What is Brand Personality?
Simply put, your brand personality is the collection of human qualities that describe your organization. While the idea is simple, the implications are big. Every time that anyone interacts with any part of your organization (Branding Points), their interaction needs to be consistent with your defined brand personality. Be it a phone call, email, tweet, in person visit, post card or receipt, everything needs to align with this aspect of your overall brand identity. And when it comes to social media, things can start to get complicated.
Expressing your Social Brand
Social media plays a unique role in expressing your brand personality. The reason is, once it is out there – it is always there. Social media never ends; it is organic and user driven. Commercials end, marketing campaigns end, ads come down, public relations get hot and cold, but social media is always flowing. And if you are not flowing with it then your brand identity will be shaped without your input.
This differs from traditional brand communications paradigms because social media is neither proactive nor reactive marking, it is ever active. Your social brand is your organization’s ability to express its personality in an ever changing dynamic interactive environment.
The New Brand Reality
Customers, prospects, even the media are going to Facebook and Twitter before they pick up the phone. They are often looking for two things, new information, and a feel for your organization’s personality. They don’t use the term brand personality but that is what they are looking for, and they are finding it in everything from your graphic design to your conversation style. Every tweet, every response, every Facebook post, every blog comment needs to consistently reflect your organization’s established personality.
Establishing your Social Brand Culture
Brand culture is built from within an organization. The lifestyle, attitude, and practices that develop around brand values inside of an organization are eventually expressed externally. Simply put, it is the way people live your brand. For social media efforts to be effective, every person who uses social media on behalf of the organization needs to be thoroughly rooted in the brand culture. Your unique expression of brand personality comes out of this.
Creating Brand Unity
If your social media team members have different understandings of your brand culture then your social communications are going to sound like they are coming from conflicting points of view. Essentially, you will create brand confusion.
To effectively represent your organization in social media, everyone needs to be rooted in the brand culture and actively communicate the brand’s personality. Ignoring this is kind of like serving warm ice cream, the ingredients are there, but the delivery is all wrong.
The ineffective or inappropriate use of social media is something we refer to as being socially awkward. If you’d like more information that can help your organization stay out of this category then download our Free Guide Social Media 101 today!
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