Guest post by Grant Polachek, head of branding at Squadhelp

A brand is more than just the personality your company has in the market; it’s the heart and soul of your business, and having a strong brand is essential to your success in 2023 and beyond. 
If you want to shoot for success as an entrepreneur, you must understand the importance of crafting a unique brand around your company and its products. 
Creating a unique brand will help you stand out from the competition and build trust with your customers. Therefore you must dedicate enough time to the process and make sure you get it right. 

In this article, we'll use our experience finding the best one word business names and offering excellent branding services to thousands of  businesses to provide vital tips and strategies on how to go about crafting a unique brand in 2023. ​

When you create organic posts or Facebook ads for mobile, images and videos should cover as much screen as possible to grab attention. Also, you want to make sure your video/image is responsive on the mobile device, so the viewer has no problem watching it in its entirety no matter how they use the phone or tablet.

Choose the correct aspect ratio that best suits different placements and formats and remember to check which placements support which aspect ratios. Below are some recommended aspect ratios for different placements and formats across the Facebook platform (this includes Instagram too):

Now is the time to be proactive
​
The coronavirus is currently affecting businesses of all sizes all over the world.
One by one, cities and societies go in lockdown, with fewer people travelling, no in-store traffic and all events cancelled.

However, there are steps you can take to improve and expand your digital presence that may help mitigate the fallout in this challenging time. 

1. Prepare for more online transactions - this means even more Google My Business views even if you do not have an online shop
2. Prepare your website with more information and features
3. Create more digital content in various formats to keep you top of mind with your customers
4. ​Engage more on social media
5. Consider larger projects as SEO or website upgrades to convert more strangers into customers when things return to normal.
   
   If you have any questions or you simply want to brainstorm about ways to keep your business going, contact me today.

As a precautionary health measure for their support specialists in light of COVID-19, Google My Business will be operating with a limited team for the time being.

The decision was announced in a recent statement: “During the unprecedented COVID-19 situation, we are taking steps to protect the health of our team members and reduce the need for people to come into our offices. As a result, there may be some temporary limitations and delays in support as we prioritize critical services.”

These are the temporary product changes announced by Google:

Google My Business information edits 
Critical health-related businesses will have priority and edits to their listings will be reviewed first.
Also a priority will be given to reviews (for all listings) of the following details in your business profile:

• open and closed states
• special hours
• temporary closures
• business descriptions
• business attributes edits for other verified businesses.

Newly created listings, claims, and verifications
The support team will manually review new listings, claims, and verifications for critical health-related businesses as a priority.
That means you should expect a delay for publication of a new listing, claim, and verification that you might want to do in Google Search and Maps if your business is not a critical health-related one.

Reviews and Q&A
New reviews, review replies, and new Q&A will be unavailable during this time.
I don't think they will get lost, but they will probably be updated once the support team is back at full capacity.

Google Posts still work and are a great way to show your content on the Search platform, but no indication is given if this will be affected in any way now or in the future.

Google is focusing now on the quality and reliability of information on Google Search and Maps. 
Features like whether the business is open or has special hours are considered essential. 

If you have other questions or need help with your Google My Business account, contact me today!