Branding Archives - Breakaway Graphics

Your Essential Guide To Social Branding

Sheana — Wed, 12 Dec 2018 16:08:41 +0000

Social Branding 101

Social branding isn’t simply a case of just going on Facebook and chatting with your customers under the auspicious canopy of a fancy branded image. It goes a lot deeper than that. It’s about ensuring that every action you take on social media embodies and reflects the essence of your brand. To help you nail that perfect but elusive social media nirvana formula, read on for our essential guide to social branding 101.

Implement a solid CSR initiative

The concept of corporate social responsibility (CSR) is a new one, but it’s increasingly becoming a crucial aspect of a business’s social branding. CSR refers to a brand’s commitments to social and charitable causes. A shining example of this is apparel brand Patagonia, whose marketing channels are permeated with messages of sustainability and environmental concerns. By aligning themselves so publicly with such a hot button issue (and by actually fulfilling their commitments to them), Patagonia convey a powerful social brand that speaks to their customers. And it works. Consumers are increasingly buying from brands that have a genuine, visible CSR commitment.

Identify a social cause that matters to you and your customers and make it part of your brand strategy. Set up a charity initiative or donate a percentage of your profits to a cause. But most importantly, make your CSR visible. Weave it into your social media channels and let your customers know the good work you are doing. As more and more consumers choose to align themselves with brands with a conscience, it behooves you to be vocal about your support for social causes.

Identify a social cause that matters to you and your customers and make it part of your brand strategy.

Find out what matters to your customers

Social branding isn’t passive. It’s a proactive idea that relies on listening to your customers and finding out what matters to them. Just as a relationship between two people relies on each person being aware of their partner’s needs, hopes, and desires, so too does the relationship between a brand and their consumers rely on the same.

Brands have the advantage in this respect though. They have a range of social listening tools that can help them learn more about their customers, helping them to reposition themselves and their social brand accordingly.

Such tools include Twazzup, a simple application that provides alerts in real-time when your brand is mentioned on Twitter. Alternatively, you could use HowSociable for a more holistic view of social mentions. And for mentions outside of social media, Boardreader lets you search forums and message boards for keywords or phrases.

Monitor what people are saying about your brand online, then adjust your marketing efforts accordingly. You could capitalize on positive mentions, or head off negative ones before they become an issue. But by interacting with them on a meaningful level, you’ll help bolster your social branding with ease.

Offer personality, not a sales pitch

While it’s tempting to focus on chasing the almighty dollar as a brand, try to avoid turning your brand personality into a constant sales pitch. An excessively self-promotional tone across your website, email, and social channels will simply repel your customers.

Indeed, studies show that 45% of consumers unfollow a brand on social media as a result of being overly self-promotional. As a rule of thumb, employ the 80/20 rule: 20% of your content should be promoting your brand, and 80% should be content that content that engages your audience.

Social branding is about building relationships, rather than a one-way street of sales pitches and image boosting. A strong social personality leads to repeat customers and regular sales, even if your product and service can also be bought elsewhere.

A good example of this can be seen in the many dropshipping stores on Exchange. These are businesses that are selling the same thing as thousands of other websites. But they’re successful in making themselves look and feel different to their competitors because they have good social branding. Their customers buy from them not for their products, but for their brand. The evidence is clear: social branding works and adds value to your business.

A strong social personality leads to repeat customers and regular sales, even if your product and service can also be bought elsewhere.

Be speedy and responsive

A brand ignores its customers at its peril: people don’t just expect a reply when they reach out to you, they expect it to be quick and compassionate. A swift and empathetic response to your customers portrays you as a brand that cares about their consumers, in turn augmenting your social branding. An example of how this can impact your branding can be seen in the case of disgruntled businessman Hasan Syed. He made headlines after he spent $1,000 promoting a tweet blasting British Airways over some lost luggage, after they ignored his original complaint. It was seen by more than 50,000 people and was very bad publicity for the airline.

image via Twitter

On the flipside of this is fast food restaurant Wendy’s whose speedy response to one of their customers led to the most retweeted tweet of all time. Carter Wilkerson asked the Wendy’s Twitter account how many retweets he would need for a year’s free supply of nuggets, and the company promptly replied with ’18 million’. The tweet went viral, garnering support from Apple, Google, Microsoft and other big brands. Twitter even included the story in its Q1 shareholder letter of 2017 (and Carter did finally get his year’s supply of nuggets). This brief exchange generated a huge amount of free publicity and goodwill for Wendy’s, proving the importance of engaging with social media followers.

Social branding is vital when it comes to your business’s success. Brands are so much more than their product or service: they are a personality, and they should act as such. You are under scrutiny from your customers 24/7, so you need to work to convey a positive brand that your audience will engage with.

The post Your Essential Guide To Social Branding appeared first on Breakaway Graphics.

Logo Design Process

Sheana — Sat, 13 Nov 2010 13:51:25 +0000

In logo design and imaging, there is more to the process than simply creating a ‘pretty’ icon for the client. There are many blog posts and books out there that are dedicated to explaining this process and why it is so important in creating an effective and successful iconic logo. I’ve decided to include my own design process on this website as I believe it could be a valuable tool for other designers and an informative article for prospective customers who want to know more about how brandmarks are created and why choosing a experienced designer is a necessity, not an option. As you will read below, a good amount of work is done before the client ever sees a concept. There is also a great deal of research and critical thinking on the part of the designer to gain the information and perspective required to create said identity. So without further ado, here’s my logo design process:

First Things First

Before I do anything at all, I will send my client a questionnaire with comprehensive and detailed questions aimed at getting all the information required for me to start the process. When possible, I prefer to ask these questions and perform an interview in person but that’s unfortunately not always an option. The logo questionnaire/interview is extremely important in the logo design process and even if the client feels that they’ve already settled on a design they’ve created, it is vital that I, as the designer, have all the information so I can familiarize myself with the company, the company’s mission, the target demographic, their competitors and the client’s personal preferences. All these things will aid me in producing a design that they will really love as well as a design that will embody the company’s message, product or service in a way that will be successful for that company. It is only after this that the work really starts.

First, after studying the completed logo questionnaire and the logo samples that the client supplies (if they already have some ideas, many do), I will do some research on the client’s profession (looking for strengths and weakness in their or their competitor’s brand) and perform a preliminary visual scan for trademarked logos that we may want to avoid being too similar to. Of course, once the logo has been completed, a Lawyer would have to do a proper trademark search if they intend to TM/SM (state level) or ® (national level) the logo.

Now The Fun Starts

Next, I sketch out thumbnails….ideas on paper that I draft very quickly. This is faster than doing all the preliminary work in a design software and allows me to make changes and follow my thoughts as fast as they come. Also, it’s an easy and time effective way for me to get as many ideas out in a short amount of time as possible (esp. since I charge by the hour). I am able at this point to build off of the sketches and ideas until I get something that is worthy of conceptualizing digitally.

Third, I will re-create the chosen sketches in Adobe Illustrator. The client often receives only 2-4 preliminary designs as I will only proof them on the best ones and not waste their time with designs that simply don’t (or won’t) work. These choices will be based upon the 5 elements that make an iconic logo:

1. Describable
2. Memorable
3. Effective without color
4. Scalable (i.e. will work at 1″x1″ as well as it would work at 3′ x 3′)
5. Relevant (to the industry in question)

Describable and Memorable really go together because how will you be able to remember it and tell your friends about this great product or service if you can’t describe what the logo looks like?

Being effective without color is important because if the mark doesn’t work in black alone, color will not make it any better. A bad design is a bad design with or without color. As I have posted before, color plays a vital role in the emotional response to the logo and the company it represents. A really great design can be nixed by the client if he/she isn’t attracted to the color it’s presented in so to help the client really look at the designs themselves, I always proof in B&W.

A scalable mark is critical for collateral, such as office letterhead, business cards, return address labels etc.—these little applications can often be overlooked by the inexperienced designer and the client alike.

Being relevant is important as the design must be suitable for the business it represents. This is achieved through research, studying the logo questionnaire, knowing how color will play a role, and talking with the client. It also helps to differentiate the client from their competitors.

Proofing Begins

Once I present the initial designs to the client, they might be immediately attracted to one of the proposed designs and we can move forward with tweaking, adding color and finalizing the logo. OR they might want to combine two of the proposed designs until we have one design to work from. It is important to ask the right questions during this step to gain as much insight as possible why a particular design wasn’t liked by the client. By listening closely to the client’s explanations and suggestions, you can make the necessary modifications to the designs (being sure that any modifications will move the design in the right direction).

As mentioned above, I continue proofing in only all black or all white (on black background) as this aids in being able to focus on the design itself and not be influenced by color. What’s important at this stage is the mark’s shape, form and the idea it represents. This is the part in the process that often takes the most time.

Final Touches

Only when the final design has been chosen, will we start working with color. The proofing process starts all over and will be in the same manner as the black/white versions but with color this time. I use the science of how colors effect our emotions to help choose the right hue to gain the most appropriate emotional response from the customer. This process also fits into point five of the five points to a successful logo since I would likely not use pastels in a Law Firm’s logo just as I wouldn’t use bright red (the color of anger, emergency and danger) for a Nursing Home. In this case, the brandmark was going to work best in solid black (or white for reversed use) given that the overall brand aesthetic would be black, white and grey with warm (yellow/orange/red) accent colors for various applications.

After

After the colors are decided upon and the design is approved, I will get to work finalizing the logo for both print and web, making sure that the logo is easy for the client to use as well as ensuring that it can be used across many platforms and applications.

I know the logo design process can be a little intimidating for the client as well as the designer. But if you know what’s coming in the process and what steps to take (and in what order), the whole affair will go much smoother for both parties. This will make for a pleasurable experience for the customer and help the designer maintain control throughout the creative process. If you are a company or individual looking for the right designer to create your logo, be sure to do your homework to be certain that you and your designer are going to work well together towards achieving the same goal. If you’d like to see some of the logos that Breakaway Graphics has designed, we’ve included a few below. To see more, please visit the Portfolio section of the Home Page.

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