How to develop a strong brand for an IT project? What tools to use to increase awareness and create deep and meaningful relationship with partners? How to use the capacity of media entertainment for the needs of B2B markets? Sapar Karyagdyyev, CEO at Gamingtec, an international IT company, shares some useful information that can come in handy for entrepreneurs and businessmen.
Talking about brand awareness, Sapar Karyagdyyev offers to focus on how we understand the term “brand.” It includes more than just a name and logo of a company or a project. The brand is synergy of design, identity, communications, feelings, and emotions that consumers get while interacting with the product or receiving the service. For companies that work in the B2B sector, partner`s emotional response is a key indicator. The more reliable, secure, flexible, and collaborative is the company, the more partnership deals it can bring.
The key task of B2B branding is creating a positive image and reputation for the project that suits the positioning of its multiple stakeholders and brings better selling opportunities and relationships that are more profitable. Projects with a strong brand always benefit from the loyalty of partners: they can avoid discounts on their service and enter new markets easier due to good brand recognition.
According to Sapar Karyadyyev, the work on branding should be started by shaping brand identity, a unique set of brand associations that represent what the brand stands for and what it promises to its partners, and a brand positioning, i.e., the way that the brand identity is implemented. The brand positioning is always based on the targeted market and the results of competitor analysis. The next step is creating a unique selling proposition based on the competitive advantages that the company can offer.
Brand awareness raises when the company is distributing information about its competitive advantages worded in so-called ‘brand messages.’ These messages are used in brand communication that covers different advertising channels, mostly digital ones. One of the most effective channels for information dissemination is social media that allows the company to build personalized content for the brand. Sapar Karyagdyyev refers to an academic study ‘Media Entertainment’ by professors Zillmann and Vorderer, that emphasizes: ‘media entertainment is a function of technological development’ aim of ‘the attainment of gratification.’
Interactive media entertainment allows focusing on the personalities of project representatives, their knowledge, skills, and experience. Let`s stop at some practical tips that can help a company to increase brand awareness with social media.
- Know who is your targeted audience and understand its interests, needs, and occupations. Choose the tone of voice and types of content accordingly. Think about the additional value you can provide to your followers on social media.
- Make your posts engaging. Publish personal pictures, not stock images, share your expertise, provide cases, testimonials from your clients, add infographics, or discuss industry news. Interact with your followers, talk to them in the comments, and do not leave their questions without answers.
- Stick to your brand theme and brand messages. Create visual and text content that informs your audience about your services and the advantages of collaboration with you. Follow brand book instructions in design, so the followers can always recognize your posts in their timelines.
- Tag other brands and industry experts appropriately. This is the way to become ‘visible’ to their followers, and thus, widen your audience.
- Post regularly. Create a content plan and track users’ activity via available analytic tools on each platform. Social media algorithms give preferences to pages with regular activity.
Brand building via social media is challenging. Despite all the great opportunities it provides, communication on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, or other social media does not provide you with full control of the process. Publishing personalized content, you should be ready to various reactions from the audience and possible acts of provocation by competitors. And of course, you should know how to work with feedback (recommendations on crisis communication might come in handy).
In conclusion, Sapar Karyagdyyev points out the most important rule necessary to build a brilliant brand strategy: keep it simple! However complicated is your technology, your message should be easy to understand and remember. ‘If I offer you to think different, you will probably think about Apple, won`t you?’
