8 Tips to Create a Viral Brand: How to Ignite Brand Passion

When we think of strong brands, our minds often drift to thoughts of Apple, Google, Coca-Cola and the like. Each are evidently a successful brand who must have used a successful brand strategy. As business owners, it can leave us wondering how we too can experience the same brand success. How often have we seen Apple fans justify their purchase of the next iPhone simply because Apple is ‘the best’ without any technical reasons given. What is it that creates a memorable brand, a powerful brand, a brand that people are passionate about?

Well, it all starts early on in the branding process and, you guessed it, it never stops. Successful brand marketing to increase brand awareness and gain ideal customers is a continued mission, something that we can’t let off the accelerator with. Our brand is communicated in our advertising campaigns, our social media posts, our marketing messages and the way we design and display our visual assets.

Big brands have teams of experts in market research, competitor research and marketing material working for them. We get it, you might not be there yet. However, we’re here to give you a leg up. Read on for 8 branding tips to level up your brand strategy.

8 branding tips to level up your brand strategy

  1. Establish a brand identity: mission and vision

First thing’s first… you need to be clear on your brand mission statement and vision. If you and all your employees aren’t across this early on, potential customers perceive it acutely when they engage with you.

Think of a brand like Apple which has a clear visual identity, consistent message, and business voice. They aren’t here to tag along on the customer journey… they’re about taking the customer on their journey. Your mission and vision statements need to reflect what this journey is.

  1. Leverage market trends

Market trends can refer to the marketing channels that are being engaged most with by customers, or the way a brand markets on those channels (or doesn’t).

Perhaps there are certain brand ambassadors who are receiving more attention for some reason? Perhaps there are social media platforms whose number of users are blowing up. Perhaps there are particular marketing campaigns that are resonating with the public due to current world events?

Don’t manipulate your entire brand to ‘fit the mould’ or you risk sacrificing your vision and statement. But it is important to look at customer behaviour, how the market is trending, and tailor your marketing strategies to make the most of these trends as most successful brands do.

  1. Form referral viral loops

Do you know who the best person to hire for brand advocacy is? It might surprise you… it’s the customer. Yep, you heard us right.

A potential customer hearing from another customer that they should engage with your brand is one of the most effective marketing efforts you’ll invest in. Provide rewards to incentivise current or past customers to refer others.

Let’s be honest, we’ve all claimed a free $20 on Uber eats for referring a friend. It helps build your brand awareness and target customers who might share similar interests to your current buyers. It’s also a brand building strategy that works for you, and that’s the kind of marketing strategy we love.

  1. Build organic growth

Building a strong brand personality and increasing brand recognition needs to start from more than you just shouting your brand voice. Customers need to hear it from other customers. Try to workshop ways that the people can discuss your brand message.

The best way to do this is by incorporating community building strategies into your brand development process. This could look like jumping on a social media site that your target market engages with most.

Once there, you could facilitate spaces for customers to discuss your brand story or brand products, rather than just buy them. That way, you get people talking about them, and they may take that conversation elsewhere getting your brand messaging in front of others on other platforms.

In addition to community, using hashtags, gifs, and making content off of viral trends are all branding efforts that organically build brand awareness. Empower customers to speak your brand voice for you.

  1. Keep the sharing process feeling easy and natural

Reach more of your target audience by keeping the sharing process a natural and easy undertaking for your customers. Build share buttons into your email marketing materials, utilise social media sites that have quick share buttons built in, or even give clear instructions of how to share if that’s what’s required.

Make it easy for your customers and they’ll keep your content marketing easier for you. Do this via multiple channels and your brand logo could be ending up in front of hundreds, if not thousands of new customers without you having to lift a finger.

  1. Make your presence felt in current networks

Getting in on current and trending networks is a must. If your brand exists in a bubble that is an old and outdated network, your brand values and mission will be heard by no one.

This is particularly important for a new brand that is trying to gain traction early on. Typically, this means exploring social media sites that are trending or media outlets that are preferred.

Just remember, follow the ideal customer. There’s no point putting your company branding on a network that is current, but unrelated to your brand’s products or that doesn’t align with your brand style guide.

  1. Research competitor brands in your industry

Don’t shy away from that awkward brand to brand eye contact… look to competitors who are doing it well! You might find there are some kind of ‘brand guidelines’ that they’re sticking to that you could feed off of. Perhaps you’ll find more branding tips in simply watching what they do.

This is particularly important if you’re looking at brand extensions. A brand extension being when you move into new industries or markets. How do we learn to draw? How do we learn to play an instrument? From others!

  1. Know your target audience

The most important but often the most overlooked… Many a small business lose customers to other local businesses because they don’t nail a value proposition that is tailored to their audience.

One of the best ways to get to know your audience is to build what’s called a buyer persona. If you were your customer, consider what you would be looking for, why you would be buying, who you might be buying i for, how the product might make you feel etc.

Time to level up your branding strategy?

You might now realise it’s time to level up your branding strategy. Ensuring brand equity and brand consistency can be hard work. Trust us, we know. A branding agency can make all the difference.