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How would people label your brand five words? Brands are not solely your company logo or head shot. Brands are what people come to expect when it comes to your business. It begins providing an experience and using that opportunity to evoke emotions. For a moment, think about some of the world’s major brands. There are your traditional powerhouses like Coca-Cola, Apple and then you have newcomers like Chobani (Experience The Difference). Which has exploded onto the scene with a number of quality products backed a unique branding experience which entices customer to try their additional offerings.

First off, what is a brand? A brand is a collection of experiences, meetings and run-ins that a customer has with your advertising, marketing and products. This is one of the main reasons why social media and content marketing has created an immense amount of value for businesses. The factor of reaching customers and increasing brand value continues to thrive in the digital world. This is why managing your brand is important. You’ll want to define your brand, then constantly improve upon what’s being presented to your target audience.

That’s the secret sauce of effectively managing a brand. How can you get your target audience to innately associate your products with the company’s overall objectives? Properly managing your brand begins with creating the right conversations. Just like any human experience, there’s an art to creating conversations around your brand. The first step is to:

1. Know who you are.
2. Have a deep understanding of who you’re talking to.

Both of these steps can be achieved by listening and asking the right questions. Once you can identify the right questions, you can then respond with right answers. The overall point of managing your brand is to develop a great relationship with your target audience.

Effectively managing your brand begin with understanding there are different types of conversations that will be required. This includes customer services, selling your products and/or informing potential customers about your business. This is why managing your brand is so important. You’ll want to define your brand, then constantly improve upon what’s being presented to your target audience.

To properly manage a brand you need to do 3 things. Lets check them out below.

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1. Define Your Brand

This is the most essential action you can take in managing your brand and ‘defining your brand’ is a practice that should be revisited on a regular basis. Brands will and should evolve over time. The key to defining your brand is to refine what’s already there and expand upon new opportunities to enhance your brand’s overall experience.

As mentioned earlier, how would people label your brand in five words?

The key is to align your content marketing, messaging architectures and business objectives with your brand. To gather feedback, make it a habit of asking the appropriate parties about your brand and take note of the responses that you receive. Defining your brand pays dividends in the sense that you know who you are targeting and what you’re selling. You can’t be everything to everyone.

This is why defining your brand should be a part of a routine and not something set in stone.

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2. Develop A Mantra Around Your Brand

A great example of this is Chobani’s slogan, “Experience The Difference” and has been made historically famous by Apple. From the company’s infamous “1984” commercial to it most famous slogan “Think Different”. The best thing you can do when managing your brand is making sure that everyone who has a role in your company has a clear understanding of what your brand is about.

Creating a mantra around your brand is a great way to subliminally present brand messaging throughout your office, marketing material and advertising. These situations are important because no matter the association, it only takes one mistake for your brand to take a major hit. The key is to put an emphasis on representation and accountability.

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3. Focus On Consistency

Last but not least, everyone has to be on the same page when it comes to communicating your brand across social media, events and outreach. This the number tasks that must be mastered when it comes to managing your brand. How can you define your brand, develop a mantra around your brand and consistently deliver on those promises, day-in and day-out.

Consistency matters online and offline, this is why I put an emphasis on social media, events and outreach. There needs to be a connection between the real world and the digital world. Not a perceived divide. It all comes back to creating conversations, when you are facilitating these transactions online, you’ll want to play up to that experience in person.

Always remember, people give money to people who get people and managing your brand is just an extension of “people getting people”.

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When you’re first starting out and managing your brand, it’s important to treat every opportunity like a chance to improve the perception around your brand. Undoubtedly, if you sell a product or provide a service, you won’t be able to control every transaction. That’s why it important have a clear cut focus around managing your brand and facilitating growth.

As you grow your brand, you’ll want to create a brand that is automatically associated with your products. Capitalizing off of these associations are the next step in truly separating your brand from the crowd.

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