So, you’re a small agency or freelancer. How do you market your WordPress freelance or small agency? My recommendation is content marketing through creation and distribution.
What is Marketing?
Marketing is using resources to bring your product or service to the attention of your customer (the market). So you have to dedicate resources (time, personnel, and budget) to tell people about your business. What are the best ways to do that? Here are some of my ideas.
Recently, I sat down with a new client for a branding consult. She came to me because her business coach said she needed it.
But she said, “What the hell is a branding person?” Good Question. Let’s break it down.
Most people think that a logo is your brand. It’s only part of it.
“So, is your logo your brand? This is a great question (and likely another blog post). Branding is bigger than your logo. So, yes, your logo is part of your brand. But, it isn’t the only way your brand is expressed.” Rhonda Negard
What is branding?
You’re now entering the subjective zone. You’ll find as many answers to this question as you find branding consultants.
Though originally intended to distinguish ownership, the logo (or brand mark) reflected on the Ranch, whether good or bad. We’ve all seen Yellowstone at this point so this image should be seared in your mind.
In many ways, branding is the connection of your sensual experiences to your company. People remember how they feel about you (affinity) and that is reflected back on the brand in the form of loyalty — and buying power.
Affinity leads to loyalty. Loyalty leads to sales. This is why branding matters. It’s about building relationships and affiliating those emotions with a representation of you — a logo mark.
“Branding is the persona your business has consisting of logo, colors, and reputation which all affect and reflect consumer affinity and loyalty.” Bridget Willard
“Branding is the practice of creating the look and ‘feel’ of your brand. Brand marketing is the practice of establishing your image, voice, and persona which identifies and differentiates you from your competitors.” Robert Nissenbaum (kayak instructor and recovering marketer)
What is a Branding Person?
A branding person is usually a graphic designer who creates both the brand design and your brand standards document. Brand standards include your logo, brand mark, color palette, fonts and font pairings, and usage standards, as well as your tagline and editorial tone. A good branding person always includes a brand mark you can use on social media.
Monitoring online mentions is a lot easier with Alertmouse and Google Alerts, as well as to identity protection and reputation management software like brandyourself.com.
If you need a brand standards document, I recommend the following people, Jayman Pandyaand Rhonda Negard.Allan Peters, Chris Do, and Sun Yi (all on Instagram) would also be excellent choices if time and budget allow.
A branding consultant advises you about marketing strategy and tactics. They’re often a third-party vendor that works with your Director of Marketing.
What’s My Elevator Pitch for Branding?
While venting on Facebook back in 2018 about my elevator pitch I got a few suggestions. One of them was from Chris Lema.
“Hi I’m Bridget Willard and I help companies with their online brand and reputation management by taking care of both social media monitoring and posting. I help your online brand by reinforcing your differentiated value on the social channels that are right for your business and your prospects.”
A branding person is someone who understands the voice and tonality that you would like to project to the public. A branding person emulates that voice, replicates that voice, and protects it.
A branding person may even be a guide to your own self-awareness, helping you figure out what really is important to you and what values you’d like to elevate.
Branding Evolves — Just Like You
The thing is, not unlike humans, my business and my brand has grown. I no longer just help any random small business with their brand through social media management. In fact, I really don’t describe myself as a “social media manager.”
Social media managers write and publish content that is approved by the Marketing Manager or Director of Marketing. My business is way beyond the scope of a typical “social media manager.”
I’m a marketer who uses specific social media channels (X/LinkedIn) for a specific purpose (branding for SaaS products). That is quite a mouthful.
2025 edit of 2021 Bridget Willard LLC Logo with “Your Voice. Your Power. Your Brand.” tagline
Technically my tagline is still: “Your Voice. Your Power. Your Brand.” And when I promoted social media as a branding move, it made sense that I wrote: “A branding person helps your business find its voice to harness your power, to elevate your brand. It’s that simple.”
I help SaaS brands grow with consistent Twitter/X + Content and have been doing so since 2015. If I were to be more niche, I could say “products,” but since I’m not in San Francisco, I hesitate to use the techbro term: GTM.
Why do you need a branding consultant?
A branding person is more like a counselor in my view. Their job is to help you dig out of you the essence of your passion. You’re too close to your business and you’re too close to your SaaS product to properly position yourself.
You’ve talked to too many founders, used too many AI tools, and tweeted too many build in public tweets. You’re not your own customer. You’re too educated. You have lost objectivity. You may have lost focus.
This is why many business coaches suggest meeting with a branding person. A brand is a persona — an organic, living thing. It needs life. A branding person gives your persona life. And life needs to be protected.
And that’s why you as a founder posting on Twitter/X isn’t enough. Your product, your brand, needs its own account. You want people to fall in love with your product, you know people will be talking about it, and you definitely want to book those demos.
One thing I should add is that any product announcements should originate from the brand’s X/Twitter account and then be shared by the founder/C-Suite/employees. You use your combined social capital to promote the brand.
You’re building a product to sell, yes? So the X account is a brand asset just like your website. You want a healthy account to go with that sale.
This is why you have to let go of your creation, just a bit, and hire that SaaS Marketer who will help you get in front of the right people, not just blow up a viral tweet.
Can’t you just wing it?
Can you wing it? Sure. But most businesses eventually discover that inconsistent branding costs more than investing in a strategy from the beginning. Time is not on your side when you’re building your SaaS brand, especially with everyone vibe coding the latest thing.
Founders who wing it are likely to fall prey to trending hashtags and memes. I mean, really, should your FinTech product really be doing memes? You’re trying to get people to trust you, not laugh at the people who climbed the Empire State Building to propose marriage.
The internet took one viral Empire State Building flag photo and ran with it.
— ⚖️ Jonathan Zendeh Del ⚖️ (@GalvestonLawyer) July 4, 2026
What’s your next step?
AI is helping other founders launch quicker, but that doesn’t mean they’ll have sticking power. This is your opportunity to create a brand, not just a product.
Humor. It’s tricky in person — with your intonation, delivery, and body language. It’s even more precarious when it’s written. Your brand isn’t a joke, don’t treat it like one.
It’s tempting to react to political news from your brand on Twitter. Unless your brand is Saturday Night Live, don’t do it. You’ll be fueling trolls and undermining your brand. It’s your brand. Protect it.
KFC and Nuclear Buttons
I rarely call people out. In this case, I’m doing it. Firstly, I grew up at the end of the cold war and don’t find nuclear jokes funny. Secondly, the situation in North Korea is serious. Thirdly, regardless of the behavior of the current President (who frankly embarrasses me), your brand should be above that.
Tweet:
McDonald’s leader Ronald just stated he has a “burger on his desk at all times”. Will someone from his big shoed, red nosed regime inform him that I too have a burger on my desk, but mine is a box meal which is bigger and more powerful than his, and mine has gravy! #nuclearbutton
The fact that KFC is calling itself KFC instead of Kentucky Fried Chicken shows that they have a history of branding issues. They had to fight fried food, are they really going to alienate the demographic that mostly enjoys it? Seriously. I’m a Republican. I get it. Let’s be serious.
In fact, I’d argue that the cheap laugh and blog posts that will be written on Mashable, Tech Crunch, and BuzzFeed might be worth it for a day for attention. But will it help sales? I doubt it.
[bctt tweet=”Your brand isn’t a joke. Don’t treat it like one. Use restraint with current trends.” username=”BridgetMWillard“]
The Danger of Trending Hashtags
The same advice goes for Trending Hashtags. Lazy social media managers try to jump on a trend. If you don’t totally understand why the trend is happening, you have another “Why I Stayed” scandal.
[bctt tweet=”Don’t fall for easy. If you don’t understand the hashtag, do not use it. It’s that simple.” username=”BridgetMWillard“]
People make mistakes because of inexperience and a lack of discretion. They don’t think things out strategically and see how it will affect their brand. This is why you should never hire a cheap Social Media Manager.
Your brand is your reputation. It’s all you have sometimes when funds are light. It’s your job to protect it and assemble a team of people who have the same vision.
If your customers are other small businesses then business-to-business (B2B) marketing should be your focus. What platform should is best for B2B marketing? Hands down, it’s Twitter.
Twitter is more than pop culture and politics. When used effectively for small business, it serves several marketing purposes: brand awareness, public relations, listening, content curation, and relationship building. Bonus: Twitter also helps with SEO!
Twitter is for Brand Awareness
Brand awareness is high-level, less-tangible, and difficult to measure. It’s almost a word-association game.
I say “tissue;” you say “Kleenex.” I say “photocopy;” you say “Xerox.” I say groceries, you say “H.E.B.” (Am I right, San Antonio?)
You want your brand to be able to be associated with your purpose. Recognition of your business logo — or headshot — on Twitter allows your small business to compete with the bigger companies. The big guys rarely invest in social media; don’t make their mistakes.
[bctt tweet=”Twitter levels the playing field when it comes to brand awareness. Are you using it?” username=”bridgetmwillard”]
Twitter is for Public Relations
Your small business has news; people want to know it. Share all of your news on Twitter. Not in a Press Release, but with tweets linking to your blog posts.
What would you share? Promotions, product sales, new ventures, employees that join in, new partnerships, and case studies are all perfect to Tweet.
People will always talk about you even if you aren’t on Twitter. Being ahead of the message is PR 101; do this on Twitter. Be proactive.
[bctt tweet=”How do you promote your events and announce products? ” username=”bridgetmwillard”]
Twitter is for Listening
Listening is the most powerful thing a B2B business can do with Twitter. It’s important to understand who your audience is and what they want, need, and how they think. Seriously, people talk about themselves on Twitter all day long. You know what bands they like, who they’re voting for, what airlines upset them, and if they’re dating or looking for a job. Have you been listening to your audience?
Marketing personas are essentially stereotypes. When’s the last time you updated your company’s personas? Instead of relying solely on a marketing persona based upon “Bob,” you can actually see what Bob is tweeting about and update that persona. Bob from 10 years ago liked IPAs; now he collects wine. Time to update the “Bob” persona.
[bctt tweet=”When you listen to your audience, you can correct your buyer personas. ” username=”bridgetmwillard”]
Twitter is for Content Curation
Once you’ve built your lists, you are ready to curate content to enhance relationship building for your B2B business. We all know that B2B is all about relationships. Share blog posts from the people on your Twitter lists in parallel industries. Are you a beauty brand? Share fashion tips? Are you a cremation service? Share information on life insurance. Reciprocation is powerful. You’ve helped promote other businesses and found good content. This is a win-win.
While managing social media accounts for my clients, the Twitter curation process is how I source articles and posts for their LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram business accounts.
It’s about people; not tools. I’m a People Curator — a People Broker, I say. I curate content by curating people. This is why building lists and paying attention to those audiences is effective in your B2B marketing.
[bctt tweet=”Are you only tweeting about yourself and your business? That isn’t social.” username=”bridgetmwillard”]
Twitter is for Relationship Building — Perfect for B2B
All business happens because of referrals (word of mouth) and none more so than B2B. We live and die by referrals. Think back to the last time you got a new client. How did you acquire them?
Think of the last time you found a new service. Did you search for them online? Google? Yelp?
Almost no one does business with a total stranger. Use Twitter to build relationships. Reply to people. Engage. You won’t regret it.
[bctt tweet=”Relationships follow you throughout your career. They follow brands, too. Start chatting with people today.” username=”bridgetmwillard”]
A brand isn’t a logo. It isn’t even the color scheme. Branding is your behavior. Period. Well, it’s debatable, especially when I’m chatting with Rhonda Negard of Fat Dog Creatives.
Marketers like to talk about branding as if it were a magic word an SEO professional would use that you know is important but don’t fully understand. (This is why you hire an SEO professional.)
Now, you should have good branding as in the logo, font pairings, and color selections. If you don’t, then talk to Rhonda Negard. Her work is amazing. Check out the case study of her logos design for a professional with B.S. as their initials.
What is branding?
Branding is listening to a thirty-year old Michael Jackson song on the radio and recognizing the Eddie Van Halen guitar solo.
Branding is making a decision between using a restroom at a gas station or the restroom at a Starbucks.
Branding is being reminded of your beloved uncle when you smell pipe tobacco with a hint of cherry.
Is Branding A Logo?
Yes and no.
In many ways, branding is the connection of your sensual experiences. When I see a Diet Coke can, I become thirsty. Why? I remember the feel of a cold can in my hands, the sound the can makes when it pops open, the tickle down my throat, and the taste afterward. All of those memories are tied into the Diet Coke logo.
Human history is full of seals, rings, flags, coats of arms, and crests used to distinguish families, tribes, and nations. The human condition is curious; as much as we long for group acceptance, we still desire to be distinct and recognized.
Although the etymology of branding is varied, we can all imagine a rancher using a hot iron to brand his livestock. Each ranch had a distinct logo that made a permanent impression. Though originally intended to distinguish ownership, the logo reflected on the rancher, whether good or bad.
Branding is the practice of creating the look and feel of your brand. Brand marketing is the practice of establishing your image, voice, and persona which identifies and differentiates you from your competitors. #tsomediapic.twitter.com/x52n76rkK1
Your behavior as a company will be associated with your logo. Always.In this regard, the branding is the logo and the logo is the brand.
In my presentation, “You Are What You Tweet,” I gave the example that the Caltrop logo had no meaning to me until I met one of their employees, Mark DeSio.
[bctt tweet=”When you have a relationship with a person, the logo has meaning. ” username=”bridgetmwillard”]
In our day, branding makes a permanent impression, too. These impressions are based upon a person’s experience interacting with your company (brand) and there’s only so much of it you can control. With the introduction of social media, individual impressions gain a much greater audience.
“Every employee is your brand ambassador, your marketer, and the face of your company.” Scott Stratten: The Book of Business Awesome
Case in point. Twenty years ago I went to a pancake restaurant and there were cockroaches crawling on the table. Regardless of how many coupons they offer, how many all-you-can-eat pancake events they hold, I will never go to any of their restaurants again. That one experience made a lasting impression. Their advertising (branding) is no longer effective with me. My experience at their store made a permanent impression (branding).
Big brands, like Diet Coke, are often used as an example because we all recognize them, making the lesson relatable to a diverse audience.
How is online behavior branding?
The question always is: how will that translate for me and my business on social media?
The largest way you can impact your brand — your company’s reputation — is to have consistent behavior with your why. Any time that deviates, you have cognitive dissonance, which is a completely different blog post.
It’s simple.
Are you ready?
Behave online the way you would want to be perceived.
[bctt tweet=”In the end, regardless of your color scheme, your branding is your behavior. It’s that simple.” username=”bridgetmwillard”
If you want people to think that you’re professional, behave professionally. If you want people to believe you do quality work, produce quality content.
