Today, humanizing your brand is a requirement, not an option if you want success.

Here is a riddle for you. What do business owners, corporate stakeholders, employees, customers and followers all have in common?

They’re all human.

These days, brands are doing everything they can do to position their products and services to their loyal followers. This includes trying to appeal to customers by developing a brand personality – or rather humanizing their brand.

Today, people connect with brands they know and trust. The challenge is developing this beneficial relationship with consumers. At its surface, this may seem relatively easy. However, people still do not understand how to appeal to their audience.

Humanizing Your Brand Drives Actions

A key benefit to humanizing your brand is that it will drive action whether it sells, drives awareness or any other goals in your marketing plan. You may be thinking, “Why didn’t you say so?! Sign me up!”

It’s not that easy. In order to accomplish this, your brand must develop and implement new ways to become known, liked and trusted because these are the keys to brand humanization.

First, you need make your brand’s tone personal, approachable and engaging. Then you need to change your corporate mindset. Instead of viewing your audience as cash cows, try a more customer service-oriented approach.

You need to create the mindset: not what they can do for you, but what you can do for them. Your customers want you to help them achieve their goals or provide solutions to their problems. By helping them, you are establishing trust and showcasing your competency in your field.

But just remember: this process takes time…so don’t rush it.

Humanizing Your Brand Through Storytelling

It is hard – if not almost impossible – to develop an emotional connection with a faceless logo or product. Consumers are more likely to remain loyal to a brand if they can put a face to the computer screen.

This may seem like an obvious concept, but people still don’t understand how a relationship is formed.   You may wonder: How can I strike an emotional cord with my audience.

An easy way to make your brand appear more human is through storytelling.

Just like humans have a story to tell, so does a brand. These stories make your business interesting and compelling to consumers, employees and investor.

Share photos of your team on your website and social profiles. Highlight their achievements and success. Also, an easy way to tell your brand’s story is through an active blog.

Humanizing Your Brand Through Social Media

Many businesses have a social profile on the sole basis that everyone else has a profile. But in today’s competitive world, you must ask: what makes your social profile different?

Although they may have a presence on social media, many brands aren’t exactly social. Social media is about collaborating, participating and sharing with others.

To be successful on social media, your brand needs to appear as authentic and altruistic, rather than robotic.

Social media is great because you can engage your customers in conversation that allows them to learn about you and vice versa. You can point out what makes you different from your competitors while offering them help and solutions to their everyday problems. You can educate them about your products or about your industry. You can offer them tips and other valuable information without attempting to pitch a sale.

This may require you to rethink your social media approach. But you will be happy with the end result. If you think like a human and if you focus on building relationships with your audience, they will follow you across different platforms.

How do you humanize your brand? If you have any suggestions, we would love to here them.

At Kraus Marketing, we specialize in digital marketing, website design and SEO. For the latest digital trends, helpful tips and opinion articles, be sure to check out our blog. For more information, contact us at 973-998-5742 or visit us online at www.KrausMarketing.com.