The Importance of Being a Brand
There are many parts of marketing that interest me, and one of the biggest is branding. I’m sure it’s a term you’ve heard used, and it’s definitely a heavy subject in the social media marketing community. The importance of branding is much bigger than you might have lead yourself to believe. If focusing on what it means to be a brand isn’t something that you’ve focused on in your business – or in your personal & professional life – then you may not be utilizing your social media presence to its maximum potential.
The beauty of social media is that there is a huge audience at your fingertips. I love to say that the biggest audience in the world isn’t driving past a billboard, it’s logging onto its favorite social media platform. The point of ‘selling’ your product, service, or yourself is NOT to sell to everyone in the world, and anyone who tells you that ‘everyone is your customer’ is mistaken. The point of branding is knowing yourself, your company, and your product or service well enough to appeal to the right, SPECIFIC kind of audience. How do you appeal best to that target audience? That, my friends, is with your branding.
There are a lot of questions that you can ask yourself when you are thinking about your brand. Today, I am going to provide you with some questions to ask yourself in relation to your business’s brand. Be honest with yourself – write the answers down, as a matter of fact. Write a branding statement. Use this information to help you determine what your brand is, because once you know that, you know your target audience and your entire approach to social media and marketing will change.
Maybe the toughest part about branding is the fact that you have to know ‘who’ your business is. What is your businesses position within the community and in the eyes of its customers or clients? How are you perceived by others? Are you higher priced, or higher value? Who represents your brand in the eyes of the community or client? What is your voice? What emotions do you hope to elicit from your audience? These are all very important questions that you should consider whenever you think about your brand. Once you have the answers to these questions, ask yourself if that’s what you want for your business – if it isn’t, then it’s time for re-branding!
Learning more about your target audience can only help you to get better in tune with your brand. What type of people utilize your service or product – what are their demographics, gender, relationship status, socioeconomic status, desires, comforts, dislikes, etc? In my opinion, social media is best utilized for organically growing business. For most, anything that is deemed “salesy” is immediately disregarded within the social media audience. If it looks like an ad, or smells like an ad, it is bound to get scrolled over. Authenticity is what people want. Organically representing your authentic and unique brand using the proper social media platforms is what will give your business and brand the longevity you desire.
Over the next few weeks, I will explore some of the questions I posed above, and their importance in helping you determine your brand. If you have any questions in the meantime, be sure to contact us or leave a comment!
If you are thinking that your business needs to take a look at itself and how its brand is being represented in the social media space, shoot me a message. I would love to discuss it with you further.
Happy Friday – I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend. Thanks for tuning in for my very first blog posting!
