In the age of the Internet, thousands of companies vying for the same clients, and large, faceless corporations, one of the best ways to stand out is to show off the human side of your brand. Consumers are becoming increasingly aware of the people behind brands and feel more comfortable doing business with actual humans than faceless companies. Not only will humanizing your brand help grow your business, but it will also encourage more interaction with your content, both on social media and through your blog. To develop a strategy focused on humanizing your brand, check out these tips below.

1. Use Video Frequently

Video marketing is the #1 trending social media marketing strategy and is rapidly expanding. It allows you to deliver a powerful message in a short but to-the-point piece of shareable content.  Use video to humanize your social media marketing strategy by:

Showing Multiple Angles

Video marketing allows you to show numerous sides of a story or different viewpoints. These viewpoints can be laid out clearly with editing and visuals, creating far less confusion than attempting to show multiple viewpoints in an all text article.

Putting A Face To A Name

In many industries, the consumers never get to actually see or interact with the people they are purchasing from. Using video marketing content to humanize your social media marketing efforts allows you to put bring your employees’ voices to life and let your customers put a face to a name. Whether it's a complaint, compliment or question, most customers will react best when they are able to know who they're speaking with. 

Letting People In

Whether you're operating out of a storefront, warehouse, office building or bakery, video marketing let's you give your audience an "inside look" at your operation.  A video walk through, personal introduction or behind the scenes tour of your facility is a great way to make your customers feel more comfortable about who they are working with and purchasing from.

2. Share Photos of Your Team

One of the best ways to show your customers that there are real people behind your brand is to show them off! On social media, share photos of your team members around the office looking human. Take photos at events or parties and use funny antics in the office as photo opportunities. You should show your team members together as much as possible to demonstrate that there is a strong team of people behind your brand.

3. Use Emotions

Sharing content that pulls at the heartstrings is a great way to humanize your brand. Considering sharing a heartwarming anecdote on social or creating a blog post that appeals to both logic and emotion. Humor is a highly effective tactic as well, so use it to connect with your audience and show a softer side of your brand. Humor can be wildly successful on social media, especially in responses to comments or tweets. It can also help make a blog post more entertaining to encourage full read-throughs and sharing. Using emotional content rather than dry information will help personalize your brand and demonstrate its human side.

4. Tell Stories

Sharing personal stories about employees and customers can give your brand a more personal touch. Consider posting a video on social highlighting a particular interaction with a customer or create a case study for a featured blog post. A story that relates to your brand or product and features people related to your brand will humanize your brand’s image while entertaining your customers. After all, most readers would rather listen to a story than sift through dry information. Telling stories is a great way to show customers that people love your brand without obvious promotion.

5. Engage in Conversations

Be sure to share content on your social that will create conversations. When your followers comment on your content, always respond to them to generate a real conversation. Address complaints or concerns and always thank customers for positive comments. Engaging with your customers in this way will show that there is a real person behind your brand that cares about your customers, rather than a robot simply posting ads on a website.

6. Talk More, Sell Less

One of the most important things to remember when developing or fine-tuning your content marketing strategy is that the focus should be on providing quality content to your readers, rather than bombarding them with sales pitches. Center your social media content around items that will be interesting or entertaining for your users. Center your blog content around information that will be educational for your customers and answer common questions or issues. Focusing on these aspects demonstrates to your readers that your brand is made up of real people who care about their clients. When you create valuable content, you will build trust in your brand, grow your social media following, and develop a reputation as a leader in your industry, thus closing more leads and growing your business.

Imageworks, LLC | CT Content Marketing

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