The way people see and think of your brand is essential to its success. It's called brand association, what the audience associates your brand with.
What we've learned about building brand association is that it it revolves around:
Having a solid branding strategy
Having a solid branding strategy will help you organize all your messaging around a common goal and guide your efforts so there's no waste with a strong, consistent brand identity across all platforms. Your brand voice in content must also be consistent & express what your brand is about, what its values are & how it wants to be perceived. It also depends on your target audience. If you're targeting generation z for example, you need to be familiar with the latest internet lingo and trends, if you're targeting millennials, you need to address issues that are relevant to their life stage and their interests now, and so on.
Audience interaction
How you interact with audience is crucial, via all platforms, this includes social media, your website, email, chat, and even on business review sites. How you nurture your community online & react to unsatisfied customers, the better you do that in a timely & efficient manner, the better your reputation as a business will be. Do you respond to all messages? Do you reply to comments? Do you offer sufficient information? Do you address complaints & negative reviews and fix the issue? You need to touch on all these points.
" It's a dialogue, not a monologue, and some people don't understand. Social media is more like a phone than a television. "- Amy Jo Martin
Influencers
Influencers you'd like to partner with are a reflection of your brand, picking the right influencers with similar values & voice is important. You can't be targeting a certain younger generation for example and choose an older influencer they can't relate to. You can't partner with an influencer who has had issues with credibility. It's always better to target influencers from inside your category or niche. If you're a fashion brand, target a fashionista, etc.
What are the threats?
Do you get negative reviews? Complaints? Be proactive and respond to them as soon as they pop up, deal with the source of the issue, how do you do that? Social listening & monitoring will determine the threats you face online that need to be dealt with, dedicate time and effort to checking your platforms for threats.
Creating positive brand association is an ongoing process as your business grows & we make sure we build on it & nurture it every step of the way