Branding is a challenge for people and companies alike, and the addition of advancing technologies both assist and complex this endeavor. Also, it should be noted that the strong brand today cannot simply sleep on yesterday’s achievements, for the customers are powerful and demanding – what are you doing for me today? We live in a world wherein loyalty to brands and companies is decreasing by the minute; each customer has more and more options at his or her fingertips. Consequently, while your brand can reach out to exponentially more customers than in previous decades, the brands and the representatives monitoring and marketing those brands have to stay on their toes! Your brand is constantly being judged, and its value will rise and fall like the stock market.
A brand has to be cultivated and nurtured. It takes hard work and dedication. One thing that we all need to realize is that brands are not isolated or unique simply to the products and services offered by Company A or B! Instead, brands are being extended to you – you are a brand, and social media is illustrating this more and more. Mitch Joel mentions in his highly recommended, exceptional book, Six Pixels of Separation, that “in this digital age, your personal brand will be your most powerful ally (or enemy)” (p. 127). He continues by noting that “branding is the heart and soul of a business – and of the people who make up that business” (p. 129). He is right on target with this one. Branding is at the core of everything the business does and offers. The same is true for the person, you! And those brands’ value will rise and fall, much to the dependency upon what you do with it! Each brand is unique, and the customer is watching. The customer is bright and very keen. Do as Mitch Joel reminds us and be passionate about your brand – in what you do! Don’t let your brand or your passion be fake, for the customer will smell that from many bytes away just like it does when you fake a smile!
So, is your brand on the rise? Or is it simply on the downward slide? Will it reach its potential? All of that is up to you! Are you willing to put forth the time and effort in to make it the best that you can?
