How do you improve your brand story with feedback and data?

A person's personal brand is a topic that has only recently become relevant for "mainstream" professionals. Gone are the days when a brand only mattered if you were super client facing or sales oriented. It is also important to remember that your personal brand should be PERSONAL. It is vital to maintain authenticity as this will allow people to feel truly connected to you. It also helps you mentally as you are only ever required to be your authentic self, not somebody that you just think people want to see. So, make sure that the brand goals you define for yourself align with the goals you have for your own personal life, and help you become the person you want to be.

Brand is not just about having a goal or mission to accomplish. It is more about how your brand connects with your customers, communicates well and adds value to (the customers and society) as a whole. Now, when it comes to a brand- There is not just "one" single goal, in fact there is an ambition or a vision, which is divided into goals. The brand building should be focused on vision along with goals building up as objectives to be accomplished. With this clarity you will be able to decide which action you should be taking at a particular stage and how the plan should be executed.

I'm going to bring back a word that used to be a buzzword: Authentic. The concept of a "brand" is so much about attracting clients that I think it's easy to get lost in the word before clients: "attracting." Checking in with authentic values, seeing the vision of where you want to go, and the ways that you want to create a positive impact in the world will speak so much louder than simply ID'ing objectives. Humans are attracted to human behavior, not data.

Consistently have a feedback loop with your customers where you make it seamless for them to provide feedback. Acknowledge certain aspects of feedback and deploy real world suggestions from customers. Iterate and improve in small increments and then rinse and repeat and start again. By making this a regular feedback loop you will be amazed at what you learn and how transparent your image is compared to your competitors p.

I am deeply convinced that women leaders could change the world with the power of a story well told. This is why it is so important to explore, understand, and own our own story first. To be relatable and have real impact, we need to be able to share authentic stories. Therefore, the first goal I would set for someone build their personal brand is to look at all the unique aspects of their personal brand DNA: from our origin to education, from our career journey to our breaks, from hobbies to unusual factors, from our passions and talents to our values and mission in leadership - everything matters. Everything has a story to tell. Now the question becomes: how can you tell that story in a way THAT BRINGS MEANING to your audience?

Use surveys and social media to gather customer insights about their experiences. Use A/B testing to see which story elements work best.

I would word it a little differently. Such as - My company is looking for feedback on our products. What are your thoughts on ...........? Try not to word the questions in a way that make the customer shy from giving honest answers. Some might not want to say what they don't like about your product and not want called out on it.

Our reputation is being created at the intersection of what we put out there in terms of messaging, and what the world perceives, receives, and mirrors back when we are not in the room. This is why the feedback loop - and healthy strategic reputation monitoring - is so vital for personal and corporate brands alike. We can only understand what people really think about us when we engage with them in a deep, safe, trust-based dialogue. When these conditions are met, the format of the dialogue becomes less relevant - what matters is that our brand becomes co-created.

There is a reason the quote "You can't improve what you can't measure" is so widely used. Without looking at your data, it is very challenging to see if you are improving. I always recommend focusing on one data point at a time. There will be certain analytics that are more important depending on the goals you have set for your brand. At the beginning of your brand journey, your goal may be to just get as many eyeballs on your page as possible. So then your focus should be to drive impressions. Then as you progress, the focus may shift more towards generating sales, or email signups. Regardless of the goal, you can't accomplish it without consistently reviewing the data available to you.

Analyse data to dig out (your) insights Deeper the insights, better it is. Drawing insights from data is a complex skill. It requires you to:- - Connect the dots - Notice the patterns/ trends - Synthesize and segregate - Induce and deduce - Meditate :) Keep digging till you find powerful insights. Remember insights are sometimes direct but very often your insights can be guesses, and may need to be further tested / validated.

You can ask people how they “feel” about your brand as much as you want, but collecting data is the only way to truly measure success. When we work with clients on crafting their messaging and campaign strategy, we always tie the goals to measurable business objectives, such as link clicks, bounce rate, pages per visit, qualified leads, and such. The feelings come from positive experience with your company, but you have to get them through the door first.

Measuring data is the secret sauce of achieving goals within a timeline. As a marketer/creator, I found the significance of data later. As they say, " It's better late than never", I began to leverage tools to track data. I found achieving goals easier for me and my clients in locations, impression, reach, ROI and strategies. This habit has mainly transformed my journey in Linkedin content creation to grow 100X in the last 4 months. 🚀

Identifying channels, formats and surfaces for storytelling is very important. For an entrepreneur building a business, brand storytelling could mean using social media, websites, newsletters, product packaging and live displays in store fronts. The entrepreneur may choose to share his brand story informally to his team, or tell it strategically during an investment pitch, write a LinkedIn post, give an interview to the media or start a podcast to build his brand story. Each format, channel is different and unique. The story may be the same, the telling may vary. What’s important is that the brand story has to be consistent & progressive across channels, formats and surfaces.

A memorable learning experience was when my manager told me it is vital to guard your brand when engaging external audiences. The concept stuck. Your brand represents your organization's identity, reputation and promise to clients. You can do so by understanding and protecting your market share amongst the competition. Where I work, we distribute at least three full-fledged surveys and three pulse surveys on emerging or pressing topics, which speak to social sector HR leaders. The data participants provide is invaluable because it enables you to assess the impact of generative Ai, for example, on their operations, strategies and goals. The data helps us keep our brand updated with fresh insights and shape our business strategy.

The whole purpose of having a brand story is making it a compelling story that speaks to and draws your audience in. That means you have to consider the humans on the other side and who they are as individuals. Who are they? What do they care about? What kinds of stories will capture their attention and draw them into the story? Take time to study your target audiences and build characters around those audiences. Craft stories that hit all the common points while telling a unique narrative that addresses the individuals you’re trying to reach. And, remember, you have to have multiple stories when you do this since personalizing it means you’ll need to tell more than one story.

When you are thinking about storytelling for your brand, identify the emotion you are hoping to generate with your audience, as this should drive your narrative. Is it hope? Is it determination? Outrage? People are swayed by stories because they relate to the emotions the story brings out in them. Story on its own isn’t enough. The emotion is what sways behaviour and encourages your audience to act. This is just one of the principles of communicating for impact. (You can read more here www.Sophiescott.com.au)

Prudent leaders recognize the pivotal moments, wherein astute analysis of changing landscapes and customer demands coalesce, enabling strategic realignment. Embracing change with audacity, swift yet calculated, refocuses the brand, charting a course towards newfound relevance and sustained success. Fear not the pivot, for therein lies the crucible of growth, adaptation and #unlearning.

Getting your audience/customers to talk about it Your audience can act as the biggest cheerleader for your brand and this needs to be leveraged in addition to talking about feedback and data. Quotes/experiences from the audience matters a lot when you’re building a good story for your brand.

Before a story, imagine a narrative. A narrative is the larger picture that your brand (business or personal) creates in the minds of the world. It’s a sum of the many stories you tell. So invest in imagining the narrative you want to build for your customers. Do you want to come across as honest? Exhibit and tell stories that validate that. One story will not do build your brand story. A stack of consistent stories will. If you want to exhibit your commitment to a cause / project tell your commitment story in as many ways as you can. The narrative you build is the brand story that your customers / stakeholders will tell about you to others. And isn’t that the most powerful form of storytelling? When others tell your story?

You can truly change the world - at least someone's world - with a story well told. People who might not otherwise understand and trust you will learn to see and appreciate you when they hear your story. Strategic storytelling is the best bias killer and the easiest way into top leadership for anyone, women leaders included. This is why, if I were to choose one strategic skill for leaders in the new world of work, it would be storytelling. No amount of AI will remove people's thirst for stories. That's why we have a duty of care towards our own future to become better storytellers.