These days, brands are doing everything they can to position products and services. This includes trying to appeal to customers at a human level.
A great example is brands’ efforts with trust marketing. Trust is necessary if we are to think of brands in human terms. And giving your brand some personality is more than marketing — it’s a necessity in a world where social media can sweep aside positioning and branding in a heartbeat.
After many years spent consulting with leaders at software technology companies to help them attract talent, I have come to believe developing brand personality holds answers on how to move business forward. Developing brand personality is done by emphasizing community and storytelling, which are powerful tools with which leaders can develop and nurture workplace culture. As a big believer in the power of personality and culture fit, which, as it turns out, is a first cousin of brand personality, I’ve worked with companies as they try to align workplace culture and brand. This usually takes place when they’re trying to recruit top talent. The executive team gathers to concoct a brand statement to describe the culture of the company with the goal of making the company appealing to candidates. But this gets things exactly backwards.
Why? Because defining workplace culture and corporate brand is the front end of the recruitment process. Waiting to think about workplace culture and brand until you need to recruit new talent is like closing the barn door after the horses have left. A company’s culture can ensure the success of its business objectives and its most valuable asset: human capital, a.k.a, human beings, people.
To give your brand some personality, you first must ensure the corporate culture is robust enough to sustain the good will of employees, your brand ambassadors. People’s stories and personalities inform your corporate culture, so it pays to make sure your workplace culture supports your employees and aligns with your brand.
Let’s look at five reasons why developing brand personality is important and not a social media fad:
1. Brand personality leverages the power of networks of people — to help tell stories about your brand and company culture.
These stories make your business interesting and compelling to consumers, employees and investors. Each of your employees belongs to many networks — friends, families, business associates and so on. If you let people bring their humanity to your brand, they’ll also bring your brand into their networks. That’s a form of reach money can’t buy.
2. Brands which have been given a personality attract and sustain communities of real live people.
Brand communication is not a one-way channel, these communities are critical to brand survival. Apple is a great example here. Go hang out at your local Apple store next weekend — it will be filled with people drawn in by the power of that brand, which is all about building technology to serve people.
First published at Talent Culture by Meghan M. Biro.