Branding 101: Tips for successfully building your company’s brand identity

Featured blog by Catherine Shaw, Independent Author and PR Guru

Branding your business may seem like such a complicated task. But this only happens when you do not know who you are or what you want others to think of you. When this happens, you end up putting all your attention on the product or services to attract customers and make money, which is not what branding is entirely about. If you want to grow your business and your brand, there is a lot more to do.

Branding is crucial for small businesses just as much as it is for large corporations. The word ‘brand’ does not only apply to corporate powerhouses. Every company should establish a brand and what it equals. You can start as simple as writing your company name on a piece of paper and placing and equal sign next to it. This is just one step in the right direction… you need to do the following as well

What your brand means

You should have a clear picture of what you want your brand to equal. These are all the characteristics of your business and how you want people to perceive it. You can use all kinds of adjectives and characteristics to describe your business in a way that makes it stand out from your competitors and shows your potential customers what your business is capable of. From this list, you can come up with company’s brand that you can use to reach out to prospective customers because it will move your consumers to favor your products or services over your competitors. There are three important factors to master to successfully describe your business brand:

– You should fully understand the your business niche and what makes you unique from your competitors

– You should master your target audience

– You should know if your product or services can directly address the need of your target audience.

In order for a business to be successful, it needs a customer base that is big enough to sustain the business since every business serves the needs of a particular audience. You may have a killer business idea bit only a handful of people are interested in it and this is not an idea worth developing if you do not see the potential for getting more people interested. To build your brand, you need an audience.

Your employees should be your brand ambassadors

Your employees are an asset to your business and a crucial part of the brand building process. They should also know what the brand stands for in order to support it in the way they execute their duties. This is what makes them your brand ambassadors. Every person interacting with your customer should be fully aware of the business brand and this will reflect to the customer in the way they deliver their services. Employee awareness is a crucial part of the branding process. In order to make your employees your brand ambassadors, you should:

– Describe what your brand equals in a way that is easy for anyone to understand

– Train employees to encompass your brand in everything they do for the business

– Create a system that will help your employer to keep the brand in mind at all times

Your employees should always remain engaged and informed. If they understand the brand well, they will know what to convey so do not just assume that they understand it.

Tell the public about your brand

Communicating your brand to the public is possible through various channels. You can show it in the way you create your products, deliver your services and the words you use to describe your brand. The messaging and communication of the brand to others include:

– Employee interaction with customers

– Check and balance systems to ensure this interaction stays true to the brand

– The impression you want on the public when communicating your brand.

Some of the ways to make this possible is by creating phrases of descriptions that bring the brand home when talking to clients.

Use social media to communicate your brand

Studies have shown that approximately 22 percent of Americans use social media more than once in a day. With all this public attention, social media is one of the best platforms to build and communicate your brand to your target audience. There are so many social networks on the internet today; you need to find the right network to support your brand image since not all of them are worth investing your time and money. Some of the best social media platforms you care use include:

– Facebook is used by almost three quarters of American adults. It is one of the best social networks to promote almost any brand since it has a very heterogeneous user base.

– If your brand relies heavily on images and demo videos, then Instagram is the best platform to promote your brand. Retailers and clothing companies for instance can use images to reach out to young adults.

– Google+ has taken off as well as other social platforms but there are quite a number of users that access it often, especially men in the technology industry. A large number of Google+ users are men in technical professions.

– If you want to reach women, especially in matters fashion then Pintrest is the best social network to use.

– LinkedIn is the best platform for promoting business related content and even interacting with influencers in your business niche.

Social media management

Social media can build or destroy your business brand depending on how well you strategize. This is why it is advisable to get professional social media management. These are the companies that help you keep your social media activities in check with your overall brand message by:

– Creating valuable and shareable content to social media audiences

– Leveraging social media influencers

– Creating social media campaigns to promote your content

– Interacting with prospective customers on your social media pages

Bio

Catherine Shaw is a public relations guru with a keen eye for business branding. If you are looking for the ideal branding solution for your business, visit Finemanpr.com