Whether you are a blogger, entrepreneur, or a CEO of a company, you need to how you will be defining your brand. Without a brand, your work will be inconsistent, not memorable, and not doing your public image any favors.
Branding is a name, term, design, symbol, or any other feature that identifies one seller’s good or service as distinct from those of other sellers. The legal term for brand is trademark. A brand may identify one item, a family of items, or all items of that seller.
Think about two major brands in our country: Apple and Starbucks. Both have very distinct brand experiences, and you better believe that this is on purpose.
Apple
- Iconic
- 90’s computer lab
- iPhone
- Mac
- Expensive
- Clean design
- Steve Jobs
- Fun fact: Did you know if you google “apple” the first images are of the company and not the real fruit? Talk about influence.
Starbucks
- Trendy
- Expensive
- An Experience
- Friendly
- Consistant
- Many Locations
- Seattle
If I gave you these lists without the company, I am willing to bet most people would know who I was talking about. This is because their branding is so well thought out and the focus of everything they do.
SO WHAT ABOUT YOU? WHAT IS YOUR BRAND?
When defining your brand, you need to ask yourself:
How do I want people to see my company?
What is the primary reason your association/company exists?
What are you consistently doing to keep your company aligned?
What personality traits are authentic and specific(unique) to you?
You don’t have to work for yourself or own your own company to have your own brand. In fact, everyone has a brand already. Unfortunately, unless you are conscious about this, your brand might be easy to forget, sloppy, uninspired and unintentional.
Everything you put out into the world needs to be put through an evaluation. Does is align with your brand, or even better, will someone feel like they know YOU through what you put out into the world? You can lie to yourself and think that branding is only relevant to companies or business practices, but it applies to human beings as individuals. What do you want to be known for?
Keep in mind, your brand does not have to please everyone. Some people think Starbucks’ coffee tastes burnt. Some people thing that Apple is overpriced. I get emails from a well known successful blogger and every time she comes into my inbox, I am annoyed. Her brand is all about acting like everyone is her best friend. Personally, I am turned off by someone acting like they know me and using kitchy sayings. Fortunately for her, I can ignore her messaging because her benefits of getting her emails offsets my annoyance level (most of the time).
When defining your brand, it will help to picture your dream customer or client. Give them a name, create a personality for them, and then start targeting your messaging towards that avatar. You will start attracting people with personality traits similar to your dream client and it will all make sense to work with them. If you set off trying to please everyone, you will end up never truly pleasing anyone.
WHAT IS YOUR BRAND?
