Just like humans, brands also have a personality which needs to be taken care of, nurtured, and maintained to stay relevant and engage with the customers in the already cluttered world of data and communication. Every brand tries to stay on top of the brand recall of its customers with solutions to better their everyday lives.

In this cluttered age of communication with brands trying for customer attention and engagement, it is sometimes confusing for brands to decide on the messages and mediums to reach customers and build long-term relationships.

In today’s world with endless options and distractions, people need to be sold on their emotions, not just on their wallets. Branding should make it clear as to why consumers should care about your brand over the competition. Good branding makes consumers part of the brand story and connects with their emotions to stay engaged.

• Tell stories – Technology leader, Apple, tells stories of how its customers in the creative industry, education, business owners and other stakeholders are using Apple products for their work. We as humans connect to humans instantly, and brands carry a personality which connects through stories.
• Be Human – Tell stories that carry human emotions and connect rather than using bots and other ways. Emotional connection builds the bonding between the brand and its consumer through stories.
• Know your audience – Brands should spend time and do research to understand their audience. This helps to design profiles, understand their pain points, and build products and services that address their concern and long-term relationship.
• Brand advocacy – This is a very important marketing strategy of a brand, where its consumers talk positively and voluntarily on social media platforms through posts, comments, or discussions.
• Influencer marketing – This is very important for brands in the digital space as the real customers as influencers with sizable followers talk about brands and get more prospects to try their products/services through paid or sponsored promotions and social media engagement.
• Digital branding- Today every brand and users are online, and the platforms should be used effectively to build trust, market, and increase brand value through active participation and engagement througho Content marketing
  
  • Social media engagement
  • Blogs
  • Videos
  • Podcasts
  • Events etc.

It takes a lot of effort and time for a company or a startup to gain a leadership position in a specific domain or industry. Taking care of its stakeholders, nurturing them, and building the right products and services through clutter-free communication and engagement, helps build a brand.

However, it is important to note that brand is not just a product or about the organization. It is important that all stakeholders of a brand know how to differentiate themselves from others. This is what is called branding – and successful people with personality create their own personal branding in this age of connectivity. Examples, Barack Obama, Donald Trump, Elon Musk, Kamala Harris, Rishi Sunak, SS Rajamouli, AR Rahman, Narendra Modi, KTR. Once you realise that almost everything you choose is now branded from products to services, cities to countries, sports figures to politicians, celebrities to spiritual gurus, personal branding becomes a crucial in the age of connectivity, where everyone is online from Instagram to twitter.

Today, social networks give not only companies but also the individual a low-cost and highly efficient opportunity to showcase strength, skills and experience, to map out and build up our private and professional human relations. Take the example of Yash who has grown under the branding of KGF franchise into a bankable star now known pan-India. By associating with him, director Prashant Neel and Karan Johar have enhanced their own branding. And by collaborating with her husband Yash in many projects, Radhika Pandit has also ensured her own personal branding. Investing in our own brand is therefore the continuous responsibility of everyone who aspires to enhance their reach in competitive markets.

The last example is SS Rajamouli – the ace director of “Bahubali” franchise and “RRR”. After the universal and stupendous success of “RRR”, Rajamouli has now hired CAA – the no.1 Hollywood Agency to catapult him into the big league of Hollywood movie-makers. Had Rajamouli kept himself consigned to the Indian shores and made his own efforts, it would have taken more time to knock on the doors of Hollywood. This is what proactive personal branding is all about. More power to such celeb