When was the last time that your business felt a true connection to its audience? If you can’t remember or if you are saying to yourself, “Connection to my audience? What does that even mean?” then you need to keep reading, because that’s what humanizing your brand is about – allowing your audience to connect with your business on a level that goes beyond your product or service. So, how can you do that? Well, we’ve got some great tips for you in today’s post.
1. Create a Blog and Post Regularly
If you haven’t yet incorporated a blog into your website you are missing out on a great opportunity for your audience to hear your company’s voice. Essentially, that is exactly what your blog serves as – your company’s voice. This is your chance to not only share and prove your knowledge to your audience, but also to give them a glimpse into the heart of your business.
2. Think Like a Human When Strategizing
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You may be thinking that this sounds a little bit crazy – I mean, after all, you are a human, so how could you not think like one? Well, companies sometimes get so caught up in pushing their product or service that they forget to stop and think about the basic needs and wants of a human being; they forget to think about human emotion and what triggers it. You have to target human emotion in order to build a human connection with your audience.
3. Showcase Your Employees
One of the easiest ways to humanize your brand is to share with your audience the actual humans behind your brand. Makes perfect sense, right? Showcase the many faces behind your company and allow your audience to get to know them on a more personal level. Companies are not human – your employees are human and your audience is human, which makes for a great avenue to build connections, which brings me to the next point.
4. Be Personable and Approachable
When you showcase the employees behind your brand, it is important to find the right balance between professionalism and also showcasing the more personable and approachable side to your employees. Show your audience your sense of humor by posting photos or even a video series of random ‘office antics,’ or share with your audience certain causes and charities that are near and dear to your heart.
5. Tell Great Stories
We would lose all credibility if we chose to talk about humanizing your brand and didn’t talk about storytelling. The stories are the beating heart of your company and its brand. Tell us the story of how your business came to be. Who founded your company and what or whom do they credit as their greatest inspirations? What was your company’s first mark of success? These stories are a big part of the heart of your business and your audience wants to hear them.
6. Let Go of Perfection
Part of being human is making mistakes, right? Right. This goes for all you perfectionists out there, too. Mistakes are sure to happen along the way and part of humanizing your brand is owning up to those mistakes. There is something so incredibly human about admitting when you are wrong and most importantly, that is something that WE ALL can relate to.
7. Keep a Consistent Presence on Social Media
One of the biggest perks of utilizing social media is the ability to engage with your audience, and more importantly, your audience expects your engagement. If someone reaches out or comments on one of your business’s social posts, it can be off-putting to them if they don’t receive a response. You need to be sure that you either set aside time for social media engagement or you hire someone to handle all of the social media aspects of your business. Post regularly, engage regularly and just be consistent.
8. Give Your Audience Behind the Scenes Access
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Ok, so a backstage pass to your business may not be worth as much as a backstage pass at a Rolling Stones concert, but your audience will still appreciate it. Showing them what goes on behind the scenes of your company will allow them to connect with you on a more personal level. This would be a good way to incorporate video marketing into your strategy by shooting some behind-the-scenes video footage at your office and turning it into a video series to share with your audience.
Let me guess - all of this sounds great to you, but you don't know how you will find the time to implement a plan to humanize your brand. Reach out to us at The Storyteller Agency. Call us at 850.267.0931 or send us an email to info@storytelleragency.com. This is our specialty and we would love to help your company develop a plan to reach and connect to its audience on a deeper level.