Branding is the process of taking a product or service and packaging it with love, plain and simple. You must take the inner parts of yourself and project it to who you want to reach.
Brands are promises. They are the vow to provide quality and consistency in all aspects of an encounter with your business. This means customer service, product quality, and overall experience whether it be the website accessibility or the cheapest shipping costs.
From the moment someone encounters your brand all the way until the end of the life of the product or service you have provided, in its entirety defines your brand.
Now whether you consider your business or even just yourself as a brand everyone in fact has a brand. Social media has catapulted us into an age where your personal brand is the foremost important source of credibility, so we will focus the examples in this post specifically on social media. Employers, potential customers, and even your potential bae scour your social media just to see what you are all about.
Take my brand for instance, if you were to scroll through any of my social media handles there are a few consistent experiences you would encounter on each platform. Here are a few:
Name : on all of my social media platforms (except for snap chat) I am bran_did. Now this is an elementary concept that most of us have grasped but it is of severe importance to have a consistent name that people can identify with. This commonality will allow a subconscious seed to be sown. When you see bran_did you automatically know it is me because I always use that name everywhere I go.
Core Content: My goal for 2017 was to create a consistent faith based foundation that I could build my brand on. On Facebook and Instagram you see a lot of art aesthetic and scripture and if you head to twitter you see a lot of christian music or retweets of other faith based content. If there is anything that you truly know about me from a quick look at all my accounts, is that I love Jesus. That is because it is something that I want you to know.
Consistent Content: Now do not quote me on this because consistency has been a long running challenge for me in building my brand. But again, head to my Instagram and scroll through and notice that even if content is put up late it is complete in its form. People look for an experience they can count on to follow through.
As you can see from these few examples, branding is much more than a logo. It takes strategic planning and pure intentions to build a brand people trust. In order to build your brand, personal or professional, you must look at your product, service, or self, and first figure out what it is that you stand for. Once you have an idea of what you stand for assess what unique benefits you deliver that set you apart from the competition. Once you know the answers to those questions, you are up and moving and on your way to building a successful brand.
Until next time.... Happy branding!!!
- Bran