What is a brand?
A brand is an identifiable feature that separates one company from another, similar company. A company’s brand encompasses its name, logo, and products/services, but it also includes your company’s mission, vision, and everything that makes your company unique as a whole. Your brand is how your current and future customers/clients separate your company from the competitors. It not only makes you more identifiable to your customers, but also to potential candidates for employment.
Building a Brand
Brand Basics
Brand basics are the physical things that people can see that identifies your company. These are things like your company name and your logo (and maybe even a slogan), which are important physical identifiers of your brand. But building a brand requires much more than just the seen aspects; it also includes what is not always seen.
Storytelling
Every company has a story or a reason as to why their company was started and what they hope to accomplish. Most companies already know this because their story helps them connect with their customers. When a company’s mission resonates with its customers, their customers are more likely to turn into repeat customers.
When it comes to recruiting candidates for employment, storytelling for branding is also necessary, but a little bit different. While your company’s mission and vision are an essential part of your brand, it isn’t enough when your goal is recruiting employees. Potential employees need to be able to see beyond the surface of your company and know what it’s really like to be a part of your brand. They need an idea of what it’s like to work for your company (the work culture) and if your current employees are happy working for you.
Promoting Your Brand
Social Media
Social media is one of the best places to promote your brand to both customers and job seekers. Every day billions of people use some form of social media, giving you a huge opportunity to promote your brand to both potential customers and potential employees. In a very digital world, businesses that have accounts on a variety of social media platforms see more success than businesses that don’t have any type of online presence. An online presence connects you to more people— people to buy your products and people to work for your company.
It’s not enough just to have a social media page for your business. It’s also important to have a strong social media presence to build a community and to post content on a regular basis to interact with your community. This means that you can’t just create a page and remain inactive. You must consistently post engaging content to connect with your audience.
Content Creation
The content you post on social media can be written or in the form of pictures and videos. Just be sure to adjust your content type that is most appropriate for the social media platform you’re posting on. For example, Facebook is great for all of these types of content, while Instagram is better for posting pictures and short videos (Instagram reels). LinkedIn is also another good platform to have a strong presence on. It’s a place where more job seekers can find you, while also being able to consistently post quality content and communicate with your audience.
Conclusion
Building a brand is an important part of being successful as a business. Your brand should focus on the goal of not only attracting customers/clients but to attract employees as well— even if you’re not actively hiring. You shouldn’t wait until you’re recruiting for employment to market towards potential candidates. Marketing your brand to both customers and job seekers should be done from the beginning. This same idea should be kept in mind when promoting your brand— market towards both potential customers and potential employees.
