When it comes to creating content for your business online, it’s important that that content has purpose, that it holds relevance to your brand, and that it informs your audience of something related to you or your business.
But it’s also important that your content is branded. So that the message you write, or the visuals you include by way of an image or video, allude to your business in some way and provide a subtle reminder to your audience as to whose content they’re viewing.
How you can achieve this…
Branding content is generally achieved in one of three ways:
Branded hashtags
Firstly, through the use of a branded hashtag – for instance, #Hypestar. The inclusion of this feature in a piece of content indicates to an audience that the content belongs to, or is in some way associated with, the brand mentioned in the hashtag.
Branded hashtags tend to be placed at the end of a post on social media, and can be created by inserting the symbol ‘#’, followed by the business’s full name (or a shortened version of this).
Top Tip: Before creating and using a branded hashtag, be sure to do your research. Put the hashtag into the search bar on any social media platform and see if and how it’s being used to categorise content. This will save you and your business from being lumped in with any trend or topic you’d rather avoid!
Brand colours
The second method of branding content is through the use of brand colours in visuals. For instance, Hypestar’s main brand colour is a vibrant blue. We could therefore look to include props of a similar colour in all of our images and videos so that an association with our brand is formed when the media is viewed by our audience.
The use of branded colours in this way works especially well on visual platforms such as Instagram, where all of your content can be viewed in a ‘Grid’ structure. If you’ve included a brand colour in all of your images, then when your audience sees this ‘Grid’ your content will look incredibly effective and in-line with your brand.
Top Tip: You might choose to incorporate your predominant brand colour into your work uniform. This could make the placement of colour look more natural and mean that you’re always subtley promoting your brand no matter where you are!
Logo placement
The final way you can easily brand your content is by including your logo in each of your images. This can easily be done using an online tool such as ‘Canva’, and means that no matter where your image is seen or who has posted it, it is clearly in association with and belongs to your business.
Adding a logo to your images is something that can be done for photographs as well as images that include computer generated icons – such as the examples below. This method of branding your visual content is also something that works well across all social media platforms.
Top Tip: When it comes to adding your logo onto images, it tends to be much easier if you have a ‘vectorised’ version of your logo. This means that is has no background and allows your logo to be laid over the top of artwork without a messy white box behind it.
Why branding your content is important…
Consistency
One reason why it’s important to brand your content is so that it feels consistent with you and your business. If we consider an international brand such as McDonalds, then we can be sure that their use of things such as hashtags or brand colours in their content will be consistent across their social media channels.
This is incredibly important for the overall image of the brand, as well as our perception of the brand as an audience; as it ensures that McDonalds feels the same no matter where we encounter it online.
This consistency is therefore reassuring, and gives us the sense that we’ll receive the same service, experience, and familiarity no matter where we are in the world. Something that continues to be a unique selling point for the company, and a reason why many choose to eat at the chain when they visit different countries.
Association
Another reason why branding your content is important is because it helps your audience form an association between your business and a colour, logo, or a feature such as a hashtag.
This means that whenever your audience sees the hashtag, logo, or colour related to your brand, they’ll be reminded of your business. Something that is very significant when it comes to an audience feeling familiar with a brand, and being able to recall that brand easily to others.
Consider Sainsburys as an example. The vibrant orange used as their main brand colour means that no matter what context the colour is seen in, if you’re aware of the brand then you’ll likely be reminded of them without even trying to make the association.
Ownership
Finally, branding your content is a great way of ensuring that it’s clear that it belongs to you and your business. Unfortunately, there are many occasions when people or businesses will reuse content created (and owned) by other brands without their permission.
At least if you include your logo or a clear brand colour on all of your images, then you can rest assured that it has an obvious association to your business should anyone do this.
You see examples of this misuse of content all the time; where someone has taken a screenshot or simply right-clicked and Saved an image on a platform such as Facebook, and then posted it as their business. Fortunately, for those savvy enough to have included their logo in the image, it’s obvious as to who the original creator actually was!
There you have it – our guide to getting started with branding your content online! Be sure to leave a comment if you found any of our top tips useful.
