How to start building your brand online

In today’s world, we all have small business dreams. Whether you’ve always wanted to open a bakery, bookshop or brewery, we’ve all thought about what our dreams business venture would be. Similarly in today’s world, the tools are all out there to get started. In the digital age, we are all constantly connected with the opposite end of the globe and you can create a storefront without even having a physical address. 

Here’s how to start:

Think through your name

This is something that may get overlooked but your business’s name is vitally important and is best to think through thoroughly whilst you have the chance. Remember that this is something that very likely won’t ever change and those who do choose to change their name will suffer in terms of brand recognition down the line. Think of who you want your business to apply to. The audience, as you’ll see throughout this post, is key and depending on who your business serves will dictate how to name yourself.

Rule one here is to keep things simple, an overly long name won’t do you any favours (coming from someone who has tried to fit many on logos and posters in my time) not to mention it’s harder to remember. Be concise, and to the point, if it rolls off the tongue and is memorable then you’re onto a winner! Don’t be fooled, this isn’t easy and it can take time but rushing it may be much more costly still.

Create a logo

This part sounds obvious but the importance shouldn’t be disregarded. Your logo mark will mark any content, products and documentation as yours and will provide a touchpoint for your audience to recognise throughout their journey with your business. With this in mind make sure that you’re happy with your logo and that quality has been assured by a designer as once this is printed and dispatched across all of your content it will be much harder and more expensive to redesign down the line.

A quick note that a logo alone is not your ‘brand’ but it gives you your first tool for building a brand for your audience. 

Define a tone of voice

How do you want to be perceived and how do you want to talk? My advice here would be to be as natural as possible, use your own voice first and this part will take care of itself. If however, you’re struggling perhaps a copywriter could help with writing your content. 

This goes for visual elements as well, how do you want your business to look when it shows up online or in person? There are a lot of questions here which is why a designer will likely be necessary to handle this part. Does it focus on high-quality photography? Does it need some quirky illustrations or maybe more abstract geometric patterns? What fonts match the tone of voice? What colours? 

This is where a brand starts to take shape, all of these choices affect how an audience will perceive your business as a whole. This perception is your brand.

Find your platform

If you’ve done any research at all you will probably have been told that Instagram is essential for your business. My opinion is this isn’t entirely true. Whilst Instagram and other social media platforms make your business much more discoverable at ease, this doesn’t mean they’re essential and every business will profit from different approaches. Think about where your audience or dream client is, put yourself there and create content these people will like and engage with. If they are business owners and startups, maybe you should target Linkedin, but if your audience is local who knows, you might even find that posting letters through their postboxes might be much more effective. Don’t be afraid to think outside of the box.

To sum up, Instagram and social media platforms are great resources to get you seen by mass audiences but that doesn’t always make them the answer. What you want is a place for your audience to land when they want to know more about your business and a place where you can drum up traffic and interest. Make a plan for what’s most relevant to your business before you choose where to allocate your time.

Create content

Now you have all the tools and a plan to get in front of your audience in place. Time to produce, post, talk about your business and build this brand in your audience’s mind.

Content has a lot of definitions nowadays with the notorious title ‘content-creator’ bringing a lot of connotations both positive and negative. In this context though, I mean anything that will deliver your chosen message to your audience. This could be your product itself, it could be a printed publication, a poster or it could be entirely digital such as a TikTok or Instagram carousel. Choose what you want to say and choose the best vessel in which to deliver these ideas.

A few ideas here could be to educate your audience about your brand, tell them what you offer, what events you’ve got going on, and what you stand for. Engage with important dates that resonate with your business’s themes and ethos, post inspirational photos and remember that you don’t need a photo to post, post text, tell stories, write a blog. Doing this in your pre-conceived tone of voice with visual accompaniments is enough to start building a brand for your audience. Consistency is key with reoccurring patterns, colours and touch points resonating in a customer’s mind as part of your identity.

This is your chance to show your personality and use your creativity to carve yourself out a niche in the market and start to connect with your customers on a regular basis. Keep doing this to stay present and in the minds of your audience and cultivate this brand that you’ve planned and formulated.