What is Branding (and How Does Your Business Do It?) | Social ...

What is branding? And what can we learn from how customers interact with brands today? Most marketers have never thought of digital as a space to build a brand. But branding is everything in today?s digital world; and digital branding experiences is a recurring business. It never hurts to make a good impression, but for brands to remain?relevant in the digital era, it?s much better to find a way to engage with customers?than to talk at them. Engagement creates customers--not just through social media,?but across the entire digital channel. Whether a customer is entering a contest, ?liking? a brand on Facebook, or even watching a video on YouTube?brand engagement increases awareness and sales. Here are five ways to create effective branding for your business.

Develop a Brand Voice: All businesses need a brand presence to get, keep and build your customer base. The first step is to use word-of-mouth advertising to drive awareness and traffic to your social media pages. Share your expertise to enhance your reputation and build credibility.

Highlight a key benefit: What differentiates your product or service from that of your competitors? If you have an advantage over your competitors, or if your product or service has a unique benefit, you need to use it. Figure our what your top features are, what type of content resonates with your audience, and highlight them to target potential customers, raise awareness and get attention.

Be Engaging: To make an impact, your brand needs to be engaging. Providing a customer experience is about having a dialogue. Respond to people talking about you and your brand. Start and join conversations. Be authentic, genuine and real. When you have a dialogue with a customer or prospect, the more likely your customers and prospective clients will perceive you as an approachable and personable brand.

Be Transparent: Be truthful and honest, even when it?s difficult or inconvenient. When you maintain an open dialogue with your customers and keep them informed at all times, you?ll earn your customer?s trust and commitment to your company. When you show that you?re supporting the customer, you?ll build a network of supporters that will impact your business.

Keep Your Brand Memorable: You never get a second chance to make a good first impression. Some customers look to digital brand experiences for customer service. So when a customer contacts your business, make sure you provide service with a smile. Listen and support the customer so they know you sincerely care about their needs. If you want to take it a step further, reward the customer by developing specific campaigns so you can retain the most valuable ones.

Adding it all up, it quickly becomes obvious that customer brand engagement creates customers. The best companies today understand that we are living in an era where a customer?s perception of a brand isn?t formed in reaction to a message, but through a series of experiences over time. Ultimately, it?s a dialogue of interactions that?s stunningly effective when done right. As Jeff Bezos, Amazon?s CEO, has been known to say: ?Your brand is formed primarily, not by what your company says about itself, but what the company does.? Branding not only matters - it drives results to the bottom line.

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Alex Hisaka works in Marketing at?Desk.com. You can find her on Twitter at?twitter.com/alexhisaka

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