Branding, Marketing, Social Media
In today’s digital marketing world, staying on brand with your marketing can seem overwhelming, but it doesn’t have to be. All it takes is a little planning ahead. Let’s look at a few tips that will help.
- Determine your brand and message. This should be done when setting up your business so this step should be easy!
- Refer to your style guide often to keep your color and logo the same throughout.
- It’s important to have one person creating your social media. Be sure to have your brand voice, tone, and imagery examples available.
- Schedule your posts in advance. This will help you keep on brand because you aren’t rushing trying to decide what to post at the last minute.
- Document your social media process for new hires. Include how and where to find content and images.
- If you have a team, assign one person to approve the content.
- Set your tone and voice and be sure it remains consist on all marketing outlets.
- Have a checklist to keep posts brand focused. Successful digital marketing cannot happen without guidelines.
Each platform handles information differently but if you follow the guidelines you have put in place, your marketing will convey your brand message in a way that will get you noticed!
Contact us should you wish to set up a time to discuss your marketing.
Branding
Welcome to the first blog post in the series to help you get started marketing your new business! Now that you know what you want to sell, whether it’s a product or a service, you need a business name. Deciding on your business name requires some thought and research. Take it from me, I’ve renamed my business three times in the last 10 years. The first time because I changed the focus of my business, but the second time because I just didn’t like the name. Hence, I should have put more time and research into it!
Naming your business really is the first brick you lay in building your business. It’s the foundation on which your entire business will rest. A few things to take into consideration while deciding on a name include:
- Think about what your business objectives are or what describes your company.
- Try to stand out in a crowd. Be memorable.
- Do not use odd spellings. This makes it hard for a potential customer to find you online.
- Don’t get so cute that people have no clue what you are talking about. Avoid puns that only you will understand. Check the list of business names at Funnynames.com and you will understand what I’m saying.
- Avoid being a cliché. Words such as next level, precision, solutions, services, affordable, global, and enterprise are overused.
- Avoid using a geographically based name. What if your business expands to other areas of town or even globally? Don’t burden yourself with a name that keeps you rooted to one place.
- Be careful if you try to combine two names into one. It needs to make sense and be easy enough to spell so that people can find you online.
- Don’t pick a name that is too long. This is important when registering your domain name that you will be using for your email address.
- Naming your business goes hand in hand with finding your domain. Your business name and your URL should be the same. Check if your domain is available with individual domain name registrarsor at http://www.register.com.
- Know that it is okay to change your name as your business grows and changes. (Remember, I’ve done it three times!)
After deciding on a business name, be sure to check with your local county or state office to register it. Registration requirements vary from place to place. Deciding on a name can be confusing at times but just take these few things into consideration, do your research, and you will be building a strong foundation for your business.
Next week we will be discussing branding and websites!
Branding, Facebook, Social Media
When consumers are thinking of buying a product or service they go to the internet to do a little research. Social media profiles are often amongst the top results in search listings for brand names. Consumers will probably see your Facebook page before they see your website. That should tell you how important it is to use your social media to create and build a trust worthy brand. In fact, social media channels are search engines too and many times consumers go directly to Facebook or other social media channels for research.
While your website is filled with information about your products or services, social media can work to build trust with consumers by allowing them to see the beyond the advertising and see what a company is about daily as the content changes.
Each one of the tactics below is simple and easy to do but when you take in the overall effect, you will see how your Facebook Page will help consumers believe they can trust you and that you are the right choice.
- Verify your page – At one time Facebook only allowed celebrities and major brands to verify their pages so you would know it was real person or brand and not an impostor. Now, if you are a legitimate company, you can get verified too. You do need proof you are a real business by providing a business phone number, a utility bill with the business name or your articles of incorporation.
- Personal branding – Be sure to use your branding elements when creating your page. Stay consistent with your logo, color scheme, and style.
- About page – Here is where you can really say something about your core values as a business and let consumers know important company details. You can add links to other social media accounts, link to your website or specific products, and include all of your contact information.
- Show some personality – Social media is not about selling your product or service. It’s about creating engagement with current or potential clients. Showing product demonstrations, behind the scenes videos or images, even pets and family can help to show that there are real people behind the brand.
- Include brand influencers – You know those people who everyone knows? If you can, include pictures of yourself with them or tag them in relevant posts. Only if you know them. Don’t just tag random influencers, that’s just bad social media etiquette and they could end up blocking you. This will help bring a new audience to your page.
- Share good news – Did you get a write up or mention on the news? Post it so your followers can share in the excitement with you.
- Facebook Live – This is huge and only getting bigger. Again, your follows will be able to see you are an actual person behind the brand and will be able to interact with you live. Facebook Live videos get a higher organic reach than recorded videos.
Social media allows you to make a good first impression, and since you only have one chance at a first impression, better make it great! Contact us if you would like us to evaluate your first impression!
Branding
There are so many new buzz words these days it’s hard to keep up. (Here’s a complete list of buzzwords predicted to take over in 2017.) One of the new words is ‘brand identity’. It’s more than just your typical buzzword though, you need to know what it means and what you as a business needs to do about it.
So, what is a ‘Brand Identity’? According to http://www.investopedia.com, a company’s brand identity is “how that business wants to be perceived by consumers. The components of the brand (name, logo, tone, tagline, typeface) are created by the business to reflect the value the company is trying to bring to the market and to appeal to its customers.”
It also goes on to point out the difference between brand identity and brand image. Your image is how the public perceives you which may not necessarily be what you think your brand identity is. For that reason, it is important to create a clear and concise brand identity and keep it consistent across all forms of your marketing..
Here are a few ideas to help manage a brand identity that will last and represent you well:
- Take the time to development your brand. This will help you manage your image.
- Brand consistency eliminates brand confusion.
- Establishing your brand standards and maintaining that standard, will build brand equity.
- Customers will see your brand and know exactly what your business is no matter what platform they see you on.
- Maintaining a consistent brand helps to convey a certain degree of reliability and trust. (think Coca-Cola)
You may want to create a brand style guide to share with your team. Included in the guide should be:
- Exact company name to be used including LLC, Inc, Co., etc.
- Tag Line
- Mission Statement.
- Logo – You should have variations so you need to detail what/when/where each variation is used.
- Color Scheme – Include hex codes, rgb, and color usage as it relates to your brand.
- Typography – List of fonts you use in your blog content, press releases, emails, sales copy
- Imagery and Photo Styles — How should these look to the market? Under what circumstances are different styles used, what feelings they should induce in the customer
- Copy Guidelines — The more details the better about capitalization of letters in the brand name/brand material, and circumstances and locations to use trademarks, affiliations, slogans, disclaimers, etc.
- Examples of what you consider poor use of your brand — such as inappropriate language while signed into company social media and other online profiles.
Is your brand identity the same across all platforms of marketing, including social media? Is it telling the same story everywhere you see it? Talk to us and we can do a complete brand identity evaluation for you!
