How to Humanize Your Brand and Give It a Clear Brand Voice

It’s a common saying in business circles, but it’s the plain truth:

People do business with people they know, like and trust.

You wouldn’t want to hand over your money to a total stranger, a robot, or some faceless organization, would you?

Of course not!

But that’s exactly how most brands act – distant, removed, and without a clear identity. Their brand communication is very detached and cold. They say all the right things. They are prim and proper. Have very coordinated feeds and websites. But the result comes in trickles.

This brand consistently struggles to connect with their target audience or build any meaningful relationship with them.

What do you think is the issue?

Well, really EVERYTHING!

As long as your brand is not ‘human’ enough and communications are not conversational and natural, people will find it hard to like, engage, and connect with it. And that also means they’re less likely to do business with you.

Although your business is a corporate entity, it needs to consciously take on a distinct and likeable personality with brand characteristics, voice, and tone that resonates with the target market.

In other words, to genuinely connect with your target audience and influence their buying behaviour, it’s important you learn how to ‘humanize’ your brand.

After all, people buy from people not from buildings and offices. They want to hear the message of a person, not a company.

Here’s how…

1. Put a Face to your brand

People relate to people. Customers and prospects will value and trust your business better if they can relate it with real people they can value and trust. Although it is often undervalued, this is perhaps the most interesting part of your brand. Adding a team’s page to your website featuring your staff adds to the human side of your brand and gives the visitor an idea of the people behind the brand name and logo and what to expect when they buy from you.

Prime Childrens Dental Care does this really well. Here are some benefits of putting a face to your brand:

It removes doubt about the business management and shows prospects the faces behind the brand.
It stands your brand out from rivals who don’t have a face or faces associated with their brand image.
It gives more authenticity to your brand story when an actual person associated with your company tells it

2 - Build relationships Like a human

In a rapidly changing world, communication is always evolving. So should you, to thrive with your business. To connect at a deeper and meaningful level with your target audience, your brand needs to build relationships with them and act like a ‘person.’ And that means rethinking your communication tools and channels.

It’s time to start shifting focus from things like email blasts and traditional advertising that barely trigger or give room for conversations.

Make your brand feel less like a corporate engine to your demographics and more like a human that wants to build a relationship with them and values their feedback.

Relationships are the lifeblood of the dynamic social network technology and the template on which they’re modeled. Never lose sight of that fact as you try to engage with your current and prospective customers.

Converse, interact, connect, engage and build relationships with your target audience as a human being or group of humans (rather than just a Twitter handle or brand name), and they’ll stay loyal to your brand, no matter how the social landscape changes.

3 - Share your opinion

In today’s social media-driven world, no one’s sitting on the fence any longer.

Your potential client is looking to see your opinion on prominent social issues like the environment, gender and equality, diversity. They often are also interested in where you (as a brand) stand, and not just what you sell.

More and more buyers are becoming belief-driven. And they like to think their favorite brand shares their views on certain social issues and values that drive humanity.

Besides, there’s a humanizing effect that comes with taking a stand that your brand can gain from.

With the recent Black Lives Matter Movement (BLM) many including me were not sure how to respond even though we supported the cause. As a result my silence upset a few and when I spoke I still upset others.

In my opinion, while it’s important to share your brand’s personality with your audience to help you stand out, you should avoid getting too personal, whether, on your website, your social media or other channels of communication.

It’s best to stay off sensitive topics like politics and religions and also not engage in negative feedback. Doing so can harm your brand’s reputation and turn off your followers.

4 - Show your funny side

Spicing up your content with humor is a great way to humanize your brand. Not everything about your business has to be business-y. Lighten up occasionally with your brand messaging and humor. Find the fun part of a story to get your readers or viewers smiling and thus connect better with them. For example, rather than showing off your staff as a bunch of serious, stiff-faced corporates on your team page, think about presenting an image of a company of smart, relaxed, and happy individuals with creative shots of your staff members showing their funny and relatable sides.

Wistia is a beautiful example to check out. Like you did in your high school yearbook, each team member picture is a GIF which moves when you hover over it. With every motion picture is revealed a tiny bit of their personality. How cool is that? Everyone loves a little humor sometimes. It’s a simple and effective way to grab attention and sustain interest. But make sure the humor is not just fun, but also provide useful information and control. Don’t offend people with your humor.

5 - Have a Plan

Humanizing your brand is no easy task and requires careful planning, just like you would do on any key business decision. You’ll need to set clear goals and objectives for both the short and the long term, as well as specific strategies and actions to help you meet them. In addition, set well-defined and reasonable KPIs to help you measure results.

6 - Hire a skilled and dedicated social media manager or team

Brands that have a skilled and dedicated employee or team working closely together to build a likeable personality for the company are more likely to do well with this goal. It’s important the social media manager or team are people with an open-minded, team worker, and engaging attitude.

They should be creative, passionate, problem-solvers, and able to inspire, organize, and build interesting conversations that form or strengthen the brand’s relationships with target customers and local communities, both online and offline.

7 - Use Video

Video content is one of the most effective ways to capture and retain people’s attention. Use this to your advantage in your brand content.

Add interesting, and relevant videos to your content, whether on your website’s ‘About Us’ page, your social media posts, or your TV advertisements. Put them anywhere you have your brand name and logo to complement whatever message you’re sending out.

8 - Tell brand stories, don’t just sell products

Stories have a unique ability to build connections and influence social behavior.

I know I’ve said it before, but I’ll emphasize it that people connect with people, not businesses. Humanizing your brand is all about making your audience see your business as a likeable, relatable person, not really as a business.

Make your business take up a personality that has a lighter side to it. A lighter side that tells brand stories (both successes and failures) that pique readers’ interest.

9 - speak in your customers’ language

There’s a certain humdrum feel to corporate writing. It typically lacks excitement or variety. And it’s in large part, boring. If there’s a shortcut to humanizing your brand, it’s ditching the corporate mumbo jumbo style of conventional brand language for a simple, crisp, and free-flowing language your customers love.

Use words, tone, and rhythm your audience can easily understand. Talk to them like you would to a pal. This is perhaps the most important tip on humanizing your brand.

When writing copy, keep in mind you want to talk to a friend or someone close to you who’s interested in buying your product or engaging your service. Make that image your buyer persona, so your content and style become clearer

10 - Share User Generated Content

Sharing user-generated content works to humanize your brand in two ways: First, it’s exciting and flattering to the user who gets his or her photo featured on your website or social media feed. Second, it shows other consumers that you have great relationships with their peers and that those people already enjoy your products.

Instead of being asked to blindly trust a company’s claims, consumers will see real-life people falling in love with your products, which will promote trust in your brand. Example? Airbnb does user-generated content well by sharing with its followers the amazing experiences its customers are having around the world.