Humans connect to, relate to, and trust other humans.
If someone doesn’t trust you, they wouldn’t want to do business with you. Businesses that are able to show the faces and names of the people behind their brand are much more successful than those who don’t because it makes the brand more relatable and memorable.
When we see a brand that is relatable and humanized, we are more likely to connect with it. This is because brands that are made by humans are more relatable than those that seem robotic. By humanizing your brand, you will make it more memorable and likely to be listened to.
As marketers, you’re trying to create content that will result in more traffic, qualified leads, customers, and revenue. But take yourself out of that mindset for a moment. How do you feel when you browse your company’s site? What about when you see its social media posts or receive its emails? Are all the messages purely promotional? Did you ever stop to think that your brand could be more successful if you sent out messages that seemed like they came from a real person, rather than from a company?
If you are reading this, I hope that I have been able to convince you that it is essential to humanize your brand for long-term business growth. Here are some ways that you can show your audiences the great personalities behind your brand.
#1: Show Off Your Staff
If they’re not ugly, recruit some office personalities to use in your marketing efforts. Showing the real people behind the work is something that helps build trust with potential customers and also helps extend the longevity of a client’s likelihood of staying on. Physically seeing that there is a team behind the brand is impactful in itself.
Use REAL Photos of REAL People Who Work at Your Company
It is a good idea to use pictures of your employees on your company website instead of stock photos. If you don’t have a good budget for a professional photographer, you can ask someone at your company who is good at taking pictures with their iPhone. You can put these pictures on your website’s About Us page, Careers page, and throughout the content. It is also a good idea to create an Instagram hashtag where you show everyday office moments.
Brian Halligan, co-founder and CEO of HubSpot, says that one of the things that makes HubSpot unique is the people who work for the company. He says that they have been able to take a somewhat boring industry and make it into a relatable and compelling story that attracts a wide range of customers.
Show the Funny & Relatable Side of Your Staff Members
The goal of this is to show the world that your company is not full of people who look like statues, but rather relatable, funny, and intelligent people who are there to help you. Quinn Popcorn’s team page has mini videos of their staff making humorous facial expressions to show the interesting people behind the company.
#2: Turn Employees into Brand Promoters
We live in a world where social media is important. Most of your employees are likely to have active LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, and perhaps even Periscope accounts. This means they have connections with people, whether they be friends, family, or complete strangers. You should use your employee’s networks to spread the word about your brand, and show that your employees are proud to represent and serve as the faces of your company.
Although employees have the right to freedom of speech, if their views are controversial it could reflect badly on the company. To avoid any issues it’s advisable to create employee guidelines for posting about the company online. These could include asking employees to state that their views are their own and not necessarily those of their employer.
Some employees may not feel comfortable promoting the company brand, and that is acceptable. However, sending emails that encourage employees to share company content or forming a thought-leadership team can help make the brand appear more human and have a positive impact.
#3: Hire a Social/Community Manager (or Team)
The best way for a company to humanize itself is to have a dedicated employee or team whose sole purpose is to build that aspect of the company. This person should be a good listener, be engaged with their work, and be able to react quickly. They should also be creative and social, with a natural affinity for solving problems. Most importantly, they should be passionate about helping people. Some of their responsibilities would include…
- Running local events: For instance, the Startup Institute has a community manager that runs regular events. They partnered with a nearby rock-climbing facility called “Ladies Night.” Attendees came to hear from some young female entrepreneurs and after were able to climb for a discounted rate. This is a great way to expose your brand to a wider audience in a fun and interactive manner, and show that your company is involved in the local community.
- Create an online community: Chances are, not all of your customers will be local. Luckily, creating an online community can drastically increase the human factor of a brand, as this fosters a place for leads, customers, and employees to engage, chat, and bond online. You can even create these communities through social media. For instance, the restaurant review site, Infatuation created an online community by making the hashtag #EEEEEATS a widespread trend for tagging food pictures on social media.
- Utilize user-generated content: This not only humanizes your brand, but it gets your customers excited. Can you image what it would be like to be featured on a Nike ad for instance? Infatuation does this with their #EEEEEASTS hashtag by showing #EEEEEATS of the week, where they pick the best food pictures of the week and feature the photographer on their social accounts.
#4 Show Up (in other words, be available)
If you want to communicate effectively with your customers, partners, and audience, be available to them. Don’t create a profile on the latest social network unless you’re actually going to use it frequently. Show up more than once a week or once a day.
If you’re only showing up to an event or chat to brag about your accomplishments, you’re not going to make a good impression. Instead, focus on being inspiring and connecting with your audience, and try to help them achieve their own goals. Be responsive to their interests, and make sure that you’re always taking their needs into account.
#5 Speak in Your Customers Language
Get rid of the corporate jargon in your social media posts. Social media is not a place to advertise your 1995 corporate material. Talk with your customers, partners, and social community in a way that they will understand. Use language that will inspire them and make them want to connect with you and your brand.
#6 Invest in People
Get buy-in from everyone. It is important to educate people within your organization about social media and how it can benefit them and the organization as a whole. Doing this can help get buy-in from everyone involved.
Get to know the people in your social communities. See them as human beings you could be building relationships with. Believe they matter. You can’t go wrong by investing in people.
#7 Put Some Thought Behind How the Corner Office Get Online
This is not a one size fits all situation. You cannot simply create a Twitter handle and executive Twitter bio and assume that your executive team will be successful on Twitter overnight. It takes time, effort and a strategy for each and every individual who gets online and is going to represent your brand.
You should be careful about automation because customers may not want to see your CEO tweeting all day. Sometimes less is more.
The best way for your executive team to connect with their followers is to build a personal persona and share content that brings value to their audience. Help them identify hobbies, quotes, favorite authors and other ways they can inspire and connect with their followers.
#8 Strike an Emotional Chord
Brands that evoke strong emotions are the ones that succeed in building real relationships in the social ecosystem. If you can make me laugh, cry, or get angry, you’re on the right track. Be different and make me think differently. Inspire me to do more. The more you can connect with your audience, the better you will be at understanding what emotional chords will work best with them.
#9 Be Real
Do not try to act like you are more experienced than you are on social media. It is more important to be genuine, and your audience will appreciate it. If you are new to Twitter or Facebook, let your audience know. Share your story as you learn social media. For example, let them know if it’s the first promotion you have ever done on Facebook or if it’s your first Tweet chat or Twitter party. If you take your audience along for the ride as you grow, they will be more likely to be emotionally invested in your success.
#10 Practice What You Preach
If you prioritize quality over quantity, don’t rely too heavily on automation for your Twitter account. If you talk about building relationships, your Twitter feed shouldn’t just be automated posts and thanking people for tweeting you. Make an effort to look at people’s profiles and have real conversations. Be authentic. Follow through on your promises.
#11 Develop an Editorial Calendar that Leverages Different Mediums
Creating an editorial calendar for your brand is essential to maintaining a balance between content that is about your industry, your business, and how you can help your audience. Include tips, methodologies, and programs in your calendar via blog posts, videos, and podcasts. Vary the message, delivery, and medium to keep your audience engaged. Doing this will help generate more ROI (Return On Investment) than if you were to publish a one-off blog post.
#12 Don’t Let Your Klout, Kred, Peer Index or Other Influence Score Determine How You Engage
The biggest mistake companies make is focusing too much on their influence score. While it’s good to keep an eye on these scores, they shouldn’t be the only thing companies focus on when determining their influence. The scores can be easily gamed and are simply a number. There are many executives who have low scores but are far more influential than the self-proclaimed social media expert down the road with a high score. Focus on the things above before your scores. If you do the right things with a focus on your audience, your scores are going to increase organically.
#13 Encourage Your Employees to be Social
Culture is more important than strategy. You can’t encourage your employees to be social if you don’t have social business in your organization.
Many businesses feel that social business relating to their employees is a culture problem, not a social media problem. It is important that your audience connect with the real people in your business over time, even via social networks.
This can be applied to traditional relationships that start offline. They are between one human being to another. One sales rep to a business leader. One executive to another. Social media is no different. Investing in your team, training, policies and infrastructure that enable your employees to be successful when engaging online is key.
#14 Added Just for Luck
Some people are plain superstitious 🙂
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