The Perfect Balance of Brand Authenticity
Social media serves as a powerful catalyst for brands, offering accelerated success or potential failure. Authenticity has emerged as a prominent trend within this space, yet many companies struggle with maintaining their core brand messaging while balancing social media trends.
To navigate this environment, brands must stay true to their values while also being adaptable. Striking this balance requires a deep understanding of your brand's identity and a clear strategy for how to present it authentically. By asking key questions about your brand's core values, audience, and goals, you can create a brand story that stands out and resonates with your audience. Remember, it’s okay to evolve and change, but always stay grounded in your brand’s essence.
What is brand authenticity?
Brand Authenticity isn’t just a trend, it’s the foundation of a lasting and meaningful brand connection with your audience. To a certain degree, this can change based on your company. As a remote company, we focus on building our digital presence while maintaining the Artisan image. A product based company may approach things differently but the root of it is all the same.
Navigating Trends vs. Authenticity
In the realm of social media, the pressure to stand out often compels companies to align their strategies with fast-paced trends—current events, meme culture, and influencer endorsements. While individually valid, these trends make it easy to lose sight of company values when these factors become vital to your content flow. For instance, a good balance of brand identity and social media trends is Duolingo.
Duolingo is a language-learning app that offers interactive lessons in various languages through gamified exercises and quizzes. With a following of 12.5 million, Dulingo has a rapidly growing user base and has mastered viral marketing by personifying their owl logo and having him take part in popular trends. They accomplish this while maintaining messaging that directs people to their core focus, learning new languages. Although Duolingo has taken the social media world by storm there are various challenges that come from this approach:
- Standing Out: The overwhelming need to distinguish the brand in the crowded social media landscape.
- Balancing Trends and Values: The risk of losing sight of company values when focusing heavily on fast-paced trends.
- Maintaining Brand Identity: Ensuring the core brand messaging remains intact while engaging with current events, meme culture, and influencers.
- Content Flow Management: The challenge of integrating trendy content without compromising the brand's authenticity and long-term goals.
- Sustaining Engagement: Keeping the audience engaged with viral content while still promoting the primary objective of language learning.
In order to properly address these challenges, every company should ask themselves these questions:
What are our core values?
Core Values are vital to identifying and defining your brand's fundamental beliefs. These can be a good reference for any questioning events and make it very clear to your followers what you stand for. For example, Artisan Studios’ core values are used on socials and on its website for consistent messaging.
Who is the target audience?
Creating marketing strategies and content is next to impossible without a clear understanding of your primary audience. Building a loyal and engaged audience is the key to long-term success.
What is the Goal?
Make sure to set clear and achievable expectations for your brand that give you space to learn the platform while embracing future growth.
Brand Story
Creating and maintaining your brand story are fundamental to the consistency and success of a company's brand identity. This creates a powerful narrative that is not only useful for marketing but also Sales, HR, and Recruiting.
This should be personal and professional. Appeal to emotions by highlighting the impact your brand has on customers' lives. Share stories that illustrate how your product or service solves problems or fulfills aspirations. A compelling brand story connects on an emotional level, fostering a stronger bond with your audience. Additionally, maintain consistency in your brand narrative across all channels and interactions. Whether it's through social media posts, customer service interactions, or advertising campaigns, ensure that your brand story remains cohesive and recognizable. Consistency reinforces your brand's identity and reinforces key messages, enhancing brand recall and credibility.
Embracing Evolution
Social media dictates change; adapt and evolve authentically without compromising your brand's integrity. Ultimately, you know your company best and must make decisions that uphold your brand's values and story. Take some time to evaluate and adjust your brand strategy to ensure sustainable success.
