Brand identity vs. brand image: what’s the difference?

In MARKETING
21 April 2022
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As shown in our latest infographic, brand identity is a very important component of your brand. And brand image is just as crucial! However, “brand image” and “brand identity” are often confused, so let’s define each of these concepts.

What is brand identity?

Brand identity is what you, as a company, want your brand to represent: the image of it that you want to project, and how you want it to be perceived by the public.

Brand identity includes the following elements:

  • your brand style guide (logo, typefaces, colors, etc)
  • the tone of your words
  • your values
  • your history
  • your positioning

Brand identity is therefore entirely dependent on your company and its overall strategy. The clearer and more precise your identity, the better. This will allow you to follow a logical guideline for your company and for the public.

💡 TIP: reinforce your brand identity in your digital publications with our White Label feature (available to PLATINUM users) and personalize the viewer so that it matches your brand style guide.

What is brand image?

Brand image is how the public perceives your brand, what they really think of it. It’s a feeling, and, in a way, the reputation of your brand.

Brand image depends on:

  • your public speaking and communications
  • your marketing activities
  • client experience

A positive brand image is essential for your brand. Not only will the public think highly of your products, but this will also help increase your sales because your customers will be your best ambassadors when they tell their friends and family about you. On the other hand, a negative brand image could be catastrophic. If your products are only associated with bad things, there is little chance that they will sell.

💡 TIP: to improve your brand image, it is important to offer high value-added content such as digital publications. Tutorials or magazines are good ideas of content to propose, but there are many other types of content you can publish with Calaméo.

How do they influence each other?

The influence of brand identity on brand image

Brand identity contributes to maintaining a good brand image. For example, a new product with a high price will be perceived positively by the public if the brand has a luxury positioning that is part of its identity. The high price will be perceived as a guarantee of quality by the consumer, who will therefore have a good image of your product and your brand, because it is in line with your identity.

On the flip side, if your brand contradicts its identity, it can create bad press. Imagine creating a new product whose manufacturing method goes against the values displayed by the brand. In this case, your customers may have the impression that you have lied to them about your motivations and convictions.

Therefore, you must master your brand identity and stick to it.

The influence of brand image on brand identity

Brand image is a good indicator of the effectiveness of your brand identity. As a matter of fact, a good image will reinforce the idea that your identity is clear, controlled, and understood by the public. It then be a matter of continuing to make your decisions in the same way.

In contrast, a bad brand image will require changes. This could mean an entire or partial rebranding of your identity: choosing a new logo or new values, for example.

Conclusion

Brand image and brand identity are therefore two very important elements for your brand. One represents the image that your company wants to give to your brand, the other is the real image that the public has in mind, its feeling towards your brand.

Ultimately, these two crucial elements depend on each other, so make sure not to neglect either one.

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MARKETING

Digital content marketing: 5 ways to start

In MARKETING
25 February 2021

If you feel like you’ve been hearing more and more about content marketing over the past few years, you’re not alone! Although this strategy has been around for at least 100 years, it’s become especially important in the Internet age. Today, digital content marketing is working for businesses of all kinds—all over the planet.

Have you been wondering whether the time is right to try digital content marketing? In this article, we’ll explain everything you need to know about getting started.

  1. What is digital content marketing?
  2. How does it work?
  3. Why is this kind of marketing so popular?
  4. Where should I start?

What is digital content marketing?

First, let’s look at content marketing in general. Content marketing promotes a brand or business by offering people something useful: information, entertainment or insight. In other words, it’s about creating content that potential customers will discover and enjoy. This content can help them explore your products and solutions. Or it can simply introduce your company to new audiences.

Traditional content marketing includes things like guides, magazines and professional reports. However, digital content marketing has a much wider range of possibilities. For example, blogs, newsletters, infographics, videos, GIFs, slideshows, white papers, webinars and podcasts are all great formats for content marketing online. All you need is ideas to share!

How does it work?

The strategy behind digital content marketing is straightforward. Because billions of people go online to look for information, every search is an opportunity for your answer to be found. Ideally, you should focus your content around the interests of the people you want to reach. That way, when your target audience is browsing the web, they’re more likely to see results and posts from your company.

Next, capture their attention with engaging content. You can do this in all sorts of different ways, from a fun meme to a presentation of your business services. Most importantly, users who engage with your content will learn something about what your company offers. And after they’ve found your content, give them plenty of opportunities to keep exploring! More browsing means spending more time with your brand.

Finally, help your audience choose to purchase from your business. High-quality content builds trust, but you should also think specifically about questions that future clients might have regarding your solutions. Provide them with all the information they need to make an order. An extra bonus? Such well-informed users are more likely to be happy with their decision to buy and become repeat customers.

You may have seen this digital content marketing strategy described as a customer path or journey: Awareness > Consideration > Decision.

Today, digital content marketing is more popular than ever. A recent study found that 84% of companies had a content marketing strategy. (And that includes both B2B and B2C businesses, as well as non-profits and other organizations!) Even better, most companies surveyed were happy with their strategy. Over 60% rated its performance as excellent or good, and 71% saw an improvement compared to the previous year.

There are a few reasons why this trend is so powerful. For one, digital content marketing can be more efficient than traditional marketing. Instead of using advertising to find potential clients, businesses create content that allows potential clients to find them online. Plus, a good content marketing strategy doesn’t require huge resources. With just your website, knowledge of your business and a few useful tools, you’ll be all set to get started.

Where should I start?

Before we dive in, keep in mind that content marketing is not usually a strong short-term strategy. That is, it takes time to make great content, show up in search results and build an audience. To stay on track, don’t forget about other marketing actions like promotions while you work on these long-term efforts.

Here are 5 steps to develop your digital content marketing projects.

Find out what content you already have

If you think you don’t have any content, think again! Take a few minutes to review the material your business already uses to communicate with prospects and customers. This might include social channels, like your company Facebook page, as well as website content like videos, About pages and more. Write everything down in one place and note which content you consider most successful.

💡 TIP: Remember “offline” formats like brochures, annual reports and sales documents. In many cases, you can transform these printed material into digital publications to use in your content marketing.

Analyze what your customers need

Once you know what content your company already offers, it’s time to find areas to grow. Think back to questions you’ve received from customers over the years. What did they want to know more about before buying? Which factors helped them decide? When did they need extra support?

At this stage, you may also want to request feedback from your customer service and sales teams. Make a list of all the information potential clients need and notice where you can create new content.

Brainstorm content ideas

Now that the subject matter to cover is clear, schedule a brainstorming session to come up with content ideas. For example, imagine you’ve discovered that prospects often want to see real-world references of your product in use. Here are a few types of content you could make to address that need:

  • Customer case studies
  • Customer interviews
  • User-submitted photos of your products
  • How-to guides to using your products
  • Statistics about customer use

For each idea, there are a number of different formats available. A customer interview could be produced as a blog post, video or podcast. On the other hand, use statistics could be published in a report, infographic or animation. Let your creativity run wild and try to suggest as many content ideas as possible.

Evaluate what you can do

Hopefully, your brainstorm session has resulted in a lot of fantastic ideas for your digital content marketing strategy. However, it’s important to stay realistic when getting started. It may be easier to set up and write posts for a company blog than to launch a video series! Check the content that you’d most like to create against the resources it requires. One of the most cost-effective options? Embed a polished digital publication in your website for users to browse. You can be generating leads online in no time.

Make a plan

The final step is to organize all of your hard work into a single content marketing plan. Although these can be very complex, you should feel free to focus on the basics. Summarize the main points of your strategy:

  • Audience you’ll address
  • Topics you’ll cover
  • Types of content you’ll make
  • Channels to publish and promote content
  • Timeline for content production

From there, you’ll be in great shape to begin creating content!

Of course, this quick guide is just to show you where to get started with digital content marketing. To build out your strategy, there’s lots more to consider from social media to SEO. But you can try out digital publishing right now, for free! Join Calaméo and publish your documents online in seconds.

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MARKETING

How to promote content with LinkedIn

In MARKETING
24 February 2022

The Digital Publisher’s Guide to Social Media

Thanks to social media, delivering content to thousands of people at once is as easy as hitting the “Post” button. But it isn’t always easy to achieve the results you have in mind. That’s why we’re bringing you a new series all about making these channels work for your digital publishing needs. Next up: how to promote content with LinkedIn.

Why use LinkedIn to promote content?

If you think of LinkedIn mostly as a place to look for job openings, think again. Over the past several years, the social network built for professionals has added lots of new features and tools designed for content. Although it’s not the biggest social platform, LinkedIn’s 810 million users represent a particularly valuable audience of executives, entrepreneurs and employees.

As a result, LinkedIn has become a key channel for distributing B2B digital content. In other words, businesses that sell their products or services to other businesses want to be seen in LinkedIn Feeds. In fact, it’s the #1 social media network for B2B marketers with a content strategy. A recent study found that 95% said they published non-sponsored posts on LinkedIn. (More focused on B2C? Keep reading—B2C marketers use the platform, too.)

Since 30 million companies have joined LinkedIn, the importance of B2B influencers has exploded. Also called “thought leaders,” these users can attract big audiences to their reflections on trends, tools and ideas in business. Consider how your digital publications, from brochures to white papers, can help your company join the conversation and reach the right readers. Then, get ready to promote content with LinkedIn.

LinkedIn Network icon

Choose the right format

The first choice you’ll need to make when posting your content to LinkedIn is what format to use. Because LinkedIn offers different options than most other social platforms, this can be a little more complicated than usual. For example, personal profiles and business pages don’t have the same posting possibilities.

If you’re posting from a business page to promote content with LinkedIn, you’ll have three main choices. You can create a classic Link post, an Image post or a Document post.

Link post

  • A Link post is great for sharing important sales and lead generation content, like your professional digital publications on Calaméo. Whether embedded on a landing page or ready to browse in our full-screen viewer, your publications can benefit from readers coming from LinkedIn.

Image post

  • An Image post will contain a featured .jpg or .png file, plus your message. To achieve an Image look while still including a link in your update, first enter the post text and link. Then, LinkedIn will pull a selection of images from your link to use in your post. Choose the image you prefer and hit Post!

Document post

  • A Document post allows you to publish an entire PDF file within a LinkedIn update. Readers will be able to view your document without ever leaving their feeds, which means you can share more complex content directly in the Feed.

If you’re posting from a personal profile, you also have access to LinkedIn’s Articles feature. The Articles format is similar to a blog post: longer than the messages that accompany Link, Image and Document posts, but more limited in scope than a digital publication.

In short, the post format that works best for you will depend on why you want to promote content with LinkedIn. For instance, Articles and Image posts might help you find new followers and build an audience on the platform. However, Link posts to your digital publications may be most effective for nurturing prospects and gaining customers.

LinkedIn Learning icon

Optimize your message

In addition to its professional user base, marketers love LinkedIn for its generally high engagement rates for organic posts. You should expect to see 1-2% of the people who see your update to comment, click, react or share. Meanwhile, engagement rates on Facebook and Twitter are only about half of that: 0.50% to 1%.

What’s more, LinkedIn has been open about the factors that make a post likely to get better reach. Above all, engagement matters. Getting your followers—and their followers!—to respond to your posts is the key factor to effectively promote content with LinkedIn.

So what can you do in concrete terms to encourage engagement? There are lots of ideas out there, but the most common advice is to focus on your post text. For every type of post format, you’ll be able to include a message of up to 700 characters. Use that space to speak to your audience! Explain why they should click, ask what they think, tell them a story about your content. To finish, add a few well-chosen hashtags to make your post easier to discover.

LinkedIn Messages icon

Watch for conversions

Once you’ve started sharing on LinkedIn, you can begin to evaluate the kinds of content that you’d most like to emphasize. For many B2B oriented companies, online content marketing with guides, case studies, white papers and more has become an important way to find new customers. And you’ll want to know how well these digital publications are performing.

LinkedIn provides a number of useful statistics about your updates, which are visible to company Page Administrators in their Analytics tab. Besides gaining valuable insights into your audience, you can check the reach, clicks and overall engagement rate of your posts. Unfortunately, there are no more specific details available about the digital publications that you’ve shared. In other words, even Document posts won’t have data about publication views.

Therefore, you can get the best out of both worlds when you promote content with LinkedIn that is part of your sales and marketing strategy. Create a post about a digital publication embedded on your website, where a pop-up form can generate leads. Or enrich your business’s catalogue with Shopping links, then share to support sales. Your digital publications on Calaméo come with advanced statistics that help you dig deeper into audience engagement.   

Ready to start?

Now that you’ve got all the details about how to promote content with LinkedIn, it’s time to turn your online documents into great digital publications. Sign up for your free Calaméo account today and explore what digital publishing can do for you!