Craig Bowen 
Small business owners often make the mistake of thinking that they can’t achieve the same kind of branding as large corporations. But thanks to the accessibility of online reputation management for business and other online tools, small companies can now build an effective branding methodology from scratch. Following are five branding ideas for small companies that anyone can do.
Decide What You Want Your Brand to Be
Branding doesn’t only have to do with your logo. It’s much more than that. Branding is an identity that your customers will associate with your company. Spend some time thinking about how you want your company to be perceived. For this, you may want to enlist the help of a brand management services company, which has experience helping companies like yours find their identity.
Take Care of Your Reputation
Your company’s online reputation plays an integral part in how your customers will perceive your brand. So the next thing you need to do is to research your online reputation score. This will enable you to assess where your company currently stands in the eyes of the consumer. If, during your research, you discover some things that you are not happy with, don’t worry. These things can be taken care of, as you’ll discover in the next step.
Remove Bad Reviews
Bad online reviews can decimate a company’s profits. Whether or not a company deserves a bad review is beside the point. No company can please everyone all the time. And the fact is, some people take delight in going out of their way to leave bad reviews. As a small company, you can’t afford to have many bad reviews. Consumers have too many other choices these days, so if they don’t like the reviews they read about your company, they’ll quickly move on to your competitor. This is why it’s so essential for you to remove bad reviews. When you enlist the services of an online reputation management company, you can have bad reviews removed and have good reviews strategically placed where your potential customers will find them. This will go a long way toward helping to build a positive brand image for your company.
Use Visuals to Express Your Brand
When building your brand, your logo is just the beginning. You’ll want to come up with an entire color palette and identifying fonts that consumers will instantly identify as being yours. You see this in action every day with large corporations such as Target. As soon as you see that big red bull’s eye, you know you’re looking at a Target advertisement. You can achieve the same thing. Be sure to use the same colors, fonts, and styles across all your advertising methods.
Align Content With Your Brand
Make sure that the website content and social media posts you put out there align with your brand. Any disconnect will quickly water down your brand messaging and confuse potential customers. These five branding ideas for small companies are achievable no matter what your budget. Just remember, the sooner you start working on your brand strategy, the stronger your brand will become.
