Growth is a sought-after verb that people want in all facets of their lives. We want to grow physically from birth to adulthood, we want to grow emotionally, mentally, spiritually, and financially. When we start businesses, we want them to successfully develop and grow. Each and everyone of those areas of life requires some type strategy to see any growth.
Biological Strategy
When you were a kid, did you ever sit and plan out how you were going to grow your next 5 inches? You probably didn’t, nor did you have to. Though we weren’t planning our physical growth, we do know what our bodies need to grow and maintain health, such as: eating healthy food, getting proper sleep, getting fresh air, and exercising. We don’t always give our bodies everything they need, but there are somethings our body will not let us go without. Our bodies are designed to indicate hunger and fatigue as a means for growth and survival. When we give our bodies what it needs, we are contributing to its growth strategy.
Brand Growth Strategy
Implementing a strategy for brand development is not innate like our biological growth strategies. We must put forth conscious effort and planning to help our brands grow. One thing the body has done for us, is design the growth strategy. All we must do is implement the necessary tasks (i.e. eating, sleeping, exercising, etc.).
When it comes to our brands, we don’t have our strategy already created with biological reminders to fulfill the necessary tasks. If you are an entrepreneur, you might be doing a lot by yourself. Which can feel very overwhelming when thinking of how to get your brand to grow. Effective brand growth requires effective marketing. And to make things easier, you must develop a strategy that you can begin to habitually implement, so it no longer requires as much effort as time goes on.
Brand Content Strategy Breakdown (In a Nutshell)
Creating a strategy for your brand should be broken down into 3 main areas of brand development: visual branding, branding message, and brand positioning. Each area requires content and strategy implementation:
Visual Branding are the components that will give your brand aesthetic visual recognition. This focuses on your brand color palette, logo, website, and any other identity materials associated with your brand. This is important to establish and remain consistent with, because your visual delivery can affect how people connect to your brand. If you feel your visual brand strategy needs work, you might want to consider a brand refreshment to reevaluate and ensure cohesion in your brand’s visual presentation.
Brand Message refers to the written content for your brand which includes your tagline, slogans, and copy content. Developing your message starts with identifying your USP (Unique Selling Proposition). Your USP is how you establish what makes you different from your competition, and it helps you create a voice for your brand. Creating an effective voice and message that emotionally connects people to your brand is vital for establishing trustworthiness. People want to know how your brand will help and fit into their lives. Research your market and speak as the solution to their pain.
Brand Positioning is how you effectively use your visual branding components along with your brand message to create and implement a strategy for delivery. It is important to create a plan of action for how to reach your market once your visual branding and branding message content is created. The goal is to position yourself as a reliable source for information and quality service and product.
Taking Your Brand to Instagram
Once you’ve developed your brand visual and established your message, you can begin to create a strategy for positioning.
In addition to a website, social media is a great platform to use to establish an online presence. You don’t have to master every social media platform. Focus on the one where you tend to have a higher follower interaction to post reach ratio. Meaning, work on perfecting a strategy for the platform where you have a higher level of engagement for the number of accounts your posts reach.
Implementing a brand delivery strategy on Instagram is not as complicated as it might seem, as long as you create a solid content plan in advance. Using your branding visual components and message, create a posting schedule that will allow you to deliver REP Content. Creating REP Content means, creating posts that relates, educates, and promotes. Not every post has to meet every REP point, but you should make sure that each post covers one of them.
REP Content Model
Relatable content is important for personifying your brand to create a human connection. This is content like day-in-a-life post or behind the scene peeks into your operation. We no longer live the in a time where brands are non-relatable selling entities. As a result of the world’s engagement in social media, people want to feel personally familiar with you before they give you their money.
Educational content is necessary to post in order to establish yourself as a reliable resource that adds value. With all the selling that is done online and on social media, people want don’t always want to feel like you are selling them something. In today’s society, credible and informative information is greatly valued which is why you want to be a reliable source to build trustworthiness.
Promotional content is important to incorporate into your schedule, because after all, you are selling something. Although, people don’t’ want to be sold all the time, you are a business that needs to earn a profit. Which means, you are going to want to incorporate some promotional content into your Instagram post schedule. But when I say promotional, I don’t just mean promoting your product or service, I also mean promoting your message. Promoting your brand message and voice consistently will allow you to create and maintain brand recognition.
Incorporating the REP Content Model to your Instagram brand delivery strategy will allow to you to ensure you are maximizing the effectiveness of your content. Added bonus, it also takes the stress away from deciding what to post. If it doesn’t fit the criteria and add value, then you don’t need to post it.
If you want help implementing the REP Content Model, let us know. We’d be happy to help!
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