How to Humanize Your Brand

It’s no secret that brands that consumers identify with faces and personalities are more memorable, approachable and more likely to be trusted. With that human aspect missing from brands, they seem more corporate and detached, making it more difficult for consumers to connect with. There are so many ways to build a lasting rapport with your audience – beyond just how staff present themselves when meeting clients face-to-face. In today’s climate, how you present yourself online has become most businesses first line of interaction with potential clients and is more important than ever. Today we’ll be looking into how you can humanize your business both on and offline in order to create long lasting loyalty and brand recognition.

Vulnerability

As researcher and author Brené Brown says: “Vulnerability is the birthplace of innovation, creativity and change”. Brené may have intended this statement to be about personal vulnerability, but the same wonderful benefits of being vulnerable can translate to your brand and how you connect to your customers. Through good storytelling and taking a more personal tone in content designed to be seen directly by your audience, your brand becomes more approachable and humanized. Vulnerability plays into this through the stories you tell through communicative outlets. For example: sharing your company’s origin story in a compelling, inspirational and vulnerable way can allow your audience to resonate with the story and, by extension, the brand itself. Social media has become the perfect environment for this kind of outreach, allowing brands to share stories of their daily practices, images of the real people behind the brand, and details of the obstacles they’ve come across throughout their journey – and how they were overcome! Don’t be afraid to talk about adversity you’ve faced and what you’ve learned from it. But remember; when sharing these kinds of stories it’s important to use inclusive, concise language that encourages your audience to become part of the conversation and interact with your brand.

After establishing a human-centred connection with your audience, you can use user-generated content to further showcase and humanize your brand. User-generated content can be anything from customer submitted photos on your website or social media, to Google reviews or testimonials. Satisfied clients are often happy to leave positive reviews which can encourage new clients to reach out to inquire about your services.

Get Involved

Becoming active in your community is a wonderful and synergistic way to create a memorable, friendly brand that is associated with well established locations, organizations or causes. Sponsoring a charitable event, whether it be donating funds or donating your services is a great way to not only give back to the community, but also promote your brand in a positive light. Being physically present in the community also gives a human presence to your brand, making you better known within your desired circles and creating a more approachable image.

Trade shows are another fantastic way to network and humanize your company – whether they’re in person or online! Put your best foot forward when displaying your services in a trade show environment by using the tactics discussed in this blog: show the real people behind your brand, be open and vulnerable with your message, services and specialities – authenticity is endearing and will make you stand out in the crowd.

Get to Know Us

The ‘Get to Know Us’ page of your website is another outlet you can use to put a face to your brand. This is another area where authenticity is key; opt for high-quality photos, whether they be professionally done headshots, or simply candid photos from a company gathering. It all depends on your own individual brand and the image you want to portray.

Avoid using stock images as a replacement for staff photos, as it often comes off as generic and lacks the authenticity that the real names and faces of your staff will bring to your website and brand. From here, you can do as much as you like: simple headshots with names and roles, or full individual bio profiles for each staff member – it’s up to you! You can even highlight ‘employees of the month’ or have staff members write articles or guest-posts to your site. By featuring members of your team you humanize your image and help make your brand more memorable than the competition. All of these features promote your brand as a community of real individuals, instead of a cold corporate machine.

Connect Through Video

Especially in these times, where meeting face-to-face with clients isn’t always possible, video is a great way to connect with your audience and give them a face and voice to associate to your brand. Use video to introduce your staff, to show at trade shows, share the behind the scenes of your latest projects or day-to-day company routine. You can even ask clients to be in video testimonials in support of your company – the possibilities are endless. If you’re interested in using video to effectively humanize your brand, 5Gear Studios can help! We’ve worked with companies of all sizes to create impactful videos to promote brands in both internal and outward facing videos.

Connect with 5Gear Studios today to find out more about how we can help you connect to your audience!