Every business, no matter stage or size, has stories to tell.
The challenge is articulating that story in terms that connect potential customers to your brand. As a business leader in the social media age, you and your company have an opportunity to engage with your customers by rethinking the way you express and tell your company story.
How? First of all, your company story should express your core company values.
In order to engage with your customers strive to identify an emotional pull. However, like the TV evangelist, don’t prey on your customers emotions but be honest, open and reasonable in developing an emotional connection.
Here are three ways to connect and tell your core values and humanize your brand.
1) Expand your idea about how to differentiate yourself in today’s market. Define your values in human terms not in business terms. Your real value, from your customers perspective, is about what you believe in, what you’re trying to do in the world and how you make others lives and the world better. And, how your company is helping them.
Getting to this information requires drilling down to what really matters most.
You might start by asking why was your product created? What is your office culture? What overall purpose does your company fill? How does your product or service help your customers? What does your company offer that benefits others? Your want to look for key points that your organization truly cares about. Points that makes your business unique, valuable, and needed in the world around you.
2) Establish a common goal with common language.
You are familiar with the company that has their vision or mission on their website or on a sign outside the executive suites. It is usually very generic and could refer to any company. You want to be different, you want to stand out and identity your company’s core value. Like your vision, everybody at your company needs to see, understand and buy into the core value and mission.
Using common language allows people to understand and align with your mission.
If you’re not sure if your company has a common vision, do a little research. Start by asking a few people in your company to describe your company’s core value. Ask them to use five or six descriptive words. Look for themes and then take those key words and put them into a clearly defined description.
3) Give your brand a human voice.
Once you have succinctly defined your mission and decided how to describe your value then develop your ideal persona or type of person that would deliver your message. Is your persona mainstream, conservative, open-minded, etc. Develop an ideal persona or personas that match your general target audience. Think carefully about what the persona cares about –not only directly related to your company’s products or services but as a whole person.
This clarity of mission, purpose and story leads to a real understandable persona that will help you and your company successfully develop your brand identity and build your customer base.
Successful brands are clear, transparent, open and honest about what they want to achieve.
