Your brand goes so much further than your logo. It's the overall experience your customers have with your company, services, or product. With a new decade upon us, what a better to embrace new ways to create engagement with your audience!
In a time where technology is at our literal fingertips and brands are able to push their message straight to their audience’s eyes, making your brand stand out is more challenging than ever. We’re not saying you need to uproot your current strategy, maybe your brand is highly successful in certain areas, but understanding where you may be lacking in others is the perfect opportunity to try something new. What we’re encouraging is finding that weaker brand engagement area of your business and spark new life into it! Here are a few tips and tricks to help you can start to weave into your brand and public relations strategy:
Tip #1 Spice Up Your Social Media Messaging Per Platform
Did you know that 60% of social media users discover new products on Instagram? Or that nearly half of the adults in the US visit Snapchat multiple times a day? It’s important to know what platforms your audience are returning to day in and day out to know where to strategically promote your brand for increasing your audience engagement. While social media platforms are a GREAT tool for brand promotion, not all platforms are created equal! Whatever platforms your brand is on, customize each message per platform. Blasting out the same message to all platforms takes away from brand authenticity.
Tiny Tips:
- Instagram is the perfect platform for sharing great photos and short clips of your products and services! Make sure to follow their image guidelines for best practices. Pro tip: The optimal sizes are 1080 pixels wide by 566 pixels to 1350 pixels high.
- Facebook is great for conversation! Facebook Messenger is a great way you can speak quickly and directly with your audience to improve your customer service experience.
- Twitter is fast-paced with limited characters. A great way to keep up with industry conversation is to identify hashtags relevant to your business so you can be alerted with the latest news to respond to your audience in real-time!
Knowing what apps, sites, publications, and social media groups your audience is viewing can make all the difference when it comes to staying true to your brand.
Tip #2 Environmental, Social Awareness and Authentic Values
Developing your brand values is one of the first things you establish when building your brand identity. Brand values are the core beliefs that define what your brand stands for and what your customers can expect with business transactions. Today's consumer is often looking past the price tag and digging deep into a brand's core values to decide if they will do business with them or make a purchase. Sharing your brand values on your website, social media, blog and other platforms will help build deeper connections with your audiences.
Quick fact: Did you know that 89% of consumers stay loyal to brands who share their same values?
A great example of a brand that promotes and stays true to their brand values and beliefs throughout their brand strategy is Patagonia, an outdoor clothing and gear retailer and advocate for making the world a better place (it's even in their mission statement!). Patagonia is passionate about producing high-quality products while minimizing their operational footprint. They have an entire section of their website dedicated to openly talking about their core values and they as a company are actively doing to make sure they are always on course with their values.
Step 1: Define Brand Values. Step 2: Talk and share your values to your audience. Step 3: Walk the walk!
Tip #3 Experiential Content
Keeping your audience engaged is easier when you have the right content they want to engage and interact with. A recent study showed that over 50% of consumers seek more video content from brands followed by interactive articles and social content. Creating experiential content doesn't have to mean recreating the wheel. Take a look at your existing content and evaluate which pieces are doing really well and which one(s) could use a little love.
Creating gamified quizzes and polls, videos, and even interactive infographics are just a few ways that would allow you engage with your audience and further them down your buyer's journey. Having engaging content can help educate consumers, open lines of communication with your prospects, and make you stand out against your competitors.
Tiny tip:
Check out your competitors content. Do you see any content opportunities you could be doing with your brand to outshine your competition?
There are many ways you can be creating connections with your audience to increase brand loyalty. Now's the time to make a plan and start making engagements!
