How to Perceive Brand Building in the Creator Economy - 2024

What a year of changing mindsets for solid brand building in an entrepreneurial world where the business landscape gets deeper into AGI [Artificial General Intelligence], with high tech vying to overshadow high touch in digital marketing. Are you still caught up in the clutches of practicing a hustling culture in the name of entrepreneurship for brand building? You shouldn’t! You have come a long way with us so far in all your brand-building strategies in 2023. So, 2024 should see you with a better understanding of digital marketing and get deeper into your brand-building process and journey as an entrepreneur, creator, freelancer, and marketer.

The creator economy is estimated to continue growing due to tech industry layoffs that cause a shift in how most of these top-tier tech creators choose to go it alone and be independent. According to Goldman Sachs, the creator economy will hit $480 billion in growth by 2027, with creators worldwide joining the bandwagon of being more creative and innovative with their entrepreneurial and nomadic lifestyles. Maybe most people have had enough of the AI scares with job security compromised and disrupted, resulting in the trauma and stress of insecurities with one’s future in a tech-dominated business world.

What is Brand Building? 

Brand building is the creative and entrepreneurial approach to marketing through establishing brand identity, presence, positioning, and raising awareness for professionally promoting your brand using digital marketing tools and platforms like social media channels, websites, and blog marketing that promotes brand marketing through purpose and value-based content creation.

It is everything you do for brand marketing with purpose, value, and benefit provision as your focus and drive in your brand-building process and journey. It is the long-term process of making people know your brand, like, trust, and choose it over your competitors in the market. Remember, the business landscape has evolved, and digital marketing gets disrupted by Generative AI marketing tools and apps.

So, stepping back and reflecting on how best you understand brand building and what it means in digital marketing and its place in any industry and business venture seeking recognition and establishment as a brand in the market will keep you afloat in your brand-building process and journey against any high-tech distractions and disruptions.

The High-Tech Challenge in Brand Building

High tech is here to stay. And its infusion into digital marketing for brand building is a reality you can’t avoid and run away from. So, do not get deeper into the new year in confusion about what you are doing in your brand-building process and journey, especially in marketing and promoting your brand to the world. Digital marketing has always been online marketing centering around brand identity, presence, positioning, and raising awareness of your business venture, especially in the digital creator economy.  

With digital marketing incorporating more high-touch principles by transitioning from instant viral metrics gratification into something more substantial that comes from providing value and benefit to your target market, brand building is the best way to survive and thrive in the digital creator economy. The realization of marketing based on the purpose and value of your business venture is what brand building is and what it involves in the creative digital economy.

Fortunately, most creative entrepreneurs in most service-oriented businesses believe high-tech will never overshadow high-touch marketing strategies in the business landscape. With skill sets, knowledge, information, talents, creativity, and innovation in product and service provision driving the creatorpreneur economy in the digital global economy, you still have the power to turn tables against all odds from Generative AI tech threats and disruptions for sustainable brand-building in the oversaturated marketplace.  

Here are the main aspects of brand building to understand and strategize for solid brand building. These will help to define brand-building steps you should follow in your brand-building process and journey without fear of generative AI marketing tools and apps. 

Remember, as you read along, these ideas are not prescriptive but guidelines that we have found to inspire and empower entrepreneurs to build human and customer-centric brands, especially in the digital global economy where high tech is vying to dominate the human touch in brand building.

Brand Identity

People want to know and touch your business brand through tangible elements like logos, color palettes, fonts, style, and tone of brand voice. Brand identity refers to tangible and intangible elements that most physically and emotionally connect your brand with your target audience. 

It is what they can see and touch to connect and have the feel of who you are and what you represent in the industry and niche you are vying to position your business venture. And that feeling can never be substituted by any tech tool or app.

However, the shift in this marketing element is the minimalist mindset you should apply in your brand identity design images like your logo and color palettes. Less is more, for a compelling sensitivity to the human touch and feelings. 

The simpler the design elements, the more appealing and meaningful to the human senses, and the easier it is to develop professional relationships that boost loyalty and long-term mental and emotional connection with your brand identity in your target audience’s mind.

Brand Presence

In today’s creative digital economy, any business should claim some digital space in the industry and niche it is vying to take a position and be seen, heard, and kept in the minds of its target audience. Therefore, brand presence refers to all marketing materials, tools, apps, and platforms such as social media, website, print marketing materials, publicity, and marketing campaigns that differentiate your brand from competitors in your target persona’s mind. 

It is when your purpose and value-centered noise can make some sense in your consumer’s mind through appropriate digital marketing tools and applications for establishing a unique brand presence online.

Most people confuse brand presence with brand awareness. However, in brand building, brand presence is established through brand awareness, which is the process of making people aware of your business venture and your offers. So, it is more of the level by which your customers remember and recognize your brand in their eyes and mind. 

Therefore, it relates closely to its image, reputation, trust, and credibility in the market. When people easily recall it against your competitors, its presence is well-crafted and established for sustainable brand building and growth of your business venture.

Positioning

Your Unique Value Proposition is the first distinguishing element that can speak clearly to your audience about what you provide and how you are different and unique to your target market. Your value promise to the target market makes them understand how you will help them with their needs and pain points in your industry and niche. 

It will make them keep you in mind when they need such service as spelled out loud and clear in your unique value proposition. Most marketers agree that positioning is how you want your target market to perceive you. But best of all is clarity on the purpose and value of your business idea. 

Define it to yourself as the purpose and why your target audience should bother listening to you and your brand. And value is what they gain or benefit from what you are doing and offering. That will make you start on the same page in your brand-building journey. That boosts appreciation and meaningful connection for mutual benefit to all parties concerned.

Brand Awareness

That is all the marketing activities you put in place to attract attention, raise awareness, and connect with the audience through marketing tools and channels like social media platforms that suit your brand voice and style. Though it is closely related to brand presence, brand awareness is a processing strategy for establishing a brand presence. 

Brandawareness is a powerful marketing strategy. It allows a variety of tools you can use to make your brand presence felt in the market. The ability to make your brand easily identifiable and recognizable as a preferred brand comes from raising robust brand awareness that boosts brand trust and sales generation. 

That is where you should bring in your creative content creation superpowers based on the purpose and value of your brand,  consolidated by a well-clarified unique value proposition on what you are calling your target audience to pay attention to and what is in it for them. It is no easy task, but you can do it with us for solid brand building based on the purpose and value of your business venture.

Brand Promotion

Brand promotion involves a variety of activities that boost brand sales and value. That is why it needs clarity for brand building in digital marketing. Though most brand promotional activities are for short-term results, they enhance brand identity, presence, positioning, and awareness in the market. And contribute to solid brand building. 

It involves brand marketing through advertising, direct marketing, and word of mouth and buying into the brand for long-term interaction with your brand offers. That is your products and services for promoting brand loyalty for repeat purchases, advocacy, and recommendations.

Most brand promotional activities are for short-term sales. That immediate attention to brand products and services helps to boost long-term business relationships for sustainable brand building. In digital marketing, brand promotion is a mix of tactics to reach and attract sales from that target audience. 

Therefore, all these tactics should revolve around brand building. That is a long-term strategy that requires consistency to develop a strong brand identity, presence, positioning, and raising brand awareness in the market. So, let 2024 see you through all these steps in your brand-building process and journey.