Why Brands are Planned

The biggest bite-back I received from my presentation at the Small Town 140 Characters Conference on Monday was my declaration that “Brands are planned.” Granted, it was small group that disagreed, but I feel it needs some explanation. First, take a look at the video of my presentation below: “Your Tweet is Your Brand.” Each speaker was given 10 minutes to make their point. (see all speaker videos here: Small Town #140Conf Videos)

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The misinterpretation of my statement “brands are planned” is that it means “brands are fake.” Not true. I am a firm believer in true branding and branding is about self discovery. But that doesn’t mean brands aren’t planned. In fact, planned brands are just like real people.

You are more planned than you consciously think you are. Before you go to work or make any public appearance, you carefully choose your outfit based on how you want to be perceived. Your LinkedIn profile, your Twitter Profile pic, your résumé? Same thing. It doesn’t mean they aren’t true, it just means you are planning your brand persona by filtering the information you publicly deliver.

One of my statements in the presentation was that “people don’t need to know everything about you.” I probably should have added: “People don’t want to know everything about you.” They only need, and want, to know what’s relevant to make a purchase decision. And that’s one reason why brands are planned.

The other big reason brands are planned is that you need to be memorable. You need to make an impression on potential customers, and you don’t have much of their attention span in which to make that impression. That’s why you must focus, and plan, your brand identity so that when you do get the customers precious attention, they understand what you are about and why they might do business with you.

Brands are not haphazard accidents. The are planned representations of the truth.  How do you plan your brand?

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