In the current Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Snapchat multiverse, people love showing and telling about themselves, to the extent of TMI – some because they love the community feel, others for self promotion, self others for the sake of validation or attention.
The lure of social media can be a slippery slope if you’re not careful. You’ve heard of Hollywood titans crashing to the hard ground of reality because of a drunken tweet they sent. Of Wall Street tycoons losing it all overnight because they needed affirmation from a woman other than their wife. Of famous actresses posting an Instagram car crash of their life because they were high, escaping from their reality.
When these mistakes happen, these poor souls find the world is a harsher place than they thought as they get crucified for their actions. It’s not before long that they implode – and with them their families, careers, livelihoods and reputation.
Brand management to the rescue
The most effective way to cleverly foresee and avoid the reputation slip up is is to take control of your own actions and your story in order to manage your brand’s image and reputation well before disaster happens.
“Brand management” is the influence of brand perception within a company’s target market. The goal of an effective brand strategy is to measure and control credibility, perceived customer value, satisfaction, customer loyalty and brand awareness.
As your brand increases in awareness, media attention and market share, you’ll begin to develop a reputation. Whether it’s good or bad depends largely upon the different experiences people have with you and/or your business. However, even the best brands can be blindsided by bad press and negative reviews.
Brand management is what it takes to ensure that your reputation is respected and maintains brand equity i.e. the value of having a strong brand name. The pinnacle of strong brand value being the associations people attach to your name i.e. the brand association when consumers begin to refer to your brand name interchangeably with a product category (think Xerox or Kleenex).
As you can imagine, brand positioning (what makes you distinct in the market) is directly tied to brand equity. Clients and customers are willing to pay more up to 22% when they perceive that your product as special, unique or better.
More importantly, positive brand equity allows you to charge more for your products and makes it easier to repair your damaged reputation in the event of a crisis.
If you’re a CEO, celebrity, upcoming actor, business leader, entertainer or even an entrepreneur, there’s never been a more crucial time to manage your brand. So you avoid the pitfalls of social media mistakes and/or a very public ripping up of your reputation.
Strategic brand management is a detailed process that requires many levels of coordination. From building your brand and marketing strategy to giving you advice on how to manage and protect your brand.
No matter what you do, a focused branding strategy will reduce your reputational risk, improve your income and boost your revenues.
The Brand Ninja has worked with many companies and individuals to help manage their brand and reputation. See how we can help you too.