How To Grow Your Brand

One of the keys to growing your brand is first knowing what it is.  Yet, your brand needs to be 100% your brand. It can not be something someone has told you you should do. It must be totally you, and about you. I am not saying be selfish, but what I am saying is that you must discover who you are, in order to be who you desire to be. Branding has been around for a long time; yet, since the advent of “Social Media,” branding is no longer limited to big business. Branding now is in the hand of each and every person who desires to find, and define their greatness.

Take Wal-Mart for instance, a customer can get almost anything they want at Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart makes its money by buying as much merchandise as it can at a cheap cost, and then selling it at a cheaper cost than its competitors. While at the same time corralling as many people as the store can hold, and allowing them the choice of buying what they want and need. Have you noticed that at the lines of most shopping centers, that when you get in line, there are racks of things you can buy on your way out. How many of us have gone into the store for one thing, and have come out with much more than you wanted  to buy. This is the key to really developing a great brand, you need to offer more than the customers needs or think they need.

Now does this mean that you need to be a know it all, no, what it means if that you must understand you and your brand to the point that you can offer complementary items to consume by the consumer. Back to Wal-Mart, Wal-Mart does not just sale radios without selling the cords, boxes, amps, and installation items you will need to install the radio, they even sale music for when you are done. and want to try out the sound. This is the mentality for success, give the consumer everything they need to get the job done. Your brand should be able to meet people where they are, it should be able to be diverse while at the same time staying focused on the causes you are focused on.

STAYING A HEAD OF TRENDS

One of the great things about Wal-Mart is that they are ahead of trends, they seem to know what is the new hotness. Why do I say this? When flat screens where just coming out, Wal-Mart Started to sale them cheaper so their consumers to afford them. When everyone else was selling the name brand ones, Wal-Mart was selling after market ones for the low. What happened was the the name brand companies noticed that Wal-Mart put their competitors product in front of thousand so eyes a day. While their product was limited to just a few hundred eyes. So now you can see that Wal-Mart has almost all the name brand screen in its stores, and they are still selling the after market ones. Branding and product placement are very important items.

Not just for Wal-Mart, but also for your brand, your business, and your social media presence.  You must learn as much as you can about your brand and your subject matter. Then you need to know as much as your can about the things that complements you ideals. Lets say you love basketball, then you need to know about sneakers, the teams history or about the teams cap space, things like this. You need to become an expert at your passion in all areas of your passion, and the things your passion affects.

HOW WAL-MART FAILS IN THIS NEW AGE

How Wal-Mart fails and many other companies, it that they have yet to adopt this new ideal called Social Media. Wal-Mart would tell you that they sale what their consumers buy the most, and a few other things. Yet, with the growing numbers of consumers using the web for everyday life, it might be smarter for Wal-Mart to use social media as away to impact a broader base for their company. Buy offering social media a web site where their consumers and tell Wal-Mart what works for them and what does not work for them, Wal-Mart and other companies could find out ways to place items in places their consumers would like to seen them rather than just a floor plan they change from time to time.

Many major companies will tell you, “we have a web site,” but who cares about seeing what they can buy or what you have sales on. Why not allow your consumers the ability to connect together, find friends, and build communities around recipes, and other items they use.

What would be the cost for Wal-Mart allow the down loading of movies, games, and other tec items. Social Media if much more than blogs, facebook or myspaces. Social Media is about putting the power into the hands of consumers. The consumers now wants to feel that they are apart of this society and not just a consumer of goods. We desire to have a voice into what we consume.