Boosting your brand’s online presence not only helps you reach more customers but also increases your credibility and growth potential. However, with so many brands competing for attention, competition gets quite fierce. Thankfully, there are some unconventional strategies you can adopt to engage your audience and stand out from the crowd. Below are five to get you started:

Start a podcast or video series

Whether it’s a deep dive into the various ways you promote inclusion and diversity in the workplace or a fun unboxing series, podcasts and videos are a great way to share your brand’s story. Not only do they educate, entertain, and inspire your audience, but they also showcase your brand’s personality, express its values, and build up its authority.

Start by choosing the right topic and format. Then, write an informative, entertaining, and on-brand script. Record it, edit it, and spread the word via YouTube, Spotify, and other relevant channels.

Design helpful infographics

An infographic is an appealing way to simplify, explain, or illustrate a complex topic or data set. Infographics give your brand a visually appealing way to show off its unique creativity, expertise, and identity. And people love to explore and share beautifully designed infographics.

Whether it’s a story, statistic, flow chart, or series of tips, choose a topic and goal that suits your brand and audience. Then, collect and organize the data and highlight the most relevant and interesting bits. You can use Canva, Piktochart, or other tools to design the look and feel, then share it and watch others do the same.

Host a viral contest

A viral contest generates buzz for your brand while simultaneously creating user-generated content and word-of-mouth marketing. To create a contest, brainstorm a catchy idea related to your brand, product, or niche. Consider famous examples such as the ice bucket challenge to gain inspiration.

Then, establish rules, announce prizes, set deadlines, and promote your contest. Create a hashtag you can use on your socials to make it easy to share. Chat with the contestants, show your appreciation, announce the winners, and feature them on your site.

Collaborate with micro-influencers

With anywhere from 10,000 to 100,000 followers, micro-influencers have a smaller yet more loyal following than celebrity influencers. That means their audience is more targeted and their rates are lower—both huge benefits to a growing business!

To find the right micro-influencers for your brand, research who’s influential in your target market and niche. Then, contact them with a proposal explaining why you want to work with them, what you’ll offer, and what you expect in return. Draw up a contract just like any other deal, give them all the support they need, and monitor the feedback to see how much value it brings.

Write a guest post

A guest post is a blog or article you write for another website within your niche. These posts increase your exposure, traffic, and backlinks while also building up your credibility and fostering new (and potentially profitable) relationships.

To get started, look for sites that accept guest posts, have a complementary audience, or work in the same niche. Then, reach out to the editors with a compelling pitch. If accepted, write up your guest post—making sure you follow their unique guidelines—and end it with a brief bio and website link.

Competition may be fierce, but building an online presence is more important than ever. Alongside some of the tried and true methods everyone uses, try some of the unconventional methods listed above to grow your brand and secure your virtual victory!