Hi guys Laurel Mintz here with Elevate My Brand. Today’s story is all about how your audience tells your story too. What does that mean? That means that we are a collective community and because of that, giving feedback and getting feedback from your audience is really important especially right now. Every brand has struggled because of COVID and consumers are really aware of that. So to hold yourself out like everything is perfect is a bravado that nobody can really resonate with right now. So it’s important to come off as authentic and not pretend like you’re invincible because let’s face it, none of us are. So please don’t be afraid to tell your company’s entire story. Be super honest and transparent with your audience. For those of you that have been following us for some time, you know that we recently shut our offices down which was a huge ego blow to me, but ultimately from a financial and operational perspective, made a whole lot more sense given the current circumstances. So that’s an example of something I probably wouldn’t have shared historically because it just made me feel like I wasn’t perfect and the truth is that people have responded so kindly and with so many nice words when I’ve shared with them more authentically my story. It’s about transparency and being open and honest with your audience. They resonate far more with that than with this inauthentic, everything is perfect Pollyanna perspective.
I also think it’s really important to share your audience's concerns. So if they are struggling with COVID and you’re pretending like everything is fine, they’re just not going to be able to connect with you the way that you want them to. There’s just a disconnect there, so I would really suggest that most brands find this time and use it to authentically build out new products or services that solve the problems that we know everyone is going through. I think we mentioned in one of our previous vlogs that we’re doing an EMBetter together campaign of hand that was our way of paying it forward to the community. That’s just one example of how brands are challenged right now and supporting other challenge brands even with our own current challenges.
So I highly recommend that you provide and receive customer feedback, that you are authentic with your digital brand engagement, and you share your journey with what’s happening in your world in your community with your community at large. That could be on social, that could be through your newsletters, any number of different channels and platforms. But make sure that you show up and be honest. I think it’s so critical right now. Nobody’s perfect and even the idea of perfection just doesn’t exist. So show up for yourself and for your team and for your audience.