4 Ways To Build Your Online Brand Identity Right Now
Here, we cover four ways of building your online brand identity and making sure it resonants with your users, customers, and followers
Know Your Voice, Your Look and Your Story
No matter which audiences or markets your brand identity is catered towards, the important thing is for you to fully commit to it.
The best online brands have a clear definition of who they are, what their story is, and what their target audience is. Beyond this, they’re also consistent in their messaging (which we’ll cover in more detail in ‘Content Strategy’).
Before you even start sharing posts on social media or crafting a website, take some time to make sure you have a clear idea of your brand and how you would like it to be perceived. Doing this will likely save you from wasting time further down the road, as brands which fully understand their voice can often make quicker decisions on issues involving online visual identity, tone, social media posting, and general audience outreach.
Have a Content Strategy
Ok, you’ve found your brand voice - now what?
There are many different ways to actually build your online brand identity effectively (often, it’ll depend on the brand in question), but perhaps the surest way to achieve success is to set out a comprehensive content strategy and stick to it.
A content strategy typically involves a person (or multiple people) crafting specific content - in line with the established brand identity - and deciding when said content should be uploaded online (either onto a website, social media pages, or elsewhere).
The benefit of laying out a good content strategy is that it means everyone involved in a brand can be consistent and on-message when they’re posting content online.
Monitor Your Growth
This goes hand-in-hand with a solid Content Strategy. Brand identity isn’t built in a matter of hours or even days, it takes a while before it can be called “effective”. Brand owners should be fully prepared to lay out their content strategy plan and then monitor it over a significant period of time.
In terms of the actual mechanics of monitoring growth, brands should look at factors such as: How much engagement am I getting on social media posts focused on brand identity? Am I able to track positive mentions of my brand across the internet? (Google Trends is great for monitoring data). Am I receiving backlinks to my website or social pages based on increased brand awareness? Am I gaining an increase in actual sales (conversions) based on my efforts to increase the awareness of my brand identity?
All of these factors can help you monitor your growth and refine your strategy if needs be.
Offer Genuine Value As a Brand
Have we saved the most obvious point for last? Probably, but we did because the one thing you need to seriously consider before you set out to grow your brand identity is this: What value do you offer customers, users, followers, or online visitors?
Bear in mind that most internet users in today’s digital age are a lot savvier (and a lot more suspicious) about what they read, who they follow, and where they buy products and services online. If your brand identity doesn’t start with the premise of offering genuine value to users/customers, don’t be surprised when people switch off or scroll past.
But if you do offer genuine value with your brand, you’ve got a firm footing for highlighting your brand identity and generating growth!
