Creating Brand Awareness: A Bufferchat Recap

This week in #bufferchat, we all talked about creating brand awareness! We discussed the components of a memorable brand, ways to build and measure brand awareness, how to involve the community to share about a brand and much more.

Catch our weekly Twitter chat, #bufferchat, at TWO times every Wednesday for valuable industry insights and networking with nearly 400 other smart marketers and community managers. Same topic, same place, just at different times – feel free to join whichever chat time that works best for you!

For our community in Asia and Australia (or anyone in other timezones that like this time the best!): 4 pm AEST (Sydney time, UTC+10)

For our community in North/South America, Europe and Africa (or others!): 9 am PT (California time)

This week’s stats:
1st Bufferchat: 143 participants; 619 tweets; reach of 1,031,758
2nd Bufferchat: 293 participants; 2,065 tweets; reach of 1,718,201

Q1: What are the components of a memorable brand?

From the community:

• “The primary component behind a memorable brand is a strong stance or idea. Apple has simplicity. Twitter has connectedness.” @BasicBon
• “Quality of product, customer service, contribution to community, ethics (+ logo design ?)” @graeme_fulton
• “PERSONALITY! The brand is humanized and thus remembered almost as you’d remember a friend.” @AnnaAnnamotion
• “A brand’s easy to remember, engages w the audience, & solves a problem, otherwise it’s just a name.” @markdeafmcguire
• “An addictive brand personality and compelling story that resonates with your targeted audience.” @jeskirkwood

See all the great answers to question 1 here!

Q2: If a company is just starting out, what is the 1st thing they should do to start building brand awareness?

From the community:

• “Listen. Don’t start off by talking about you, but ask questions of the people on social.” @DomGarrett
• “Know your “why” inside and out.” @_boldkick
• “Outreach and community participation. Find the hubs and tribes that are relevant. Go there, be helpful.” @andymci
• “An absolute must is developing a strategy or plan to be sure they stay consistent. 1st steps to success, a plan!!” @KhadayaHale_VA
• “Define ur target audience & position your product/service as a solution through engaging content” @GusRyan100

See all the great answers to question 2 here!

Q3: What are your top marketing tactics for building brand awareness on a budget?

From the community:

• “Be realistic – brand awareness takes time; it’s not going to happen overnight! Have a focus!” @danielleirogers
• “Don’t try to market yourself everywhere – stick to an area where your target market is” @GoldStarMedia
• “Always start w end in mind (goals, targets). Fill in w milestones and tactics on achieveable actions along the way” @mobileslate
• “You want to grow organically. Let your consumers speak for your brand. #UGC and rich organic content.” @complexkickz
• “Don’t underestimate the power of #organic social. Spend the time creating beautiful content & people will respond.” @gretchenfisk

See all the great answers to question 3 here!

Q4: How can you involve your audience/community in spreading brand awareness?

From the community:

• “Part 2 – Also get excited about your community, engage with them, celebrate their successes. It’s a two-way street.” @steveTjohnson
• “Motivate them, share goals and ideas, involve them where possible in the decision making progress…” @Dhaar_mhie
• “If you engage with h2h interactions. Your audience will organically spread your brand and your message.” @GoNewYorkTours
• “Get them involved in the conversation! Give them little incentives/thank-yous, make them feel part of the community” @lexberju
• “The type of brand changes the approach, but it still comes down to giving them an experience, not just a solution.” @calgarydreamer

See all the great answers to question 4 here!

Q5: What are creative ways to partner with other brands?

From the community:

• “Understand others’ objectives and see if it aligns. Then be creative! Unexpected partnerships can work out for the best. ?” @magentrix
• “Co-host workshops/webinars, co-market to each others’ lists, guest post on their blogs, bundle offers” @WendyMaynard
• “Partner for a worthy cause. When customers see companies serving purposes other than their own gain, engagement skyrockets!” @RCPatchett
• “Swap management of your social channels for a day. Make it an event + let your followers know about it.” @lavehmarketing
• “Find the place on the Venn Diagram where your audiences’ interests overlap. Build a partnership around that.” @Wilde_Agency

See all the great answers to question 5 here!

Q6: How can you measure your brand awareness? What metrics can you look for?

From the community:

• “Too many metrics to tweet – but most can be ignored. Which metrics match YOUR KPI’s? What is your brand goal?” @GoldStarMedia
• “Track hashtags. Create KPIs to narrow focus. Look at following growth. Link clicks and follow through & engagements” @graphic_cash
• “Good ole @googleanalytics: Referral and Recommendation ratio, share of conversation, brand-specific searches, inbound links” @chgormley86
• “If you don’t have the resources to measure it, use something that makes it easier like https://klout.com” @graeme_fulton
• “Shares/mentions metrics tell only half of the story. Analysis tone of conversations behind awareness.” @_nicolemich

See all the great answers to question 6 here!

Q7: Is it possible to change the perception of your brand? If so, how?

From the community:

• “Be truthful, transparent + honest at all times. Brands should rightly evolve – but involve + include your audience!” @MissRachilli
• “Absolutely. But it has to be authentic and top / down + bottom / up. Look @ Nike & child labor.” @dariasteigman
• “A change of methodology must start from within before without. A brand has to change internally first.” @complexkickz
• “gradual, and in line with the customers needs & expectations. See @McDonalds renaming to ‘Macca’s’ in Australia” @AdamCinemre
• “Yes it is! Get back to basics: 1.product/service 2.target audience 3. Value prop 4. Freshen up web look n tagline” @rosiecavero

See all the great answers to question 7 here!

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Thank you so much to our community for sharing your awesome insights and for participating in this chat!

Catch #bufferchat each Wednesday at 9 am PST, 12 pm EST, 5 pm BST **OR** at 4 pm AEST (Sydney time, UTC+10). Join our new Slack community with over 2,000 members to continue these awesome conversations all week long!

Do you have any comments or answers to these questions? Leave your thoughts in the comments! We’d love to hear from you!

Image sources: UnSplash