Everyone has a brand. Organizations of all sizes across all industries have some semblance of a brand. Beyond a logo, branding represents an organization's voice, style, and personality. One purpose of having a strong, consistent brand is to build a relationship between a company and its consumers. People buy from brands they like and trust.
How are strong brands built? Sure, the investment of time and money into brand assets and communications certainly helps, but what (or who) has the potential to make or break a company's brand? Its employees do.
Employees = Brand Ambassadors.
Every interaction a consumer has with the members of a company builds up (or breaks down) that person's perception of the company's brand. How do you ensure that members of your organization communicate the same (positive) message to the outside world?
Build brand awareness internally.
Though there are various strategies for building brand awareness within your company, we are just going to highlight one particular area. Here are three tips for improving brand awareness using your intranet.
1. Communicate Your Brand Standards
First and foremost, use your intranet as the place to store and share information about your brand. Describe your brand's visual and verbal identity. Share logos and color palettes, and explain their meaning and value. Provide the company boilerplate, mission, values, and positioning. Give employees examples of how they should refer to different aspects of your organization. Most companies have a formal style guide for their brand. This information usually stays in the hands of the core team who creates content for the company: marketers, PR professionals, designers, etc. Brand standards can provide value to other members of the organization when put into context that's helpful for them. Use your intranet as the place to store this information and direct employees there to reference it.
2. Build a Community
The people of an organization facilitate the interactions consumers have with a brand. In many ways, your brand is rooted in your people. Use your intranet to build a community of employees who share common goals and interests. Create articles in your intranet that resonate with your employees. Inspire action and encourage them to join the conversation by commenting. Your intranet can help build up your brand by making space for your employees to engage and interact with one another online.
3. Keep Employees Informed
Get everyone on the same page, and you're one step closer to getting everyone to communicate the same message about your company. Email isn't going away, but it's certainly not the best way to disseminate information to employees in this day and age. Use your intranet as the central location for company announcements, and quit getting lost in people's inboxes. Provide timely updates about new things happening in your organization, post helpful reminders, and spotlight new employees. Make your intranet the place to go for company information, and ensure your employees are in-the-loop so that everyone can communicate the same message.
Turn Employees into Brand Advocates
Building brand awareness inside your organization requires intention and commitment. Simplify your efforts by using your intranet to help. Communicate your brand to your employees, build a sense of community in your organization, and keep everyone on the same page. With these tactics and a user-friendly intranet, you can turn your employees into strong advocates for your brand.
An intranet built for engagement and brand awareness is essential for this process. Check out IntranetPro to see how your company can increase engagement.
