Branding from Within – The Importance of Internal Brand Building

Do your employees know your brand promise? Do they know your primary brand message and what your brand’s image is? Do they know how your brand is positioned relative to similar brands on the market?

If you answered ‘no’ to any of these questions, then you need to spend time building your brand from within your organization. Employees are the strongest brand advocates, but they can’t advocate your brand effectively if they don’t understand it or buy into it.

Following are ten suggestions to help you build your brand internally:

1. Create a Twitter account using CoTweet.com where multiple employees can get involved with external branding efforts and other employees can learn more about the brand. You can also create private Twitter groups that your employees can join and you can share branding messages using a tool like GroupTweet.com.
2. Get a Flip video camera (or hire a video producer) and interview employees about your brand. Share stories on an internal Web page.
3. Create private social networking groups for employees and communicate branding messages.
4. Create printed materials that teach employees about your brand in an entertaining fashion rather than like a training guide.
5. Interview customers and share their feelings about your brand with employees.
6. Explain how your brand is different from competitors.
7. Create branded experiences for employees where they can share the brand just like consumers do.
8. Encourage employees to join social networking groups, join Twitter, and write blogs where they can advocate your brand. Just be sure to create social media guidelines for employees. There are hundreds of Google employee blogs. If Google can do it, so can you.
9. Make sure your employees are motivated to use your branded products and services. How would it look if a Starbucks employee drank Dunkin’ Donuts coffee? You don’t want a similar faux pas to happen with your employees.
10. Hire a Chief Brand Officer to lead the initiative.

Don’t be afraid to get creative with internal branding efforts. If your employees don’t believe in your brand, why should consumers?

Image: Flickr

Author

Lucy Nixon

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Lucy is Editor at Corporate Eye