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BRANDING BUZZ Let's talk branding. |
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Businesses can increase brand awareness by interacting with the large group of people, creating a profile with correct information, and leaving a positive impact on the people visiting your profile. Here are some of the steps that you can follow for building your LinkedIn brand awareness: Start with Optimizing your LinkedIn Profile The key component of LinkedIn is your profile. A complete profile leaves a positive impact on the viewers and it also shows that you are actively participating in the LinkedIn network. Add a profile photo to your account as it increases the visibility of your profile in the searching results. Follow the mentioned tips to pop up your LinkedIn profile:
Build Meaningful Connections Once you are done with optimizing your profile, start making strategies to grow your network. Build your strategic brand associations on LinkedIn which will keep your network active and will strength your global connections. LinkedIn will provide you even more information regarding the people that you already know, you have met or you are going to meet. Building your LinkedIn network builds your personal brand as people generally think highly about those who keep a good company. So, connect with trusted friends, colleagues, classmates, vendors and other professionals and ask them to introduce you to the people in their network. According to LinkedIn Expert Gregg Burkhalter, “the LinkedIn Guy”: "You need to digitize your in-person relationships on LinkedIn so you can nurture and grow them. If your customers or future clients don’t see you in their digital workday, you are not top of mind and oftentimes forgotten" Publish Content We all know that LinkedIn is a definitive specialized publishing platform. In fact, daily more than thousands of people publish posts on LinkedIn. Publish some content on LinkedIn to share what you want. Once you start publishing on this platform, you will see a spike in your profile views. Publish your content on LinkedIn to build your personal brand as well as reach more audience. Customize Your Feed Simply follow the people and resources that matter the most. Find useful resources with three easy steps:
LinkedIn Slide Share Slide share is the World’s largest content sharing community as every day thousands of contents are added on this platform. Moreover, Google indexes the presentation on LinkedIn slide share due to which your brand can gain an SEO advantage. Present LinkedIn slide shares with a different and unique viewpoint on your industry’s trend or news. Share your presentations, videos and the content that you have created.
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Business owners, branding and marketing people face an ongoing challenge consisting of: • Clarity vs. Confusion. • Simplification vs. complication. • Persuasion vs. nonsense. • Straight forward talk vs. corporate speak. It doesn’t matter what form of business communications we’re talking about — from a quick tweet or a simple email to an in-depth webinar or long-term campaign — you need to be clear and succinct about what you’re trying to say. It takes discipline and consistency to maintain clarity in business communications. It’s easy to confuse people. Eighty percent of our professional life has been spent helping clients clarify things. The message they have in mind is always clear in their own heads — and maybe to a few insiders — but it’s seldom clear to the outside world. A lot gets lost in translation, and you have to find many different ways to say the same thing clearly. The fact is, your Big idea matters. Message matters. Images matter. Tone matters. When these elements are misused, it can leave your most important audience scratching their heads. And you don’t want people left wondering huh or just skipping your message all together. Want to get the most out of branding and marketing? Be clear about the strategy. Think of it this way… Effective communication is a combination of two things: What to say, and how to say it. The “what to say” part means you need to articulate your strategy very clearly. The “how to say it” part is the job of the creative team. You need to be clear on both fronts. Your creative team can’t create great brand marketing or creative if they’re not clear on the strategy. Unfortunately, most business owners are quite wishy-washy on the subject of strategy. And, unfortunately, a lot of businesses can’t tell the difference between strategy and tactics. Before you start working on content, branding, messaging or creative, be clear about the strategy and desired outcomes first. Clear strategy leads to clear messaging and clear communications. Want to grow a brand? Be clear about what it stands for. One thing you can do to encourage clarity in business communications is to write and produce brand guidelines that spells out exactly what your brand is all about. And what it isn’t! Boil it down to clear, succinct message and idea your people will actually remember, rather than the usual corporate mish-mash mission statement. Then make sure that it becomes an integral part of your on-boarding procedure. Because if your own people don’t know what your brand stands for, how will the customer know? Want brand communication that actually drives sales? Be clear and overt about the value proposition. Not just a description of what you do or sell, but a compelling, simple idea and communication of the value that your target audience can expect. It’s a sharply honed combination of rational and emotional benefits that are specific to the target audience, and not lost in the execution. Creativity gets your audience’s attention and connects with them. But only if it follows strategy. You have to put clarity and strategy in front of creativity in order to have effective and impactful creativity. Start with strategy. Then be very clear about the value proposition. Then a tight creative brief. Only then can creativity be on target and effective. That’s how you can achieve clarity in business communication. Can you express what your business stands for? You need business clarity. When you’re talking about your amazing new business, offer or service, be very, very, clear about what’s in it for the consumer and they will benefit. It all needs to be boiled down into a short, succinct and branded elevator pitch that is super clear. There can be no confusion. You also need to be very clear with potential partners, employees, investors and especially yourself. If the idea’s not clear in your mind, it’ll never be clear to the outside world.
“It’s been done” shouldn’t keep you from starting a conversation or stating your position.
Blogging, tweeting and all the other opportunities to contribute to the social media conversation can be intimidating for a lot of professionals, particularly when they feel that they have to come up with completely original ideas for every bit of content. Relax, because that isn’t actually required. Novelty is a fine thing and brand new concepts are always welcome. By all means, share them! But there’s no need to feel burdened by the responsibility to break new ground at every turn – your unique point of view is quite sufficient to create interesting content. Malcolm Gladwell agrees with this premise. In fact, he recently said that the worst advice he ever received was to consider “It’s been done” as a deterrent to tackling a particular topic. During a panel discussion at New York University described by Jenna Goudreau, the respected writer and social scientist staunchly defended the value of new takes on old issues. “There are 100 articles written on the same topic every day,” according to Gladwell. “The world can happily accept more than one approach.” This is an important truth that can and should encourage professionals in every niche to be comfortable sharing their ideas on the issues they deal with each day, even when those issues have been longstanding topics of conversation. To deliver valuable content focused on familiar topics, it is only necessary to contribute a unique perspective that reflects the individual approach or a particular angle. For the best success when tackling well-known topics of conversation, try these tactics: 1. Be specific. What’s different about your take on the issue from the standard view? How will your approach affect the outcome? 2. Be concrete. Use examples that allow the readers to picture themselves in the same situation. Why would a person in the same situation choose the approach you advocate? 3. Be a tour guide. Take the reader on the journey that led you to arrive at your particular perspective. Share stories that illustrate the principles you’re describing. 4.Be fair. Are there good arguments for and against your interpretation, or drawbacks to your suggested plan? Sharing the cons as well as the pros conveys your professional integrity in addition to your depth of understanding. Face it: most things have been done. The Latin proverb “Nihi novi sub sole” may not be quite true, but it’s not far off. You don’t have to bear the onus of novelty as an admission fee to the ongoing conversation. You just have to show up and make a good case for your own interpretation. As Gladwell points out, “The most effective thing you can do is not shut up about what you’re doing.”
4 branding lessons from the UK election
Well it looks like our mates across the pond are finally going to Get Brexit Done. Boris Johnson and the Tories sure got it done, with a smashing victory in one of the UK's most important elections ever. How will it all play out as Boris proceeds to execute his Brexit mandate? What will the takeaways be in our neck of the world? Pass the popcorn, we will soon find out. Meantime, here's my take on what I saw as a remarkably well-crafted brand campaign, and the fundamental branding lessons to draw from it. Boris's 4 Brilliant Branding Lessons
Pinpoint the Pain Point One of the first rules of branding – identify the key pain point of your customer, one that you are able to address like no one else. It's the starting point for all great "solution" brands and campaigns. After 3 years on the brink of a constitutional crisis, Boris Johnson didn't have to look hard, but he did a clear-eyed job pinpointing his constituent's key pain point and locking onto it with laser focus: "All this talk about Brexit, and not only has Brexit not gotten done, nothing has gotten done". There's your pain point, Boris. Once you pinpoint your pain point that clearly, you put it up there on the white board, and design your branding directly from it. Narrow your focus, broaden your appeal This is the key brand-building principle you'll learn if you read brand master Marty Neumeier's Zag and The Brand Gap, which I highly recommend. It's the pithy, positive version of "Don't try to be all things to all people". Since this was an election and not a referendum, Boris had to beef up his his campaign platform with at least a few policy morsels besides Brexit. But all in all, he did well to keep it focused. Boris's new BFF Nigel Farage helped immensely, by essentially offering up his boutique Brexit party for acquisition by the Tories, allowing them to consolidate and own the Brexit brand. Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour Party competitors? They chose the "All things to all people" route, doing their damnedest to make the election about anything and everything but Brexit, offering up a poo-poo platter of policy giveaways to appeal to working class Brits. Alas, the UK political consumer was fed up with politics above all. BoJo narrowly focused on that frustration, resulting in the broad-based election blowout and parliamentary majority he needs to deliver on his Brexit promise. Nail your Big Idea The best brands and campaigns are built upon a Big Idea -- the organizing idea around which all strategy, actions and communication are aligned. It's most often captured in a tag line, like Apple's Think Different, but it can also be expressed in a mission like Disney's ultra-simple Make People Happy. Sometimes it's just one, brand-defining word or idea rolled out in evolving tag lines, Like Safety used to be for Volvo, and Rider Passion has been forever for Harley Davidson. With the simple Big Idea of Get Brexit Done, Boris nailed it. This was both a rational value proposition and a window into what Boris is all about -- i.e. his "Simon Sinek WHY". What to do once you nail your Big Idea? You muster your inner Martin Luther and NAIL it right to the church door. Make it your manifesto. Weave the message and what it means into all your brand communication, internally to your people, externally to your customer. Let it be the springboard for effective brand campaigns. Boris sure did that, coming up with perhaps one of the best political campaign "commercials" of all time. Have a great tag line " GET BREXIT DONE." Brilliant, just brilliant. Could a tag line be more powerfully simple? Could it more directly speak directly to the UK people and their key pain point? Could it have more perfectly positioned Boris Johnson as the no-nonsense, customer-focused solution to UK's political gridlock? I think not. Could bureaucratic overthink have completely mucked it up trying to make it "more creative"? You bet. And there's the branding lesson. To craft a great tag line: keep it simple and short, make it real and resonant, and capture the essence, personality and positioning of your unique brand. Well, there you have it. 4 quick branding lessons from one massive political saga for the ages. The hard part should be over for Boris Johnson, armed with one of the most clearly-stated and well-branded election mandates ever. Get clear on the Branding Fundamentals of your business or organization, and your big goals and brand vision will be much easier to achieve, too. |
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September 2020
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