All too often, we underestimate the importance of branding our business. We are responsible for managing the reputation of our business- and that means brand. Understanding your brand is an essential step in social media, and your brand should be unique yet recognizable. Branding can help you reach out to your audience and engage them in ways that drive sales and raise revenue.
What Is Business Branding?
In a nutshell, branding creates a unique name and image — a logo — for your business. The goal is to create an identity that customers will find appealing, and consumers should be able to recognize your brand in any medium: print, TV, radio, and online.
Business branding is a marketing practice in which a company creates a name, symbol, or design easily identifiable as belonging to the company. This helps identify a product and distinguish it from other products and services.
A business’s brand is its most valuable asset as it adds value to a business’s products or services to create loyal customers. Branding can be applied to corporate identity and individual product and service names. A strong brand helps customers understand what to expect from products and may generate word-of-mouth advertising.
Branding is creating a recognizable and consistent image for your business in the mind of customers. A strong brand will help you stand out from the competition, draw in new customers and retain existing ones.
Branding encompasses many elements, such as your logo, slogan, tagline, brand name, and visuals. It also includes the reputation you build through customer interactions and visibility in your community.
Branding comprises many elements that create a distinctive feel for your business. This includes:
- Your brand name and logo
- Your domain name
- Your website
- Your physical location
- The tone of your marketing materials
- The tone of your customer service
- The quality of your product or service
- How do you answer the phone and reply to emails
Why Is Business Branding Important?
Many people think they can get by with just a good product or service. While that might be true in some instances, it’s not the case for most businesses. Even if you have the best offering globally, you need to promote it so that people become aware of it. And even if you do have a great offering, there are plenty of other businesses with great offerings.
So what will make yours stand out from everyone else’s? Your brand! If you don’t promote your brand consistently and effectively, your potential customers won’t know anything about it. And if they don’t know about your brand, they certainly won’t buy from your brand.
Many small business owners are hesitant to invest time or money into branding because they don’t see an immediate return on their investment. However, it’s essential to take a long-term view of branding.
Who you are should be based on who your target customers want and need you to be.
The foundation of your brand is your logo. Your website, packaging, and promotional materials should integrate your logo and communicate your brand.
Your brand strategy defines what you stand for, a promise you make, and the personality you convey. It’s how you differentiate yourself from competitors.
Where To Start?
A lot goes into building a business, so we’ve broken down the branding basics. Keep reading for some dos and don’ts to get you started.
DO
Be consistent
What is your company all about? What makes it unique? Take time to figure out what makes your brand stand out from the crowd, and then run with it. Incorporate the same elements in everything you do, from your website to business cards.
Stay simple at first
A great logo isn’t going to make or break your brand. Trademarks take time, so start with a simple design that communicates something about your company. You can continually refine it later as you learn more about what works and what doesn’t. And as you begin to build a following, let them give you feedback on what they like (and don’t like). You’ll know when it’s time for an update — and where to focus your efforts.
DON’T
Copy Others
It may be tempting to mimic someone else’s brand strategy with so many businesses. But rather than following in the footsteps of another company, focus on what makes yours different and use that as inspiration for creating something unique that sets you apart from the competition.
Define Your Brand and Brand Strategy
You’ve heard the word branding thrown around, but what exactly does it mean? And how do you develop a brand that will be an asset to your company?
Branding is the personality of your business and how you want people to see and think about you. It’s what sets you apart from your competitors. It’s not your logo, tagline, or color scheme — although all of those elements can play a role in bringing your brand to life.
Your brand strategy is how, what, where, when, and why you do all that you do for your customers. Your strategy is defined by your choices in alignment with your mission and vision. A strong brand strategy gives employees something to believe in and rally behind, helps existing clients understand what makes you different from the competition, and attracts new prospects who will buy into what you’re selling.
You can use digital marketing to help your business, from driving sales to building engagement and increasing awareness. Here are the most common digital marketing tools and how to use them.
In general, social media platforms have been reshaping how we communicate with one another for more than a decade. But for marketers, the landscape is constantly evolving. And today, brands are increasingly turning to digital marketing strategies to bring their messages to consumers.
In our digital age, having a presence on social media is practically a requirement for any business. Platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter are great ways to reach current customers and discover new ones. They also provide a personal touch that can be difficult to achieve with traditional marketing strategies.
Social media marketing has the potential to reduce your marketing expenses as well as increase your brand awareness and reach. Use this guide to determine which platform is right for you and learn how to optimize your social media efforts.
Instagram has quickly become the go-to social media channel for sharing photos and videos. Instagram isn’t just for promoting products or services, either. You can use the platform to showcase your brand’s culture or engage customers with relevant content. Knowing where you’re going will help guide your decisions about what to post and when to do it.
One way to think about Instagram is as a digital coffee table book in which you can promote your brand and tell your story through images. You can build an audience by sharing content that reflects your brand’s personality and values. Initially, you should check out Followers.io and see how to buy Instagram followers to get started. It’s always better to start with some number of followers rather than building from zero.
But don’t get too caught up in the importance of having a huge audience or many followers. It’s better to have a small but engaged audience than thousands of people who never interact with your content.