Are you acing your personal brand?
Top tips for making sure you are!
In July, Lucy from Lains Creative talked to the Small Business Co-Llab about website design and content creation. It was a really insightful talk and these are the highlights:
Focus on visual Brand Identity
Your visual brand identity is everything that visually represents your brand and comprises anything that people see: photos, colours, logos, your fonts etc.
It is really important to have confidence in your business, so you feel passionate and excited about it and want to put it in front of potential clients.
If you're not excited about your brand, then you're not going to want to position your business in front of your dream audience, and potential clients won’t respond in the positive way that you want them to.
Review Your brand image regularly
Even if you have previously created personal branding and a brand identity, it's important to review it as your business grows and adapts: is your visual identity still relevant?
‘When someone is first exposed
to your business,
it only takes three seconds to make
a first impression’
Every single touch point where customers interact with your business needs to be the best representation of your business. Your whole identity needs to be aimed at attracting your target audience and generating the appropriate thoughts and feelings about your brand so that you capture their attention and interest. This is why your brand Identity is such an important toolkit.
Your personal brand identity toolkit
This includes:
The language that you use
The imagery you share
Consistency using your logo, colours and fonts across everything so that you build up a clear and distinguishable visual for your potential customers to associate with and recognise your business
*94% of customers return to a business whose branding they like*
So if customers resonate with your branding, then you are more likely to generate brand loyalty and have returning customers.
Your website
Your website is your shop front. It's one of the few platforms that you completely own and control (unlike social media, which can change or you can lose access to).
Always remember the end goal: what do you want people to do once they come to your website – enquire, purchase?
Mobile Vs Desktop
*64.95% of the world's website traffic is mobile*
However, mobile users tend to spend less time on websites so your content needs to be short and snappy. If someone finds you through Instagram, they are probably on their phone so they are likely to look on their phone rather than on their computer. So it’s really important to consider how people are going to view and digest that information.
Content
Carefully curate what you put out on social media, specifically video and photo. Your reels are a huge part of your visual brand identity – the information you provide people and how you present yourself.
As you are using it as a marketing tool to grow your brand, your visual representation is really important. Even considering your cover images for a reel and how that makes your grid look and your videos vs photos – do they match, do they follow the same style?
In Conclusion
Your visual brand identity plays a huge role in attracting your ideal customer. The easiest way to be consistent with your identity is to get the basics in place first (logos, font, colours) and then move from there. Once you have that in place you can share them with your photographer or your marketing expert and they can use them to ensure everything stays consistent.
Remember, if you love your brand
then others will too.
Things to think about:
What platforms are you on (insta, website, Facebook, newsletter, business cards) and are they all representing the same Visual Brand Identity consistently?
Is that Visual Brand Identity how you want to be represented?
What would someone’s three-second impression be when they look at your brand?
To find out more, see Lucy’s website https://lainscreative.co.uk
Some of your fellow networkers have put forward their websites for three-second impressions. If you have the time, write back and tell me what you thought and I will pass on the comments:
This Little Yogini: www.thislittleyogini.com @thislittleyogini
Enchanted Entertainers @enchantedentertainers_
Angelique Berry Garden Design www.angeliqueberry.com
AJP Creative www.annajanepearson.com
The Ultimate Voice www.theultimatevoice.org or www.rozmcleodcoaching.com
CHARLOTTE WEBB PHOTOGRAPHY www.charlottewebbphotography.com
Our next meeting is 11 October. Cate Butler Ross will be speaking. Be great to see you there.
If you think you have a talk in you and can be helpful and useful to the other networkers, then please get in touch at smallbusinesscolab@gmail.com
The Small Business Co-Llab networking Group Surrey and surrounding Areas
