Public Relations & Social Marketing Insight

Let's cut to the chase, your brand is not your logo, your identity or your product. Your brand is the gut feeling an individual has about your product, service or organization. It’s all the unique qualities that make you different, valuable, memorable and trustworthy. It signifies a promise of value, and reflects how your organization emotionally connects with consumers. Crucially, your brand is not what your company says it is, but what your target market says it is....

“Storytelling.” It’s the flavor of the day, whether you’re talking about content marketing, visual communications or public relations, and for good reason. Stories are how humans communicate – with each other individually, across populations and over centuries.

In fact, many organizations are pretty good at identifying and defining their key story lines. The key to success in brand storytelling is in the next step – the strategic deployment of the story. Telling the brand story effectively requires a plan.

And to be clear, we’re not talking about hanging a touchy-feely post up on the blog and then calling it a day.  No.  Brand storytelling, in this context, means developing a sustained plan to create and execute a strategic approach to telling the brand story, in a way that supports company’s objectives.  Personally, I don’t give a hoot about impressions.  Let’s gun for something a bit more meaningful....

Everyone knows price matters to consumers, but a new study suggests the lowest price doesn’t always win. Even more important to consumers is the reputation of retailers—and how prices correlate to that brand reputation.

Price Still Matters

This guideline comes from Concordia University’s John Molson School of Business, which does agree that price remains an important factor for businesses. But price is a relative figure that relates to the reputation of a business, and consumers typically gauge whether a price is good based on how it compares to a brand’s reputation.

In other words, a high price isn’t a deterrent to many consumers, as long as it corresponds to a positive reputation. When price and reputation seem misaligned, consumers are turned off....

Why do you need a brand strategy?

A brand strategy can take what people know and believe about your business to new levels. Active brand management takes a valuable asset that may now be largely underused, and turns it into a powerful competitive weapon. Regardless of how sophisticated your current approach to branding is, your business has a “brand” today, though you may have acquired it by default.

Simply by being active in the marketplace, your business will have accrued a reputation, a level of fame, and a degree of notoriety (for better or worse) with your customers, and within your industry.A brand strategy will take all that value and put it to work in new ways....

...What if you could forge a stronger, more emotional tie with that customer? That’s where brand affinity comes in. When you achieve brand affinity, it means your customer has made an emotional connection with your brand. Think of Apple, for example. People wait in line hours for iPhones. Many Apple fans won’t buy any tech gadgets except Apple products. And they’re vocal about them, too. In this instance, consumers aren’t just passionate about a certain product — they’re aspiring to a lifestyle that they think a particular brand represents.

Another example? Alaska Airlines, which consistently rates highly with people who haven’t flown with them because of endorsements of those who do. Or FedEx, which used social media to tell the story of how they helped to transport turtle eggs after the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, something that forged a strong emotional connection between FedEx and consumers.

Building Brand Affinity

Building brand affinity with your consumers is certainly possible, but it’s important to realize that achieving it takes some strategy and planning and it’s not something that can be forced or manufactured....

The changing way in which customers review products can be great for business ... or terrible.

You ask a friend where she got her new Macbook Air and she gushes about the selection and service at her local electronics store so much that you decide to check it out next time you're in her neighborhood. Your boss can't decide where to go out to dinner, so you pull up Yelp on your phone and find a nearby restaurant with the highest ratings. Whether you're aware of it or not, both you and the businesses you patronize benefit from brand advocacy.

Brand advocacy is the latest reincarnation of a concept that most of us are quite familiar with: word–of–mouth advertising, individual recommendations, vouching and the like. It relies on advocates promoting brands via personal marketing, which can be as simple as telling a friend verbally or posting on Facebook.

This method is incredibly effective because of a simple – and very, very human – concept: trust. We trust our friends, the Yelp community, particular bloggers or Twitter personalities who share their preferences and influence our decisions accordingly. From the consumer’s perspective, personal testimony is vastly more relatable than pure numbers, and we value reviews over ratings. How often have you looked at a Yelp or Amazon entry without reading the reviews?...

"Brand" will always be a nebulous term. Arguments rage about its true value, especially on social media...

Although recent research shows that it can be responsible for nearly 15% of your total worth (Or much, much more, if you’re J.K.Rowling), it’s still seen by many as the ultimate wooly metric. There’s no doubt that being a household name will improve your chances of success in social, but just how far will it take you?

I’ve taken a look at the world’s top ten brands, and matched up their profiles across the biggest social media platforms.Let’s see what’s in a name...