Hi Friends!
I wanted to share one of my favorite quotes about brand and then dive into how we can apply some of these principles here on Steemit. Every once in a while I talk about my day job – which happens to be for a company that spends a lot of time focusing on good branding. We actually has over 80% market share and great brand awareness within our top channels.
The difference between good brands and great brands… is consistency.
Even though I work in sales, I was asked to join a Brand Taskforce to audit our companies branding to find opportunities to improve. This has been a fun group to collaborate with because it is very cross-functional. We have people from IT, accounting, HR, operations, shipping, sales(me!), and of course marketing.
Even though I am not a marketing professional or brand expert, I have had the opportunity to work with some brand geniuses over the last few years and pick up some of their knowledge. I may share more on this subject in the future – but for today I wanted to focus on a few key elements that I think we can use as a filter to evaluate our own Steemit blogs/vlogs and help improve our content.
This is not what I’m talking about today – but wanted to quickly give a working definition that you can use throughout the rest of the video/post. Brand is NOT your logo or what font you use (although this can contribute). Brand is a little less tangible than that… it is about the feeling people get when they interact with your brand. If REI changed their logo, I wouldn’t feel lost and confused, it wouldn’t matter to me. Their branding has been built on their reputation of quality and service.
One of the things we uncovered in our Brand Taskforce, is that even though our social media channels and website had top notch branding – our auto-generated order confirmations, invoices, packing slips etc looked like they were straight out of the 80’s. They were hard to decipher and had ZERO personality to them.
It has been a lot of fun to work with our design team to start updating some of these materials so that every time someone touches our brand… they are getting a consistent experience. My pitch to the team was that we should make “Working with us feel like a party!”.
I would encourage people to spend a little time evaluating their various touchpoints here on the platform. Obviously your posts is one of the biggest ways that you interact with the platform – but comments is another huge component as well.
This is an area where I often see Steemians have a disconnect in their “branding”. Their posts are full of so much life and energy – and then their reply to the comments on that post are really buttoned up and professional. I actually spoke about this in my Presentation at the Steem Creators Conference.
What do I mean by buttoned up and professional? I’m talking about generic “Thank you for watching” or “Glad you enjoyed it” kind of replies. Now I do these sometimes too if the person’s original comment was really simple and I don’t have much to work with. If someone takes the time to leave a really exuberant comment on your post though – let them know how MUCH you appreciate it! Make people stop and say, “Wow, [insert yourself] was so excited that I left a comment!”. Bring as much energy, vulnerability and personality into your comments as you do into your posts.
To illustrate this point, I am going to use two of the top brands in the world as an example – Amazon and Starbucks. One of the reasons that people have such strong brand loyalty with these companies, is because they are consistent. People know they can place an order on Amazon Prime and have it show up at their door in a few days. Just like people know they can go into a Starbucks anywhere in the world and have their drink taste exactly the same.
What happens if once your Amazon order gets delayed, or your drink turns out all wrong at a Starbucks? You likely won’t be ready to give up on that brand yet – but it might make you question your decision to shop with them in the future. If these “misses” on service happen a FEW times – then there is a really good chance that you’ll take your business elsewhere. If Amazon fails to deliver your package on time, three times in a row, they have just taken a huge hit in your loyalty to their brand.
Try to be as consistent as you can with the feeling you create in your posts and comments. You are the best one to decipher what you want that feeling to be – but I guarantee if you keep that in mind when creating content or comments – it will help you to stay more grounded to your mission.
I hope you guys found some of the information in this vlog helpful. Even if you just keep some of these ideas in mind when creating content – I think it could help. I’d love to hear your thoughts though… Do you think of yourself as a “brand” here on Steemit? It can be kind of funny to think about because we often think of brands as just companies. I’d love to hear if you guys have any thoughts or ideas for how to increase the consistency of your “branding” here on the platform.
I like sharing the knowledge I have – but I always seem to learn a few things from others in the comments. This is part of what makes this place so great. So please, share away!<3
Just to re-iterate, I am not a brand or marketing expert. I have just had the opportunity to work side by side with some incredible world class brands and learn from some top marketers. If you have any questions on anything I covered in this video – don’t hesitate to ask and I’ll do my best to help!
Xo, Lea
In order to add an extra layer of transparancy and value to my vlog's, I will be adding a list of equipment used at the bottom of each one! If you ever have questions about the gear I use, or how I use it - please don't hesitate to ask.
