Over the years, the methods in which companies create business has changed as they have learned how people make their financial decisions and giving their “dollar votes” as my sociology professor in college used to say. People want to feel connected and to be helped so they feel good about the business transaction whether it would be buying a car or a house or even as small as finding the perfect plant at the store to suite their own personal needs. Once someone makes a worthwhile transaction, they are hopefully as satisfied with their product as they imagined and will most likely want to make a repeat transaction. If this is the case, the customer seeks out a similar purchasing experience and even return to the same business or sales person for another fulfillment of their needs.
This repeat customer business connection is what companies are trying to achieve. The most effective way a brand creates a loyal bond with the customer is to not only create a product or service that satisfies a customer’s needs but also to have a product or service that the brand can stand behind 100%. One effective way to do this is through creating content or entertainment that not only entertains or educates a potential customer, but to create something that is genuine to the company.
Branding is a vital in today’s business world whether it be a company’s branding or an individual’s personal branding because the branding is part of the connection to their audience or customer. The more genuine someone is, the more likely it is that customers can trust what it is they have to say or value their opinion. It should be somewhat straight-forward; the more genuine the information given by a person, the more other people can trust that source, and more likely that audience will convert into being a customer.
Today, we have personal figures in all aspects of life whether it would be a famous athlete, an actor, a gamer or even social media influencers that are famous for just sharing their life online. There are obvious sponsored brand deals left and right for these famous people because brands see the value in getting an influencer to talk about their product and hopefully sell the idea of buying one to their audience. What these public figures don’t realize is that a lot of these deals do not feel genuine to their audience and the viewers end up glazing over these advertisements and sometimes even think less of the influencer because they had the ability to be bought out and have a possible fabricated perspective. The audience then disregards the sponsored deal and does not want to make the purchase and money is wasted on the sponsoring company’s behalf. Sure, there might be one person in every ten thousand that would buy the product, but the rate of return is not as effective as… a product that is genuinely loved by the influencer.
In order for someone to gain a following on social media, the audience’s views have to align with those of the personal account. The most effective way for a company to make sales is to advertise to people who would find value in their product (for obvious reasons). It may be hard to find the public figure who values the product that a company is trying to sponsor them to sell, but there is more payoff in the end with a higher rate of return. When an online figure talks about a product that has a positive impact on their life, it will come off as a more genuine opinion to their audience who also shares similar values and opinions to those of the person or account they follow. Because of this alignment of values between an audience, a public figure and a business selling a product, there will be a more effective transaction where the audience will be legitimately interested in the product and want to get one for themselves.
There is another important benefit to creating content that is genuine to the creator…the seemingly effortlessness in doing the work. When there is an idea or product that is genuinely interesting to the content creator, they want to share this information to their audience and they have an easier time doing so because they know more about the product and are more enthusiastic to do the work in writing the article, creating the media post or shooting and editing the video to get it out to their audience.
When you create content that is genuine to yourself, you gain a following of an audience who has aligning values. When the time comes to talk about a product in a helpful manner to themselves and their audience, there will be the highest chance of a business transaction when it is about something that all parties have genuine benefit from. All of this benefit comes from being a genuine brand and creating genuine content.
