Ever sit down at the end of the week or month and notice that things aren’t quite working? Maybe you’re not attracting new clients, or you can’t seem to find the right clients. Maybe you’re barely scraping by with your income. You’re following is growing at the speed of a turtle. All these things leave you frustrated because you feel like you’re doing as much as you can, and you’ve just got to be doing it right.

Wrong. If things aren’t going right there are a few mistakes you might be making in your branding that you don’t even know about. Today I’m here to help you uncover five of those mistakes so you can get back on the straight and narrow towards success.

You don’t have a target audience.

Seems like little, no-brainer, right? Well, it is and it isn’t. Don’t you wonder why there are articles and articles (and even more) on creating a niche and defining your target market / audience? It’s because it’s important. You can’t write to everyone, and you certainly can’t sell to everyone. It’s nothing personal, but there will always be those people who just aren’t on the same page as you. Instead of wasting all of your energy trying to convince those people to jump on your train, find your target audience and write / sell to them. It’s easier, and it won’t leave you banging your head on the table at the end of the day.

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You’re continuously redesigning something.

One of my biggest pet peeves as a designer is seeing someone continuously change their look or the look of something within their brand without real reasoning behind it. That’s not going to work, y’all. To build trust between your brand and your readers or clients, it’s important to create an identity and stick with it. Granted, I know it’s hard, (yeah, I can hear you grumbling about how hard it is all the way over here.), but it’s important. If you’re struggling to find a design that you’re comfortable sticking with for a few months work with a designer or take a course that’ll help you uncover some things that make you and your brand you, which will help you find that sweet spot to stick with.

You’re not actively building an online presence.

If you’re making this one, I hope you know you’re making it. In this day and age, it is so important to have an online presence. Companies are looking at applicants on social media, people are building their own businesses and jobs around the internet, so much is happening online. If you’re a small business, you need a blog to connect with your customers. If you’re a blogger, you should be on a few social media sites. Don’t skimp on your online presence because it could help or hurt your brand.

You’re not connecting with your followers / readers.

Here’s another pet peeve of mine. How many times have you seen a small brand or blogger on social media or on their site, and they’ve been asked questions (Where’d you get that dress? What pen are you using on that lettering?) and the questions are going unanswered? If you’re not responding to your followers / readers, you’re telling them that they’re unimportant or maybe that you think it’s worth keeping a secret (in that case it’s probably so no one can “copy” you). This may not hurt your brand for a couple of people, but if you continuously go on and on without sharing and connecting, you’re doing yourself and your brand a major disservice.

You spend time trying to recreate someone else’s success.

This is probably the most important one of them all. I get it. You’re online and you see other people / brands doing this or that and it’s majorly successful for them. So, instead of spending that little, valuable time you have free working on creating an original, unique name and presence for yourself, you’re copying what they’re doing in hopes of seeing a sliver of that success fall your way. I have a not-so-secret for you, hun: it doesn’t work like that. It’s blatantly obvious online when you’re copying someone, and instead of seeing success, you’ll see more failure. No one likes a copy cat. Building success in your brand is tough, but if you go about it on your own terms and not someone else’s, you’ll see it much sooner.