Branding is way more than logos and pictures.
It’s not just the content and the social media platforms.
It’s even deeper than mission statements. Branding is communicating who you are, and what you believe in, to your audience. It answers the question, “What problem do you solve for people?”
Today we’ll look at how your origin story holds the secrets to verbalizing your brand in a clear way.
Branding is about identifying the problem you solve
People buy products and services to solve problems in their life.
Sometimes they are utility based like a plunger clearing a clogged toilet. Other times they are vanity based like buying overpriced shoes to flex on them. For most of the commercial world there is a clear problem you are addressing.
In entertainment it’s a bit murkier since you are there to cure boredom.
Since curing boredom is very vague, you can think of the problem you solve as finding the people you represent.
Your fans are turning to you because you speak for them. Your branding efforts will make it easier for those people to find you. It’s the glue behind the parasocial relationship you are about to form with a lot of strangers.
A great hack to establishing a solid foundation for your brand is to identify your origin story.
By figuring out where you come from, you can start to map out the things that inspired you along the way.
Every hero story comes with a beginning
When you look at any superhero, their origin story provides them with motivation.
It isn’t enough that they are some super powered being capable of destroying or protecting the planet. What matters is they went through something and this drives them to go to the lengths they go. These stories add layers of believability to these characters.
When it comes to your brand, either you or your company are the superhero.
Your experiences justify to the world why you exist. In business this is often very clearcut. An app will be designed for a specific purpose.
To be real, anyone can write a song.
It’s a lot harder to write a song that connects with a lot of people because you are sharing your soul with them in a way that actually speaks to them.
In art, your brand tells people why they should back you.
Your origin story should tie in directly with the values you present
During your tale you’ll document the trials and tribulations that forged your character.
Maybe you got bullied and now part of your brand is based on bullying bullies. Some people grew up in poverty and want to elevate others to financial freedom. It’s even possible you just grew up in a regular degular life and your whole story makes you feel like a dork because you didn’t suffer enough.
While you mark down the main beats of your story, take some time to think about how they impacted you.
Look at your values and start tying them into anecdotes from your life.
When you need to give your elevator pitch later on, you should have one defining moment of your past that you can use to justify your passion today.
I use the fuel of never being accepted for who I was as a younger person to fight for your right to be who you choose today.
Tell them what you care about and how that manifests in your art
I freestyled a song about how despite the haters, I’m a proud anti-pickle guy.
It’s a ludicrous premise but it ties into the not being accepted thing. People who like pickles will bully people who don’t. It’s not that big of a deal but it is a moment where one group of people try to deny another group of people their right to preferences.
Since my story is drenched in a battle for social acceptance, the content of this song ties into the greater ark of my persona.
At a basic level, your brand/content should focus on 3 main topics.
They should be topics that are based on your interest and linked to your expertise.
At a more advanced level, your interests and expertise are backed up by the value system your origin story inspired.
Preparing your brand with that kind of an ethos will help people decide if they like you faster.
You don’t want them wondering why your Instagram page is trying to be five things.
Use your visual branding to reinforce your origin story and purpose
Once you’ve figured out who you are and what you represent, you need to show people in a clear way.
The content you share should reflect that brand. This is definitely where I have failed over the years. I posted just about anything I wanted and it created a confusing experience.
People don’t respond well to random content. At first my social media was more of a friends & family thing. When it became something more business focused, I needed to adapt what/how I posted to reflect my brand.
I did not and now the algorithm has no idea what to do with me.
If I were to go back in time I’d put a lot more effort into thinking about the topics I post about.
While I want to promote music, my content themes focus on:
Marketing/branding/community building for artists
How to be a contributing adult in a community with a touch of social justice
Cyberpunk 2077 and whatever other lore based video game I’m obsessed with
To build my brand correctly, I should be focusing on all three of these.That’s still too top level, we need to go more specific.
Keep your branding as simple as possible
When you start out, you’ll use vague language like “social justice topics”.
This is not a simple idea for people to decode, so you need to break that down further.
The more detail you provide people about who you are, the easier it is for them to decide if they like you or not.
For this section we’ll focus on music because genre is a great example of what I mean.
There are top level genres, but the more you drill down to a unique subgenre, the easier it is to find new supporters, especially via the almighty algorithm.
Telling people I’m a rapper is a high effort thing for them to figure out.
If I instead tell them I write rock lyrics to rap rhythms over a variety of beats ranging from EDM to trap to nu-metal sounds, it becomes a little easier to digest what I’m about.
Even that is so clunky.
People may be willing to give you the time of day, but if you can’t show them who you are quickly, you will lose prospective fans/clients.
When I can figure that out, my work will hit new tiers.
The simpler, and more specific, you can make it, the more your tribe will reveal itself to you.
Your brand is what people rely on to justify their choice to support you
The reason we bother with branding is differentiation.
At the end of the day there are at least a hundred other people in your city that are equally as skilled as you. Despite all our common sense, we still use snap judgements to make decisions. If someone’s branding makes sense to a person, they are more likely to choose them.
In the world of retails, we often go with some “lowest price vs highest review score” logic to make choices.
While you are exploring each company’s site, their branding leaves an impression on you. At some point, one or two of these options will stand out to you the most. Otherwise you are stuck choosing between 50 items that are practically the same price/value.
This is a big part of why some companies will white label themselves, to have a better chance of earning your trust with each brand.
The more well defined your brand is, the more it shows the effort you put into it. The commitment to a brand helps people support you. It’s why my pickle campaign has been effective, it’s the result of some real specific branding efforts.
Now I just need to tighten the rest of what I do and for that I need to think more systematically.
Think about the metadata that communicates your brand via keywords
At first you are going to play a guessing game based on everything you’ve done so far to define your brand.
Then you can google things related to you and your goals. You can also use SEO keyword tools. They will show you things people are actually searching for, that sound like the message you are putting into the world.
When you upload a song to Spotify there are like 50 subgenres of Hip Hop to pick from. You are asked about the mood of the song. There are a few other metadata tags they walk you through.
By being as specific as possible, the algorithms will have an easier time showing your music to the right people.
When you create your social media, website and other content, you want to make sure the language used targets the people who want to find you.
As you collect feedback, pay attention to the words they use to describe you. This is the public perception of how people see you. The language they use to describe your value and purpose in their lives, is language you should incorporate into your branding material.
Start with the tools you have but gather feedback and use that to optimize how you present your brand to the world.
I know all this was a lot.
Live Long and Prosper Everyone
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