10 Tips to Humanize Your Brand

Recent studies have concluded that your customers are humans. Seems obvious right?

Then why are so many companies treating them like they are robots programmed to absorb their generic marketing messages and corporate offers?

People like knowing that they are understood and recognized as unique individuals, yet the majority of businesses are failing to meet this basic human need.

When a company fails to connect with their customers, their customers fail to connect with them. They want to hear the message of a person, not a company.

People engage, share, connect, understand, and inspire each other in a way that businesses can’t. It is because of this that humanizing your brand is necessary to be loved by your customers.

Here’s how.

10 Tips on How to Humanize Your Brand

10. Start From the Top and Work Your Way Down

Brand humanization is not a small task, and is not one that can be accomplished using solely lower-level employees. It can only be achieved through a full-fledged company initiative, starting with the executives. This process can be accelerated if they not only support it, but practice it as well. This can be done by setting up a Twitter account for your CEO or having them star in your commercials. Michael Dell, CEO of Dell Computers, helps humanize his company by hosting group video chats with his customers.

9. Have a Good “About Us” Page

The “About Us” page is one of the first places a potential customer will look if they want to learn more about your business, so you’d better make sure it’s good! This is the perfect opportunity to show your business’ human side with a story of how you got started. Make sure to liven up the page with pictures and videos!

8. Take Your Customers Behind the Scenes

People love knowing what goes on behind a company’s closed doors. Use your website or social media accounts on Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook to showcase pictures of your employees hard at work or just having some fun around the office. It puts a face behind your company’s logo, which gives your customers a connection to an actual person.

7. Use Video

Video content has been proven to be the most effective in capturing and retaining attention. Use this to your advantage by using videos to extend your efforts. Put them anywhere- your “About Us” page, social media posts, even TV advertisements to show your employees and allow audiences to feel a connection with them.

6. Humor is Human

I’m going to go out on a limb and say that everybody enjoys a good laugh, except maybe grumpy cat and the kid from the Capital One commercials who doesn’t like money either. Not everything has to be business 24/7, especially when you are trying to humanize your brand. A quick picture or joke is the perfect way to lighten the mood of your viewers; who cares if a squirrel riding jet skis is irrelevant? It’s still funny and will get people talking about you.

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5. Engage With Your Audience

This one is especially important for social media. When you create a Twitter or Facebook account, you are essentially inviting your consumers to connect with you; being absent from your account is like a broken promise. Be there for them and let them know that your business YOU are there to answer questions, resolve problems, or simply engage in conversation!

4. Encourage Your Employees to Be Social

This applies both online and off. Many companies make their employees sign contracts that ban them from social media or restricting what they are allowed to post on it. While they are trying to protect their image, it can actually hurt it, making them seem restrictive and overbearing. Employees should be encouraged to not only use social media, but also be linked to their company on it. This view of individuality should extend to their physical workspace as well; have employees bring their warm friendliness and sense of humor to work with them.

3. Don’t Sell Products; Tell Stories

This is what this article is all about. The point of humanizing your brand is not for your business to be known as a business, but as a person. People connect with people, not companies, so give your business some personality by showing a lighter side to it and telling stories to relate to your audience.

2. Have a Plan

Humanizing your company is not easy, and cannot be done on the fly. Like any other key business decision, you will need a plan. Set goals and objectives for both the short-term and the long-term, as well as specific tactics and action to help you reach them. How are you going to measure your results? Set KPIs and make sure they are well defined and reasonable.

1. Talk to Your Audience Like They Are Your Friend

This is the most important rule on here. When constructing your copy, have the mindset that you are talking to someone who is close to you. If you have the image of your made-up buyer persona in your mind, it is going to be clear in your content. Picture yourself talking to a family member interested in buying your product, and word your messages based on that.