Show Up (Be Regular and Be Relevant)
This is Part 4 of 5 of our Digital Brand Strategy Blog Series. Part 1 served as a high-level overview of digital brand strategy and why it is important for your business to have and implement one. In Part 2, we looked at the importance of Knowing Yourself as a first stage in developing an effective and impactful Digital Brand Strategy. In Part 3, we looked at why effective Digital Brand Strategy hinges also on Knowing Your Audience. In Part 4, we will examine how and why you must Show Up to keep your Digital Brand Growing and moving forward.
After you have thoroughly audited, analyzed and (where necessary) adjusted your digital brand strategy in terms of your own business and the wants and needs of your audience, the next step is to begin to design and deploy content that is true to who you are and valuable for your audience. In today’s market, the impetus for businesses and brands is to do this easily and make this content digestible and shareable among their audience. In short, we want to move from Knowing to Showing.
Brand has often been called your business’ most valuable asset. In many respects, I agree with this statement. You probably know that having a consistent, recognizable brand is valuable and important, but do you know why? Having a strong brand is increasingly important to gaining access and influence with digital native consumers who grew up being immersed in a world of screens, advertising and messaging. If we know that it takes several impressions to gain traction as far as being remembered by someone and there are many other messages that are competing, it’s important that your brand stake out a advantageous place in the mind of your potential customer.
How do we do this? The bulk of our experiences with brands is now occurring in digital settings, whether that is through websites, mobile devices, or other digital tools/media. To Show Up means that you are using the data uncovered in the Knowing Your Audience stage to produce and provide content that your customers want and need. There is a caveat worth mentioning here: In our view, it is better to be consistent on one or two platforms than to be sporadic or scattered on many. Develop a successful methodology for one type of media or platform and then try to replicate it elsewhere. Resist the temptation to be everywhere and do everything. Less is more.
Be Regular We’ve already discussed in part 3 how you must be where your users are and serve them content that they want. The first important aspect of Showing Up, is to be regular, that is to say, develop a system to deploy content on the appropriate channels in a way that is scheduled and sustainable. This allows you to be thoughtful and deliberate in how you serve the right content to the right audience. Two of the most important tools at this point is 1) a content calendar that you can use to decide when and how to deliver valuable content and 2) content automation tools that allow you to create and serve content to multiple platforms in an efficient way. Google searches quickly reveal that there are a number of free and low-cost options for both types of tools.
If you are going to engage with users and customers via social media for example, be intentional and regular in what you post. Across all digital touchpoints, they should appear unified, not disparate and fragmented. Is your goal to establish thought leadership in your industry, produce and publish content that achieves this purpose. If your goal is to position yourself as a disruptor, writing a traditional long-format article is probably not the way you want to go.
Your digital content should harmonize with your traditional (print) content from a visual styling and brand voice standpoint. Your content should also be optimized to appear in searches for high-visibility/high-value keywords. Remember Online is where sales, customer service, follow up, marketing, networking converge. Publish content that research confirms your customers are searching for so you catch them at seminal moments in their buyer journey.
How does brand consistency affect the bottom line? B2B companies with strong and consistent branding are 20% more successful than those that are weak or inconsistent, as stated in a study by McKinsey & Company. This has everything to do with making sure your digital brand strategy reflects a consistency and alignment that translates to every element of your organization’s digital brand presence.
Be Relevant Users are overwhelmed with content, many of it meaningless to them, though they are consistently told that it is highly valuable. It is imperative that business owners listen to their customers so that they give them content that resonates with their needs. Listening of course happens before the content is even developed, but it must also happen after the content has been distributed. Follow up with your audience is a key, but often overlooked step to ensure that content is indeed relevant. Messages that don’t add any value to the user will be overlooked and dismissed.
Having relevant content also allows you to perform better in internet searches as users seek out answers to questions. Knowing what your audience is interested in allows you to craft and curate tailored content that is for them.
A successful digital brand strategy, built upon knowing your own business and your audience, involves an approach to developing and distributing content and branded messaging that is both visible and valuable. Digital tools are being built and improved at a rapid pace that increasingly allow businesses to do this in new and better ways. With so much innovation happening so quickly, there is room for you to try (and likely fail) and try again while learning and evolving your content and approach along the way. There is no substitute for just showing up.
Enthuse Creative, LLC is a Northern Virginia (Tysons)-based brand consulting and design firm that specializes in developing brand-focused strategy and creative work for businesses and organizations, from startups to nonprofits. A major focus of its business is providing training and tools to help businesses improve their digital brand strategy and presence.
If your business needs assistance with digital branding, please contact Enthuse Creative for a free consultation.
