Building a brand is not as easy as it seems, but with the right approach, you can be well on your way to building a successful brand. Whether you want to build a brand for your work or business or you’re building a brand for your social media handles, such as Instagram, here’s everything you need to know about successful branding.
What is a Brand?
Your brand is how people see you wherever they connect with your company—both the impressions you can and cannot influence. Apart from business and media brands, people can also have their personal brands. Your brand identity informs an individual’s perception of you and your lifestyle.
How to Build Your Brand
How can you build your brand? Here are some steps to take:
#1. Determine Your Target Market
When you want to build your brand, it’s critical to understand who you’re attempting to target.
Consider the things you’ll be offering and who they’ll serve. Try to be specific in your consumer selection. Instead of focusing on “dog owners,” a pet accessory company could target new dog owners with younger canine companions or those who train dogs for shows. Choosing a specific specialty means you will face less competition.
Identifying your target demographic will assist you in selecting a brand voice, design, and even the best marketing strategy to engage with potential customers. You can learn more about your target audience by doing the following:
Examining existing clients: Do you have any previous customers, and if so, how much do you know about them? What are their ages, where do they come from, and what do they like about your company?
Consider your competition: What types of clients do other businesses like yours target? Are there any underserved segments of the market that your products can help?
Creating buyer personas: Imagine your ideal consumer and create a profile that includes their age, gender, demographics, likes, dislikes, and even actions (such as how they prefer to shop online).
As you begin to establish your eCommerce brand, analytics tools, and consumer surveys will provide you with a fresh opportunity to learn more about your audience. Adding to your consumer personas as you go can assist in keeping them up to date.
#2. Create Your Brand Position
Having a thorough understanding of your target audience can also provide you with insight into your brand’s position. You cannot be both a high-end luxury apparel company and a low-cost enterprise. You must pick where you will enter the market.
The simplest method to accomplish this is to create a positioning statement. This is one or two sentences that can help identify who you are and what you do. For example, your brand position statement could be something like, “We’re a home accessories firm supplying distinctive hand-made products to customers in [area].”
Consider how you will distinguish your company from the competition while developing your brand stance. Once you’ve determined your position and selling points, you can start developing marketing campaigns and branded content that appeal to your target audience in the appropriate tone.
#3. Choose a Business Name
You understand your target market and how you want to present your brand. It’s now time to choose that all-important brand name.
This is one of your brand’s most crucial distinguishing characteristics. Everything your customer needs to know about you should be condensed into a single word in the right name.
#4. Create a narrative for your brand.
The story of your brand is essentially the “why” behind your firm. Every firm must have a goal (beyond simply making money). Consider why you started a business and how your products can improve people’s lives.
A good brand story can make people fall in love with your company and appreciate your brand.
#5. Create the Look of Your Brand
Establishing the look of your brand entails selecting how you’ll assist people to identify your firm at a glance. For example, what kind of packaging would you use for your products? When clients order things from your eCommerce business, how will they recognize your parcel? What will they see when they browse your website for products?
Some of the most crucial aspects of your brand’s appearance are:
Brand colors: Your brand colors are a group of colors that will appear on all of your branded materials, such as your website, emails, and product packaging. Colors can have an emotional impact on buyers. Red, for example, is bold and passionate, whereas blue is trustworthy and relaxing.
Fonts: Just like your brand colors, the fonts you choose can have a significant impact on how your clients perceive your brand. Sans-serif typefaces are typically more modern and approachable, whereas serif fonts are more traditional and authoritative.
Imagery: What types of graphics, illustrations, and photographs do you use on your products, website, and advertisements?
Create a set of visual guidelines to help instruct your team and any designers you work with after you have the various aspects you need to establish your brand image.
#6. Make a Logo
Another important aspect of learning how to build your own brand is your logo. Your logo, along with your name, will be one of the first things your buyers see about your brand.
A great logo should be relevant and simple to grasp. Apple’s trademark apple image with the bite taken out of it is self-explanatory. Working with a professional designer to assist capture your visual essence is the best approach to ensure your logo has the proper effect.
#7. Integrate Your Brand Throughout
You must now share the brand, which you have created.
To be remembered, businesses must incorporate their brand into everything they do. The simplest approach to get started is to create a style guide for your workers and contractors. Make sure everyone on your team understands how your brand should appear and sound.
Next, consider how you might draw attention to your brand across many media. For example, your brand should be visible on your:
Ecommerce store: Select a store theme that complements your brand identity and use your company colors. Remember to include your logo on every page and to emphasize your brand voice throughout your website content.
Social media: Social media is a wonderful technique for increasing brand recognition. You can share posts that showcase your personality, images, and visuals that define your company, and even urge people to share your brand with their friends and coworkers.
Marketing campaigns: Whether you’re sending out email newsletters or communicating with clients via podcasts, your brand should be clearly evident in every marketing campaign. Make certain that your brand image and voice are constantly communicated across all advertising efforts.
When building a successful brand, consistency is essential. The more consistent your brand identity is both online and offline, the more familiar your organization will feel to your target customer. Consistency also makes your brand appear more steady and trustworthy.
How To Build Your Brand On Social Media
Building your brand on social media requires time and effort. However, if done correctly, you may be able to land your next career change or make vital connections. Here’s how you can build your brand on social media:
#1. Update your social media accounts
Choose which social media account(s) to focus on, and remove any old accounts you no longer utilize. Make sure all of your information is correct and accurate for the networks you will be using. This will assist you in directing and growing traffic to the networks where you may showcase yourself and your work.
It can also erase any ‘questionable’ content from previous years that could be perceived as having a risqué brand tone and does not benefit your professional image.
#2. Determine Your Area of Expertise
Everyone is an expert at something, whether it’s creating and distributing outstanding content or knowing everything there is to know about your favorite TV show.
Is it time to branch out a little more? Consider the types of material you’ve written that your fans have responded to the most. Can you duplicate this with similar material or repurpose anything to re-engage your audience? The more unique and entertaining content you publish on your chosen topic of expertise, the more your followers will start to think of you as a leader in your chosen sector.
#3. Social Media Apps Make Posting Simple
Forgotten passwords, full-time work, content development, and maintaining an internet presence all take time. However, there are numerous social media apps available to make life easier.
Sprout, Buffer, and Hootsuite all connect to your social media networks and allow you to cross-post and schedule content across several platforms. This eliminates the need to sign into several websites. These applications are compatible with the majority of major social networking networks, including Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook.
#4. Share Content Frequently
The more you shared on social media in the early days, the more engagement you could generate. Today, however, excessive blogging causes exhaustion and frustration. You want to maintain the channels of communication open with your audience, but you also don’t want to appear desperate. Individuals should publish three to four times per week.
There will be days when you don’t post, and that’s fine. Determine the best social media indicators to concentrate on, analyze the data linked with your postings, and identify a working pattern. If you’re having problems finding stuff to share and want to get a better sense of what’s popular, utilize social media hashtags, news aggregator sites like Feedly, or sign up for Google Alerts.
#5. Upload Your Contacts
You may be surprised at how many individuals you already know on the social media networks you use. There could be scores, if not hundreds, of people with whom you have yet to connect. Import your Gmail or Outlook email contacts, or phonebook contacts, into your social networks to see how many connections you’re missing. Linkedin, Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter all allow you to import a limited amount of contacts for free.
#6. Maintain a positive and engaging tone in your social media posts.
Your goal is to build an unstoppable personal online brand, but you must ensure that it accurately represents you. While you are now aware of some of the things you should do on social media, are you aware of what you should not do in order to maintain a positive social impression?
Consider your interactions and material to be a work résumé as well as a representation of your professional attitude and general personality. Reposting other people’s stuff (or curating content for social media) is a good idea, but it’s not all you should be doing. You must also share written content to demonstrate your industry experience.
Creating interesting content requires a new perspective on the types of updates you provide to your network. Don’t be hesitant to brag about your own accomplishments or to include interesting personal details (e.g. travel and hobbies are suitable). After all, social media is about people first and foremost.
#7. Maintain Consistency in Your Brand’s Voice, Image, and Tone
You’ve undoubtedly figured out that adhering to your specified identity is critical. If a popular political analyst abruptly and dramatically switched parties, they would undoubtedly lose a lot of supporters overnight. You must also be consistent in your thoughts and how you communicate them in order to be memorable and trustworthy.
It may take some trial and error to find the tone of voice that works best for your business, but there are personal branding guides you can use to find the perfect fit for you. It’s not as simple as declaring, “I want to be hilarious,” because you’ll need to expand on your thoughts to support your approach.
Following your brand standards can assist you in controlling people’s impressions. If one of your profiles appears with material or visuals that do not match your brand’s voice, you risk damaging an otherwise faultless reputation.
#8. Take a Social Media and Marketing Course to Help You Build Your Brand
Understanding the foundations is the greatest method to establish your personal brand on social media. Learn how to do social research to better understand your audience, determine which content formats will work best for you, and develop a strategy – no matter how little – so you know where you want to go and how to get there.
You’ll also need to know the ins and outs of each social media network, as well as what you can do to promote your specific message. With some effort, you’ll quickly learn which channels are the most effective and how to gauge performance. Begin today by selecting a social media and marketing course that meets your career and personal needs.
Having seen how you can build your brand on social media, let’s narrow it down to Instagram branding.
How to Build Your Instagram Brand
Here are steps to build a successful brand on Instagram:
#1. Create an Instagram strategy.
This is the first stage because it is the most important in developing a brand on Instagram.
If you don’t have a defined approach, you’ll end up with low-performing material and a disorganized feed as you attempt to come up with new ideas.
You’ll need to accomplish four things to establish your Instagram strategy:
- Determine your objectives.
- Narrow down your target market.
- Investigate your competitors.
- Create a content strategy.
#2. Make use of trends.
It only takes one person’s video or sounds to go viral on social media for the rest of the globe to join in with their own version.
The majority of these trends are amusing and harmless, lasting around three weeks or less.
Why should you participate? It’s an opportunity to engage with your audience in a unique and entertaining way. If you get in early on a trend, you can get a quick bump in engagement and reach.
When considering joining any trend, there are two questions you should consider:
- How can I apply this to my company and/or sector to make it more relatable to my audience?
- What is the source of this trend, and does it contradict our firm’s values?
#3. Spend money on high-quality creative assets.
A perfect Instagram post follows a formula that includes two components: gorgeous imagery and interesting writing.
Select photographs that tell a story or evoke emotion. What this looks like for your company may vary depending on your industry, but go beyond sharing photographs of your own products and services.
Posting about yourself on social media on a regular basis is akin to being that person at a party who continuously speaks about themselves. Be wary of copyright issues as well.
If you don’t own the image, ask for permission to use it or find non-attribution-required photos.
Make use of appealing copies. While you are not required to include text in your Instagram photos, doing so adds a level of impact that a photograph alone cannot.
Consider your caption as an additional way to entice and engage your fans. It’s a place to provide background, offer further information, ask a question, and solicit feedback.
#4. Create a community of devoted followers.
Instagram engagement can take numerous forms, such as followers sharing your material, liking and commenting on it, tagging their friends, and clicking on your calls to action.
Have you ever posted something on social media that you believe will go viral only to be met with silence? You received few likes and shares, and the only comments you received were from spambots.
While it’s tempting to believe you underestimated the post’s potential, it’s also possible that you issued the update at the wrong moment.
Head over to your insights dashboard to find out when your followers will be active on the app. If you have a business account (which you should), you may use the app to gather useful information about your audience’s demographics and behavior, such as location, age, gender, and activity.
You may then plan your articles based on your target audience’s most active days and times.
Request the Engagement
Many brands will create Instagram accounts and then become dissatisfied when people do not engage with their content.
It may seem obvious and simple, but asking your audience to participate can make all the difference. You can either include the action you want your followers to take in the image itself or in the caption.
#5. Post frequently.
When a user scrolls through the app, you compete for their attention with millions of different brands.
As a result, visibility is critical. With so many methods to share content, from Reels to Stories to Lives, there are numerous ways to reach your target audience, each requiring a different amount of effort and planning.
This is great news for brands, particularly small ones. While it is recommended that you share on the platform on a daily basis, you can choose how you share based on your bandwidth and which methods provide the best ROI.
For example, an in-feed post will almost certainly require more effort than a Story because it will live on your profile.
With a Story, you may instantly engage your audience with a poll, a question, or a reshared post while knowing that it will be removed after 24 hours.
A decent rule of thumb is to publish an in-feed post three to four times a week and to share on Stories on a daily basis.
#6. Examine your facts and refine your strategy.
If you’ve previously tried all of the suggestions above and are still struggling to achieve substantial traction with your app, the reason could be in your data.
Too frequently, brands become fixated on a single method and fail to check their data to see if it is actually working.
Your Instagram Insights dashboard provides detailed information on how each post performed, such as impressions, accounts reached, content interactions, and profile activity.
#7. Share your Instagram profile on other social media platforms.
As you work to increase your Instagram following, you can also drive traffic to your profile from other sources.
Hosting a contest or offering exclusive material is one approach to persuade consumers to follow your page on that site.
Furthermore, don’t be hesitant to advertise your Instagram account on other social media networks. For example, your website may feature an Instagram feed area with a call-to-action to follow your page. In your email marketing campaigns, you can also add a link to your Instagram profile.
Make sure to share the link to your profile wherever you have an online presence so that your audience knows where to find you.
#8. Convert your followers to subscribers.
As you are aware, email marketing is critical to the success of any business.
Instagram has been a significant source of email subscribers for Foundr, converting between 15,000 and 30,000 followers each month, depending on our promotions.
You might be wondering how this is possible if you’re familiar with Instagram’s limitations. After all, Instagram does not permit links in photo captions.
That’s where a well-written bio comes in.
Many businesses struggle to convince followers to click on the links in their biographies since the inclination is to stuff bios with… So, crap. Break the mold by writing your bio like a Tweet: short, useful, and packed with meaning.
You can include a URL that takes users to a link tree or a direct link to your subscription landing page in your bio.
Once you’ve established the processes, begin pushing followers to your bio by incorporating calls to action in your content.
What Are The 12 Brand Archetypes?
The 12 brand archetypes are: the innocent, everyman, hero, outlaw, explorer, creator, ruler, Magician, Lover, Caregiver, Jester, and Sage.
What is brand loyalty?
Brand loyalty refers to a consumer’s tendency to repeatedly purchase products or services from a specific brand.
How do I increase brand loyalty?
To increase brand loyalty, provide exceptional customer service, offer unique and high-quality products, and consistently deliver on brand promises.
What is a brand positioning statement?
A brand positioning statement is a concise declaration that defines a brand’s target audience and what sets it apart from competitors.
How do I create a brand positioning statement?
To create a brand positioning statement, define your target audience, research your competitors, and identify your unique value proposition. Use these elements to craft a clear and concise statement.
What is brand equity?
Brand equity refers to the value a brand adds to a product or service beyond its functional attributes.
How do I measure brand equity?
Brand equity can be measured through customer surveys, market research, and financial analysis, such as the brand’s market share and financial performance.
What is brand reputation?
A brand reputation is the overall perception of a brand in the market, based on factors such as customer satisfaction, quality of products, and ethical standards.
In Conclusion
Building your brand identity provides your customers with something with which they can actually relate. It’s what keeps consumers coming back for more, distinguishes you from the competition, and converts one-time customers into devoted brand supporters.
Frequently Asked Questions
What makes a successful brand?
A successful brand is defined by consistent and recognized company statements; it provides not just products and services but also meaning.
What makes a brand popular?
A popular brand is one that understands its target markets. This is demonstrated by developing messaging that is exclusively relevant to one target niche.
How long does it take to build a brand?
It takes approximately 2-5 years to build a brand.
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