Humans are social by nature. We spend our days talking and interacting with the world around us day in and day out. Any connections we create often influence different aspects of our lives such as our friendships, places of work, and even the businesses we support.
When it comes to businesses, while name recognition does go a long way, consumers have become increasingly aware of how and where they spend their money.
It’s easier to turn to a brand that has established a connection with you, and one that you can relate to. On the other hand, it’s easy to turn away from a brand that only sends you ads and constantly asks for your money.
Brand humanization has become the most surefire way of establishing these important connections with your customers. But how exactly does your business begin humanizing itself? In this article, we’ll be covering the top 5 ways your brand can begin humanizing itself—let’s go!
1. Show off your team
Nothing beats entering a business and immediately recognizing the person behind the counter. Such an experience creates a friendly, welcoming environment almost immediately. Letting your audience see the people behind your business is an extremely effective way to humanize your brand.
Your employees are the ones who keep your business running, so why not showcase all their hard work?
Consider planning a day where you shoot and photograph your entire company to display on your website and throughout your social media platforms. Not only do team photos show your business understands the value its employees bring, but they also create a much more friendly environment when visiting a website than a business logo.
There are plenty of reasons to showcase your employees—from an employee of the month to birthdays. The more faces you show, the easier it will be to begin humanizing your brand.
2. Speak like your audience
While audiences differ greatly between businesses, understanding who your audience is and what it is they expect from you is crucial to humanizing your brand. You may have different groups of people within your audience, but realistically, almost no one wants to read corporate talk and overly fluffed language.
How you speak to your audience will ultimately depend on whether your focus is B2C or B2B.
If your business is B2B, then you should focus on speaking to your audience in an informative, educational manner. Everyone calls themselves an industry leader—even when they aren’t. Instead of trying to fake it till you make it, be straightforward with your business audience and show them how your product or service will benefit them.
If your business is B2C, then you’ll want to take a more personal approach. The better you become at understanding your customers’ language, the more “human” you will make yourself appear.
3. Go behind the scenes
While it’s easy to follow an influencer based on their lifestyle and likes, businesses on the other hand have a harder time generating an audience that actually engages with their content. The reasoning behind this is simple: just because you like something so much to create a business out of it doesn’t mean that your customers will equally like it.
However, there are two sides to this. For example, let’s say you run a waste management company (not the most exciting of trades). While a majority of the people you service may not care for your day-to-day, the ones that follow your business’s online profiles may actually care.
Your business’s online following wants a window into your brand, which is why they follow you.
They want to see the culture of the business that they support, your various employees and their day-to-day tasks, and so much more.
To humanize your brand and create a more inclusive environment for your customers, consider posting behind the scene type of content from time to time. Not only will this help keep your online content fresh, but it will also act as a way to “break” the barrier between your business and its customers.
4. Customer service (get personal)
For most customers, the quality of your service (friendliness, familiarity, helpfulness, etc.) is just as important as the quality of your products or services.
To better humanize your brand, make your business a friendly and welcoming partner in the eyes of your customers. The more your customers see that you care about them, the more likely they will be to continue giving you their business.
70% of a customer’s buying experience is based on how the customer feels about the way they are being treated. A way your business can begin being more personable is by customizing your special offers around proven customer behavior using your business’s analytics rather than making predictions based on general demographics.
Giving customers more of what they want is an effective way of making your brand more personal, and in turn, more humanized.
5. Problem solve and take responsibility
Nobody is perfect. Although your business may do everything to prevent them, problems do occasionally arise and your business is only as good as the reputation it has.
Whenever a problem occurs, be sure to quickly acknowledge your mistake and apologize if necessary.
Being honest with your customers shows authenticity, and it also lets customers know that your brand is ready and willing to correct any mistakes and improve its processes. Many times, businesses will do everything they can to maintain a certain reputation at all costs, even if it’s the business that is at fault.
It is also important to handle problems in an effective manner. When a customer has an issue, the last thing they want is to be directed to a dated FAQ page that doesn’t even have a solution to the problem they are facing.
People enjoy speaking to other people, so be sure to implement ways in which your customers can speak with a real, sympathetic person ideally in person, or by phone, whenever a problem arises.
Moving forward
Overall, humanizing your brand enables your business to create a deep connection with your audience—helping you to establish trust and a line of communication with your customers.
When it comes to developing content for your social media accounts, posting daily is preferred, but not always possible. So if your business needs help managing and uploading content to your social media accounts, consider incorporating a social media marketing tool into your marketing strategy.
Practina is an innovative social media tool that automates content creation for your business and enables you to run ads in less than five minutes. Simplify your life, automate your social media marketing, and connect with your audience like never before with Practina.
