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Your Brand’s Integrity Is Key — Maintain It

Your Brand’s Integrity Is Key

As a brand manager, you’re responsible for cultivating your brand’s identity, maintaining a positive image, and telling your story in a unique yet authentic way. 

As you may know, branding is a marathon, not a sprint. It takes consistent care and effort across all of your marketing channels. While it’s crucial to support your business, brand integrity can be difficult to manage and even harder to build — however, it’s key to standing out from your competition.

Read on as we discuss what brand integrity is, its importance, and how you can maintain it.

What Is Brand Integrity?

Brand integrity occurs when a brand’s messaging, actions, and products or services are unified with its values and philosophy. Think of some of the most iconic brands in business right now – Google, Netflix, and Facebook. These brands have high brand awareness. At first mention, you can almost instantly visualize their logo and brand colors and think of the services they provide. You may even use at least one (if not all three) of these platforms yourself. 

These brands deliver a high-quality product with consistent messaging, which builds trust with their customers and keeps their business top of mind. That’s the power of brand integrity at work. 

Why Is Brand Integrity Important?

Your brand’s integrity should be a top priority. Roughly four out of five people say they will only buy from a brand that they trust. Maintaining brand integrity is the key to fostering that trust. 

For example, if a customer finds your brand on social media they may visit your website to browse your products or services. If the graphics, pages, and content on your website are outdated or are inconsistent with what’s on your other marketing channels, they’ll likely not convert. These discrepancies create distrust — causing customers to take their business elsewhere. Breaking from your brand standards can not only cost you business but can also have a negative, lasting impact on your reputation and customer relationships.

How Can You Maintain Brand Integrity?

Simply put, the key to maintaining brand integrity is staying true to your customers — and yourself. Building brand integrity involves understanding the ins and outs of your brand identity and carefully crafting messaging that reflects it.

Your Brand’s Integrity Is Key — Maintain It

Create content that’s in line with your brand mission, vision, and values. Ensure consistency across your marketing efforts. Stay active on all of your digital channels — including multiple social media platforms, email marketing, paid advertising, video, and more.

Conduct a Digital Brand Audit

Regularly perform digital brand audits to guarantee your channels match your brand standards. Take a moment to examine the way you communicate across all platforms. Would customers be able to recognize you regardless of their point of entry? Does your brand look and sound the same way on all platforms? Is your brand’s digital presence consistent with the branding of your products or services? 

Ensure all of your digital channels are up to date and that everything is working at optimal performance. Plan to quickly solve any inconsistencies you find. 

Create a Consistent Experience 

Your Brand’s Integrity Is Key — Maintain It

At the end of the day, you want to leave a positive, lasting impression on your customers. Brand consistency is the key to building brand awareness and boosting customer acquisition and retention. 

  • Be authentic and honest. Staying transparent in your brand’s messaging is key to garnering trust from your customer base. Use your brand’s unique mission, vision, and values as the foundation of your marketing efforts. 
  • Stay true to your brand standards. From your customer service experience to your social media presence, and everything in between, all of these touchpoints reflect your brand. Every interaction should provide a positive customer experience that’s consistent with your brand identity. 
  • Stay current. Ensure your brand messaging, assets, and content are up to date across all of your digital channels. 
  • Stay active. Providing a consistent stream of content on your digital channels will keep your brand top of mind. Maintain a steady posting schedule on social media. Regularly publish new blogs and website content. Stay consistent in your email marketing efforts.

Adapt to Survive

Social media has seen tremendous strides in the past few years as a news aggregator, conversation facilitator, and e-commerce solution. It’s viewed as the ultimate equalizer — empowering brands to tell their story at a fraction of the cost seen in traditional marketing efforts. 

A strong digital presence – or lack thereof – can be the difference between whether your brand thrives or fails. For example, the lack of a social presence has already killed off brands like Sears and Toys-R-Us. If your brand isn’t utilizing social media, you can be sure that your competition is already taking advantage of its benefits.

Your Brand’s Integrity Is Key — Maintain It

If you’re already using social media, post at optimal times, stay consistent, and leverage partner marketing. Create a daily checklist to guarantee your social media managers don’t miss any important steps. 

Don’t Fix What’s Not Broken 

For as long as it takes to develop your brand’s image and gain customer trust, a few mistakes can ruin it in the blink of an eye. For example, Coca-Cola took one of the biggest risks in the company’s history in April 1985 when the company announced “new Coke” — the first departure from its original formula in 99 years. The change led to a swift marketing firestorm – only 13% of soda drinkers liked the new formula.

In attempting to revitalize its brand, Coca-Cola broke a cardinal rule by changing its successful, beloved formula. After nearly three months of criticism, the company returned to the original formula we’re all familiar with: “Classic Coke.”

Ensure Brand Compliance

Your Brand’s Integrity Is Key — Maintain It

Along with managing your own brand messaging, you will want to ensure brand compliance amongst your retailers. Your retailers are champions for your brand, and how they display your brand can impact its reputation. Many small business owners don’t have the resources or background to understand the importance of brand integrity and how to align their marketing efforts with your brand standards. 

Your Brand’s Integrity Is Key — Maintain It

Bridge the content gap with your retailers. Provide them with clear brand guidelines and pre-approved marketing assets. Maximize your efforts even further with content syndication and amplification.

How ThumbStopper Can Help You Maintain Brand Integrity 

Your Brand’s Integrity Is Key — Maintain It

Over time, you’ll reap the benefits of brand integrity — but remember: consistency is key. ThumbStopper® makes maintaining brand integrity easy by helping brands keep a consistent social media strategy. Tools like ThumbStopper’s Brand Manager™ can help you reach new audiences, increase ROI, and ensure brand compliance with ease.
Request a demo to see how ThumbStopper can help you maintain brand integrity today.

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Key Points:

 

  • Companies should understand the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) to ensure their websites are accessible.
  • Brands that concentrate on accessibility on social media demonstrate care for their customers and build a positive brand reputation.
  • Brands should always consider inclusive design, such as plain, straightforward language, in their social media posts.

 

 

Accessibility may not be a term you usually associate with the internet and social media. You might picture wheelchair ramps, directional signs in braille, or sign language interpreters at live performances. The landmark Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990 dictates the legal necessity of these and similar accommodations in public spaces. As we’ve come to rely on the internet for everything from entertainment to buying groceries, it’s become clear that the internet is now also a public space. It must be accessible to everyone. And like other applications of ADA, businesses that do not comply are liable for damages caused by inaccessibility.

 

The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) are an international set of standards to provide instruction on meeting accessibility needs. It’s important for companies to understand how this applies to their websites, especially if they engage in e-commerce. In terms of social media, the requirements are less concrete. But prioritizing accessibility on your company’s social media is essential to your reputation, even if the legal requirements are uncertain. We’ll look at why it’s important to your customers, how it affects the perception of your brand, and how to make these changes efficiently.

Social Media for All

The cornerstone of accessibility is inclusive design: products or experiences that are accessible for everyone regardless of disability. The most important place where this shows up is on company websites where most users expect to also find links to the brand’s social media profiles. Unfortunately, the overwhelming majority of websites are not accessible, despite the fact that the application of ADA to the internet is over 20 years old. Making websites accessible is a complex process without the use of specialized software like Accessibe or EqualWeb.

Unlike websites, making sure your social media is accessible is a straightforward, ongoing process. Every social platform has been quick to release optional accessibility features. These features are important to many users even if they don’t rely on them to use social media.

Making your social presence accessible tells users that your brand cares about people, not just profits. It’s the same idea as the push for the representation of different body sizes in fashion or more expansive skin tone ranges in beauty products. Brands that meet the needs of underrepresented groups endear themselves to others as well. And while optimizing your brand website for accessibility might be a larger project you aren’t ready to tackle yet, starting with your social media pages is a great way to show customers that you’re listening to their concerns. 

 

Making Content Accessible

Shifting to accessible content means incorporating inclusive design into your creative process. The practice varies by type of media. For platforms that have graphics or videos with captions, it means not only adjusting each component but also being mindful of how they interact with each other.

For example, YouTube’s automatically generated closed captions and subtitles are often inaccurate. It's one of many examples where the caption generation software has issues picking up strong accents and mumbled words. This could be remedied with handcrafted video transcription services. If that’s not in the budget, the video creator could add their script or transcription to the video description.

None of the technology for accessibility is perfect yet. Teaching computers to digest complex information for human understanding is difficult, and the variations in disabilities further complicate it. The majority of adjustments creators need to make revolve around helping assistive technology better understand their content. Let’s look at how to make different kinds of content accessible. 

Text

  • Use plain language that’s easy to understand 
  • Avoid text in all caps
  • Capitalize the first letter of each word in a hashtag, like #SocialMediaMarketing, a practice called camel-case

Videos

  • Provide descriptive captions. Instead of just displaying the words people on-screen say, explain background noises and other sounds that are relevant to the scene.
  • Add your own subtitles or enable auto-subtitles on the video platform of your choice
  • Use captioning for live videos when possible

Graphics

Distribute Accessible Content

Many users find their new favorite brand through social media. When disabled people (who make up 26% of the population according to the CDC) can’t access your brand’s social posts, you miss the opportunity to connect with a demographic that’s eager to engage in online communities. On a hyper-local level, that kind of connection goes even further.

That’s why ThumbStopper exists to help brands distribute their social content to their retailer network. Retailers can connect with their local audience - with your accessible, branded content - in a more personal way. And since content goes to their page automatically once they sign up, retailers can effortlessly promote your brand online while focusing on running their business. 

Ready to see how ThumbStopper can help your brand improve its reach? Check out our brand reach calculator or book a demo.

 

 

accessibility
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Key Points:

 

  • Companies should understand the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) to ensure their websites are accessible.
  • Brands that concentrate on accessibility on social media demonstrate care for their customers and build a positive brand reputation.
  • Brands should always consider inclusive design, such as plain, straightforward language, in their social media posts.

 

 

Accessibility may not be a term you usually associate with the internet and social media. You might picture wheelchair ramps, directional signs in braille, or sign language interpreters at live performances. The landmark Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990 dictates the legal necessity of these and similar accommodations in public spaces. As we’ve come to rely on the internet for everything from entertainment to buying groceries, it’s become clear that the internet is now also a public space. It must be accessible to everyone. And like other applications of ADA, businesses that do not comply are liable for damages caused by inaccessibility.

 

The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) are an international set of standards to provide instruction on meeting accessibility needs. It’s important for companies to understand how this applies to their websites, especially if they engage in e-commerce. In terms of social media, the requirements are less concrete. But prioritizing accessibility on your company’s social media is essential to your reputation, even if the legal requirements are uncertain. We’ll look at why it’s important to your customers, how it affects the perception of your brand, and how to make these changes efficiently.

Social Media for All

The cornerstone of accessibility is inclusive design: products or experiences that are accessible for everyone regardless of disability. The most important place where this shows up is on company websites where most users expect to also find links to the brand’s social media profiles. Unfortunately, the overwhelming majority of websites are not accessible, despite the fact that the application of ADA to the internet is over 20 years old. Making websites accessible is a complex process without the use of specialized software like Accessibe or EqualWeb.

Unlike websites, making sure your social media is accessible is a straightforward, ongoing process. Every social platform has been quick to release optional accessibility features. These features are important to many users even if they don’t rely on them to use social media.

Making your social presence accessible tells users that your brand cares about people, not just profits. It’s the same idea as the push for the representation of different body sizes in fashion or more expansive skin tone ranges in beauty products. Brands that meet the needs of underrepresented groups endear themselves to others as well. And while optimizing your brand website for accessibility might be a larger project you aren’t ready to tackle yet, starting with your social media pages is a great way to show customers that you’re listening to their concerns. 

 

Making Content Accessible

Shifting to accessible content means incorporating inclusive design into your creative process. The practice varies by type of media. For platforms that have graphics or videos with captions, it means not only adjusting each component but also being mindful of how they interact with each other.

For example, YouTube’s automatically generated closed captions and subtitles are often inaccurate. It’s one of many examples where the caption generation software has issues picking up strong accents and mumbled words. This could be remedied with handcrafted video transcription services. If that’s not in the budget, the video creator could add their script or transcription to the video description.

None of the technology for accessibility is perfect yet. Teaching computers to digest complex information for human understanding is difficult, and the variations in disabilities further complicate it. The majority of adjustments creators need to make revolve around helping assistive technology better understand their content. Let’s look at how to make different kinds of content accessible. 

Text

  • Use plain language that’s easy to understand 
  • Avoid text in all caps
  • Capitalize the first letter of each word in a hashtag, like #SocialMediaMarketing, a practice called camel-case

Videos

  • Provide descriptive captions. Instead of just displaying the words people on-screen say, explain background noises and other sounds that are relevant to the scene.
  • Add your own subtitles or enable auto-subtitles on the video platform of your choice
  • Use captioning for live videos when possible

Graphics

Distribute Accessible Content

Many users find their new favorite brand through social media. When disabled people (who make up 26% of the population according to the CDC) can’t access your brand’s social posts, you miss the opportunity to connect with a demographic that’s eager to engage in online communities. On a hyper-local level, that kind of connection goes even further.

That’s why ThumbStopper exists to help brands distribute their social content to their retailer network. Retailers can connect with their local audience – with your accessible, branded content – in a more personal way. And since content goes to their page automatically once they sign up, retailers can effortlessly promote your brand online while focusing on running their business. 

Ready to see how ThumbStopper can help your brand improve its reach? Check out our brand reach calculator or book a demo.

 

 

accessibility
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