minister and members of the parliament to be someone who actually knows what they’re doing, you should also apply the same standard to the people behind the products and services you use. In the world of marketing, this trustworthiness is typically referred as the concept of brand authority and despite being a somewhat arbitrary concept; brand authority should always be the focus of marketers and Melbourne SEO services in their marketing efforts.

The importance of brand authority

In simple terms, brand authority refers to the level of trust a brand has inspired and/or earned in their specific industry. Contrary to popular belief, brand authority doesn’t exclusively refer to the level of trust from customers but also from the entire industry as a whole. The easiest example of this would be Apple and their iPhone line of products. In 2016, Motorola made waves by releasing the first Moto Z, a phone so thin that Motorola had to remove the 3.5 mm headphone jack. It was thought to be quite an aberration at the time but the whole world soon followed suit when Apple announced the iPhone 7 later that year, also missing the headphone jack.

It’s not just the headphone jack either as when Apple announced the iPhone X a year later with its all-screen bezel-less design and that unsightly notch, the rest of the smartphone world was quick to follow on Apple’s footsteps. Apple is held in such high regard that not only people are willing to wait in line just to be early adopters of their newest products, their competitors are also more than willing to copy whatever Apple is doing at any given moment. I’ve never been a fan of how the tech world in general has put Apple on a pedestal but you can’t deny the effectiveness of Apple’s approach.

Apple’s brand authority was cultivated through a series of game-changing products and services such as the original iMac, the iTunes, the iPod and the original iPhone and it would be unreasonable to expect any business to top or even match that level of ingenuity. Thanks the near-ubiquity of internet access however, businesses now have considerably more ways to build upon their brand authority with their marketing efforts. To help your business on becoming the industry’s leading voice, you should consider acting on the following 4 tips.

Create quality contents for your website by mining your knowledge

A clickbait-y listicle indirectly referencing something that’s blowing up on social media at that precise moment might net you some traffic but that wouldn’t work as effective in the long run compared to say, publishing an in-depth analysis on a new development in your industry. The most straightforward way to build on your brand authority is to simply flaunt the fact that you actually know what you’re doing. Publishing original and in-depth contents such as whitepapers, market analysis and report on your original research into your industry will definitely help increase your credibility which in turn further reinforces your brand authority in your niche.

Collaborate with leading figures within your industry

The contemporary term for this tactic is to collaborate with an influencer but I’m not talking about the plastics kind. The influencer I’m talking about here are public figures that are actually highly regarded within your industry. This collaboration can take on various forms, such as the time-tested practice of guest posting for their websites and/or blogs, asking them to review your products and/or services or by directly collaborating with them on your products and/or services. This isn’t just useful for the purpose of marketing as you could gain valuable insight from someone who actually has valuable knowledge to share regarding your industry.

Proudly display any professional endorsements you’ve ever earned

You must’ve at least visited one website where they proudly display the work they’ve done with/for other highly established institutions and how their business was once profiled by credible publications. These social signals serve as third-party endorsements and they can go a long way in establishing how your brand is viewed not just by the public but also by other figures within your industry. Several times now I’ve bought jeans from brands that I’m unfamiliar with because those brands were featured in a denim blog I religiously follow and they still haven’t disappointed me. If this has happened to you once before, make sure to include this information on your website as they can immensely help with your brand authority.

Don’t neglect your customer service

In this call-out culture we live in, now that every word coming out from your and every action done on behalf of your company will always be put under your microscope. Always be aware than on the off chance you neglect to provide a customer with the level of service they rightly deserve, it’s entirely possible that your interaction with said customer could be recorded and shared for prosperity. The internet never forgets and you don’t want that interaction to be first thing a potential customer would see when they look you up on Google 5 years down the line.