Consistency and your brand

Everyone knows that its important to maintain branding consistency.   The logo and colors on your site, should match your shirts, business cards, etc.  But what about your social media and online presences?  Twitter icon updated, check.  Facebook logo updated, check.  What about Yelp, Google Places, Foursquare and others?  I frequent a local business who is still in their infancy stage (< 1 year).   While they have a basic website, the site provides no details regarding the store’s hours, very little info regarding the services they offer is generally unhelpful.  As a customer of theirs, I have to resort to Googling their business name and reviewing their hours on Yelp, Google Places and any other search results to see if there is a chance they are open on Sunday.  Since their listings to not match I still end up having to call them to ask the most basic of questions.

While they started out with the right idea with getting their listings setup on other sites, its important to keep track of these (MS Excel is just fine for this) and update them accordingly.  Take 5 minutes and Google your own brand as a customer.  Can you find your company?  Are the rankings good enough?  Just because you type in your website address when you review your own site does not mean your customers will do the same.