Filed Under: Intrinsic Branding, Leadership, Marketing
Five Questions to Root You In Your Brand + Marketing
By Emily Soccorsy
To sum up:
Before tactics, strategy.
Before strategy, clarity of purpose.
Before clarity of purpose: inner reflection.
There comes a time in every speaking engagement I do when I get the inevitable question: This is all really helpful, but based on my business, should I post on This Platform or That Platform? What time? What content strategy should I use?
I’m happy to answer the tactical questions based on what I learn about the asker’s business or brand.
But even though I will give an educated answer, the success of those tactical endeavors also and always depends on the order of operations above.
If you don’t know who you are, what you’re after with this brand, business or organization you are running, whatever you post will be distilled on a platform that is already in the business of distilling, downplaying, boosting, manipulating and otherwise algorithmically deciding the value of what you share.
Without a connective tissue between what you believe or the larger conversation you want to engage in the market and what you post, then you are simply dandelion seeds in the wind.
Poof!
Who knows where they go? The wind takes your ideas or attempts at resonance and blows them away.
Five Questions to Root You In Your Brand + Marketing
When you take on the internal journey to determine what’s at the core of this effort of yours, you can root into a personal anchor that becomes the structure for what you share.
First Q
One question to ask (among many) to uncover these roots: What do I value above all else? So much so that I would (or am) taking action to defend them?
Second Q
Once those truths start to solidify, polish them up into beliefs. Then ask yourself, How can I practice these values every day?
Third Q
Next, ask yourself, What is the conversation I can have again and again, based on these beliefs and standards, and taking into account my work?
Fourth Q
Then, ask yourself, How will my clients/audience experience this?
Fifth Q
Finally, assess your outlets. Where is your audience AND where do you feel drawn to converse? Where do you have the energy to log in regularly? To take comments? To respond?
These five questions, thoughtfully explored and answered, provide a comprehensive journey from inner reflection to purposeful content, and ultimately, sharing that content.
The trick to branding is forcing yourself through this process and at each step, going deep enough to know you have hit meaningful bedrock.
Most people respond with the readily available, easy or obvious answer. They do not have a foil, another person to ask a follow-up, to say, “no, we’re not there yet. Let’s go deeper.”
It’s OK to start with the surface answers. But to get to bedrock that you can build from, you need probing, questioning, pausing to get what is deeply revealing – the truth that gives you chills, that chokes you up, that stokes an acknowledgement at the heart of who you are.
To the root of your brand.