The importance of perception and expectations for brands online is greater than ever. People want to feel connected to brands as if they were another person – to know them, to put trust in, to engage with, and relate to them.
The digital world gives us new opportunities to connect with our audiences but building and maintaining those connections is more challenging as you need to hit more touch points and stand out against the fierce competition. It’s how you package your content, engage with your audience, and showcase your brand identity that will help you stand out and harness those connections.
Uncover your ideal audience
It’s easy to fall into the trap of trying to connect with every single person online when really, that’s not what you’re there to do. When you take your first steps into the digital space your goal should be to connect with the right people – aka your audience. They will have a specific set of problems, pain points, interests, wants and needs that your business can pinpoint and speak to.
Identify your audience:
Social media analytics are freely available to business accounts and can provide you with valuable information such as age, location, and the hours and days your audience is most active
See what your competition is up to – what they’re posting, find out how their audiences are reacting, and see if there are any gaps in their content or yours moving forward
Reflect your brand identity
Your brand has its own identity – its own style, tone of voice, values, and flare. Your brand identity helps you stand out and is a tangible way for your audience to connect with everything your brand is.
It can be easy to lose your way but stay true to your brand. Maintaining a consistent brand identity is the most authentic way to connect with your audience. It helps with integrity, trust, and the strength of your brand.
If you’ve been inspired by a piece of content or design, take the key elements you or your competitors’ audience positively responded to, and mould it to suit your brand, not the other way round. Get creative, be unique, and make it your own.
Success is rooted in strategy
Everything your brand does in the digital sphere should be purposeful, targeted, and work towards your goal as a brand.
Digital success shouldn’t rely on posting every day across every digital platform, but rather on posting purposeful content of value on digital platforms that you know your audience is regularly engaged on. Each platform serves a different purpose, favours a certain type of content and results in a different outcome. Posting without a strategy could be detrimental to your brand and cause your audience to feel disconnected from you.
Investing time in a content planner and calendar is the best way to achieve success. Plan out your content based on your audiences’ pain points and needs, and look at what is currently a popular topic in your niche. Choose what platforms your audiences are most active on and create content relative to those chosen platforms.
Checking your analytics and seeing how your content is responding will help you move forward. As you respond with your next round of content, your audience will feel that you are actually listening to them and giving them what they want.
Like, comment, share
Just like we do offline, we build connections by interacting, communicating, and listening, the same can be said for your online audience. We have a new perception of brands to engage with us as if they’re just another person. We want to feel seen, heard, and understood. Engaging with your audience in a personable and relatable way will help strengthen connections, build trust, and increase brand awareness.
Social media offers your audience a space to come together to solve their problems, have conversations, and support one another. Create content that inspires and encourages feedback, opinions, and experiences to build a sense of community with your brand at the centre. Then along the way, more people will join the conversation.
Invite them in
Brands that are giving their audience a glimpse into the unknown world of what goes on behind the brand are connecting on a new level. The transparency of a brand has become widely appreciated amongst customers, not only out of interest but to build trust and feel more connected to the brand as a whole – almost as if they’re part of the team.
A glimpse of how a product is made, the team behind the brand, or even the workplace culture will help people to have faith in your product and ultimately your brand. And when appropriate, direct people back to your website and keep your goals at the centre of interactions.
Content of value and quality
You want people to turn to your brand time and time again, but for this to happen you need to give people a reason to invest and connect with your brand. Providing content that is of true value to your audience, and that speaks to their pain points, needs, and interests, is essential. This also gives you the opportunity to showcase more of your brand identity, the values you hold, and show your understanding of your audience.
Keep your audience coming back for more by sharing content that is:
Educational – information about your niche
Informative – how your product/service benefits them
Inspirational – how-to’s, ways to use your product, tips and tricks
Personable – tell an interesting story, share a behind-the-scenes look around your business