A Brand By Any Other Name

Google the word “brand”, and you’ll get 6,020,000,000 results in .66 seconds. A recent Entrepreneur article states: “Simply put, your brand is your promise to your customer”. We’ve said before that brand includes the personality of the organization—the voice/tone, language, key messages, and how the organization meets the needs of key audiences. Brand is the essence of what the organization does, its competencies, and its values.

Building a Brand
Crafting a brand is an art…and a science. What we’ve seen works best for our clients is a partnership that begins with a strategy session. And with this brainstorming process, we find it valuable to hit on what best describes the essence of the organization…and what absolutely does not. Sara Smith, a great business coach with whom we’ve worked, can be credited with the phrase “No, not that”. Sometimes, it’s just as important to know what you are…and what you’re not. This certainly applies when setting up a brand and leading to “Aha! This is it!” moment.

Often, the logo is synonymous with brand. However, there are other components of the organization’s make-up that should be considered prior to creating a logo. Is there sense of environmental awareness that the organization wants to get across in the marketplace? This might direct the logo development. Is there a certain audience that the group needs to target? Going after a high-end, luxury market is very different from communicating with a wider audience. These pieces should be considered when building a brand.

Beyond the logo comes the brand attributes, which should be a part of every external communication channel. From digital channels, like social media and website, to traditional marketing collateral, the voice and style of the brand should be consistently communicated. Once this is determined, it’s essential that all ongoing content strategy and tactics tie back to the brand.

Our Brand
When we set out to craft our business’s brand, we went through this exercise for ourselves. What type of niche did we want to work within and how will we communicate with these clients? With our value proposition, knowledge, and skillset, what exactly would we offer to the world? What attributes describe us?

You might notice our lingo is energetic and friendly. Our main color is an attention-getting bright pink; our logo is a sleek bubble. Why? Because our brand attributes include an energetic—bubbly!—approach to bringing solutions to the organizations we support. These brand attributes are not a happy accident; they’re part of a well-thought-out process to share who we are and the value we bring to our clients. And we’re happy to bring this knowledge to your business to help your brand, whether you’re starting a business or refreshing your brand. Click here to chat us up!

7 Tips to Keep Your Brand Consistent on Social Media

I often get asked, “What is branding exactly?” The definition of brand according to the American Marketing Association is “a name, term, design, symbol, or any other feature that identifies one seller's good or service as distinct from those of other sellers”. In today’s social media world, it encompasses so much more. It includes not only the name, design, and symbol but colors, fonts, tone of voice, and overall feel of each profile.

Trying to keep your brand clear on social media can be a daunting task but one that is well worth it. Just let these statistics sink in for a moment:

• The average revenue increase attributed to always presenting the brand consistently is 23%. Source: Lucidpress
• Color increases brand recognition by up to 80%. Source: University of Loyola
• Brands that are consistently presented are 3 to 4 times are more likely to experience brand visibility. Source: Lucidpress

Now that you get how important a consistent brand is, what do you do about it? While hiring a professional to help guide you is one way; if that isn’t an option, here are some things you can do now to keep your brand consistent online:

1. Use the same social media handles (or as close as you can) across all platforms so you are easy to find.
2. Use the same profile picture and cover photos so you are recognizable from one social media platform to another.
3. Make sure your “About” section and bio descriptions are relatively the same across all platforms. Don’t say X on one and Y on another; this confuses potential customers.
4. Use the same logo and colors throughout all social media profiles. This includes using similar filters on photos, so they have the same feel to them.
5. Pick 2-3 fonts to use in graphics and stick to them. You may need to create different graphics for each platform but keep the fonts and color palettes the same.
6. Keep your voice and feel consistent. For example, if you are a cutting-edge brand, make sure all copy, pictures, and videos have a modern look and feel on all platforms. Creating templates for each platform for each type of post can make this easier. Keeping topics similar everywhere can also help. A consistent look and voice gives you wider recognition.
7. This does not mean post the same exact thing across all platforms. Each platform works differently, and you need to adapt the media to the platform. Posts can have the same look and voice with some tweaks for each platform. Sometimes you need to experiment to see what works best where.

Keeping your branding consistent will bring you better recognition in the social media world. This will build the trust and loyalty customers—and potential clients—feel for your company.

Want to follow me for more social media tips? You can find me on Facebook, Instagram, or via my website.

Bright Ideas: Showcase Your Best

“I don’t like to toot my own horn…” or “We’re not ones to talk about ourselves…” Our question is, why not? Today, organizations must be able to showcase what they do best. We think it starts with an elevator pitch, which we’ve detailed in the past. Once one can succinctly detail the value of what one brings to the table, then it’s time to place one’s best foot forward. (That’s a lot of ones in one sentence!) Now what?

The Showcase
This is where past examples come into the picture. Did one of your campaigns bring big-time dollars to the bottom line? Share how many. So, last year’s marketing campaign resulted in a huge new following in a brand-new market? Tell that story. Often, it’s the “happily ever after” we forget to quantify and qualify. It’s time for a showcase show and tell.

What does that mean? Whether it’s actual client reviews, statistical results worth sharing, or simply a gallery of work, we recommend making this plainly visible.

Client Reviews
Whether you have a strict Net Promoter Score (NPS) discipline happening or a more informal testimonial process, it’s key to ask your clients to share what went well. Often, people are happy to share the results of a beautiful relationship.

Example A: some actual words from some of our amazing clients:

"Shan has completely taken over external communications for Castaways, including our website, blog, email marketing, and social media. I’m impressed with the way she creatively tells our story within these channels, which has made my day-to-day easier.” - Anthony Consiglio, Director of Communications, Castaways Resale Store

And Example B—note the statistics:

“We partnered with Shan to improve our marketing strategy and streamline our messaging. In a short period of time, our social media channels saw a 30% increase in engagement, and we still use the content strategy she created…” - Dawn Heaney, Partner, Couture Bride

Gallery of Work
When you do something noteworthy, do you share via your communication channels? “Hey, we just did something brilliant, but we don’t want to share…” said no one ever. But are you sharing? This is where a gallery or snippets of successful past projects can serve as a great portfolio of future work.

Sample 1: Did you know we often create mini-campaigns for our clients, like Castaways Resale Store? Perhaps not, because we haven’t told you. Click here to read the blog which coincided with a full-scale marketing campaign. And go figure… after this digital strategy was executed across multiple channels, donations are up.

And sample 2: Let’s say you contribute to a successful outcome, yet your name is not on it. You could still share it via appropriate channels (and then refer to the previous step and share a positive client review). For example, we consult with a high-end luxury real estate company; one of our contributions involves writing for their quarterly publication. While it’s not our organization’s name on the masthead, we are a part of the editorial team. And we should share, as it showcases our talent of strategic storytelling. Here’s the latest edition.

Third Party Tools
Maybe you’re not a fan of an appropriate (read: appropriate) level of self-promotion. Consider finding other ways to engage potential clients through third party channels. Yelp, Facebook, and Google all have review mechanisms, as well as big industry parties like JD Powers and Angie’s List. A colleague in the luxury hospitality industry shares, “These results are very credible in the eyes of the consumer; there are a multitude of ways to turn around and publish those results.”

What’s the Big Idea?
Bottom line, the best thing an organization can do is highlight things it does well and what sets them apart in the digital world. We have a lot of big ideas that can help you shine a bright, big spotlight on your value proposition and tell your story in a huge way to your target audience. Contact us today if we can help you showcase your best.