In today's day and age, brand identity is one of the key elements of any company's success. Other than offering quality, consistency and reliability, brands need to understand that the world of excessive commodities requires forward-thinking alertness. Ideally mixed with immediate reactions for them to be relevant and remembered.
If you've been around for a while without significant success, there are a few questions to ask yourself before going any further. For instance, describing your company's style. Would you call it a brand with a clear, consistent message that blends together in creating a unified theme? Or a mishmash of inconsistent imagery that may individually make sense but doesn't feel like a whole? If the answer is the latter, it's highly likely that you don't have a brand identity.

Still, it's not the end of the world. Everything's fixable with the right idea, right tools, and a team of experts that knows how to help.
Let's discuss a few aspects of what brand identity is, how to build it and, more importantly – how to retain it while staying relevant.

 

What Is Brand Identity?

As defined by the American Marketing Association, brand is "Name, term, design, symbol, or any other feature that identifies one seller's good or service as distinct from those of other sellers." A brand identity is the company's symbol look, cohesive in its representation and true to your organization's ideas.
In simple words, your brand identity is:
a) what makes you stand out from the competition and
b) how your audience perceives you as a whole.
Owing to your brand identity, the audiences can connect with what you are representing, they develop a feeling that links them to your brand. All physical and visual elements combined (marketing materials, visual presentations, services, products, team members, etc.) lead to you forming an image. That image will form a lasting impression of yourself that sticks and keeps the customers coming back.

"Determine who you are and what your brand is, and what you're not. The rest of it is just a lot of noise."

– Geoffrey Zakarian 

What Creates a Brand's Visual Identity?

Visual identity are all visible images associated with your company. Every little thing you link to your brand helps the customers and clients form an opinion about you as a brand.

To make a brand visually pleasing, you should invest in the:

• Logo
• Colors
• Imagery Styles
• Typography
• Composition Styles

The way you manipulate these elements sets the tone for your entire branding. For your company to continually send a clear message it's important that your brand identity matches your visual identity.
Here you can check out some amazing examples of how brands are leveraging visual presence.

 

Social Media Presence

An essential aspect of your brand identity is the way you showcase it on social media. 
For example, if your Facebook page is filled with sustainability tips, that may tell me that reducing ecological footprint is one of your values. If I see employee pets sleeping in the office, I may feel that you take care of your employees and their needs.

In the modern-day and age, rarely anyone's got the time to spend hours reading about your brand. Instead, they'd rather see what you've got to show, and hopefully see it via everyone's favorite visual tool – stories. It is not strange since this vertical format come in handy with mobile devices. A few finger-taps, and they're already closer to understanding what your brand is about and decide why they want to see more from you.

Except for Instagram stories, you don't want your brand stories to fade in 24 hours. If you got the awareness of brand identity, you need them to last. With StorifyMe, all the brand stories are not limited to closed social media ecosystems and never disappear.

"Branding is what people say about you when you are not in the room."

– Jeff Bezos 

How to Find Your Brand Identity and Communicate It Effectively?

Lucidpress states that consistently presented brands are 3-4 times more likely to have excellent brand visibility than those with an inconsistent brand presentation. Connect your visual identity to your brand values on a larger scale. There are a few steps that may help you to identify your brand's mission along with its short-term and long-term goals.

1. Identify Your Brand Personality
2. Develop Emotional Appeal
3. Keep Your Brand Consistent
4. Build Your Visual Brand

 

1. Identify Your Brand Personality

A good brand idea will only take you so far unless you've got your brand mission effectively aligned with your brand personality. So, how do you decide who your brand is for? The best way to do it is to ask yourself: If I could have anyone represent my brand, who would it be?
The persona you identify your brand image with is the tone and messaging you want to pursue in your brand representation. And that is the voice you should use across social media and marketing channels. Make sure your messaging is consistent on every channel.

Also, a crucial aspect of every branding is knowing who you are creating your product/service for. Define your audience by considering parameters like:
What is their gender, age, income, education level, and job description?
Which values, interests and hobbies do they share?
What are their day to day activities?
How does their lifestyle look like?
What solutions are they looking for?
Which brands respond well to them?
This concept is familiar as developing a buyer persona. A buyer persona is a research-based profile that depicts a target customer.

2. Develop Emotional Appeal

The best way to connect with people and leave a lasting memorable image is via emotional sharing. When you infuse emotions, customers have a reason to connect deeply with what you are offering and understand it on a deeper level. 
On building your brand, ask yourself questions like:
What emotion is communicated via your brand story?
What would you want your audience to feel when seeing your product online or using it?
These and similar questions act as the building blocks of your brand making.

3. Keep Your Brand Consistent

One of the most vital strategies for marketing a brand is consistency. Audiences respond well to product reliability, whether in terms of quality or visual branding. However, in our ever-evolving world, it's getting harder and harder to build and maintain that consistency. Not only because of excessive multi-channel marketing trends but because of (imposed) customer expectations for all the ongoing innovation and originality. Still, it's possible. Easy? No. Manageable? Absolutely.
The idea behind brand consistency is to have a clear substance, style and story your brand is known for. Later on, it can only be upgraded with innovation. Always keep the base solid, then add effects that follow current trends. 

4. Build Your Visual Brand

Once you answer the questions above, it'll be easier to build a visual representation of your brand. Figuring out the way to place it on social media channels will come naturally. Some information you may find useful in building your brand are:
The right color palette: Choose colors that fit your brand identity, depending on the image you want to portray. Color psychology may come in handy in this respect. Color is a powerful communication tool and it can even signal desired behavior, influence mood, and physiological reactions.
Proper typography: The right font may take you a long way and perfectly represent everything your brand stands for. Be careful when choosing, this is a one-time decision when building a brand.
Logo design: Design a new logo or redesign your old one so it fits your brand identity. Then, use it a profile picture across all social media platforms that have your product/service advertised.
Sharing is caring: Again, choose the right social media platforms to share your service/product on. Make sure those platforms match your brand's message, idea, and energy. If you need help, contact experts who can help you with social media representation.

Final Thoughts 

Building a brand is never easy, especially in the world that's beaming with the competition. Making the audience realize they want to choose you over thousands of hundreds of similar companies is no easy task. Anyway, it's certainly one you can achieve with a lot of careful planning, help, and a clear vision. If you feel like staying true to what you believe in, we're there to support you! Rely on the advice above like you would on your ultimate stepping stone, and stay with us for more relevant inputs. Good luck!