Crafting Digital Success: The Metropolis Guide to Effective Branding
Metropolis features hundreds of established, up and coming, and aspiring brands within our burgeoning ecosystem. However, the digital world is constantly evolving, making it difficult to understand how to carve out a place for yourself. Establishing a strong brand presence goes beyond creating a logo or catchy tagline — How do you ensure your brand remains relevant and compelling amidst constant change? How do you create a visual and emotional identity that captures attention and fosters loyalty and trust? These questions are crucial for creating a brand that stands out and endures in the evolving digital landscape, and Metropolis is here to offer some tips on your journey.
Who You Are to the Core
The first step in developing captivating branding for your business or product starts with deciding on its core values and traits. What do you want people to associate your brand with? Imaginative and fun? Sleek and professional? Innovative and futuristic? And, just as important, who do you want your brand to appeal to? We all want our brand to be everything for everyone but remember: if you’re trying to appeal to everyone you won’t appeal to anyone. So, decide on your audience and core values, then go from there. During this process, instead of thinking about who you are excluding from your branding, think about who you most want to appeal to. Who are your superfans?
Let’s look at Metropolis. Even with everything we’ve gone through in various markets, content offerings, and trends, our core values have remained the same: an imaginative world, diverse offerings, a cultural destination with cool people, and an exciting future. These words; imaginative, diverse, cultural, cool, and exciting; create the pillars of our brand identity.
These are the values we return to that guide our visual and written identity in everything we do. When deciding on your core values, try to limit your selections to avoid confusion and maintain a clear identity.
Innovative Audience Engagement
In the digital world, branding is about reaching a global audience instantly, and, almost always, this means leveraging social media is essential. Social media offers cost-effective marketing opportunities and gives your brand a personality for others to get behind.
An innovative example is Pudgy Penguins’ use of GIFs across various platforms. By creating hundreds of branded GIFs and filling the popular app GIPHY with them, they’ve put their brand in front of millions who might not have otherwise encountered it due to social media algorithms. Search for innovative ways to maximize your reach on social media that let you break out of traditional algorithms blocking you into (or out of) specific audiences. Making a post isn’t enough. How are you getting that post the most engagement possible? How are you getting it in front of new people? In what ways is your content different from what’s currently out there? Finding creative ways to maximize your reach on social media, beyond traditional algorithms, is crucial.
Content Creation for Easy Distribution
User-generated content and influencer partnerships add authenticity, broaden your reach, and give your audience ways to engage with and uplift your brand. At Metropolis, collaboration is key. We actively involve our community in the brand’s identity through creative competitions, new drops, and releasing 3D avatars as VRM files for content creation. This open approach has led to a surge of user-generated games, music videos, and other content featuring Metropolis avatars that fill people’s timelines organically which is far more appealing to audiences than more in-your-face advertisements.
Put some time into creating brand specific assets people can utilize for content creation. Then, think of a centralizing location people can find those assets if they so desire. This can be a website, discord channel, even just a linktree of sorts. Communicate what you want people to do with the creation, or just let them have at it. Lastly, if people go through the time to create something for you, ENGAGE WITH IT. Push it as hard if not harder than your own content. This is the power of social media: creating a personal connection with your brand that audiences feel empowered to engage with.
Brand Evolution and Adaptability
Brands in the digital age must adapt to new trends and customer expectations. However, knowing when to stick with a strategy and when to change course is an art. So, when do you stay your course and when do you adapt your branding? In short, this is a complicated answer that requires detailed understanding of how trends function in online culture. But let me give you a few things to consider.
- Think about your brand’s offering. Does it require some kind of immediate reaction that may pressure people to engage? Or is your brand’s offering a consistent promise that allows people to trickle in over a longer period of time?
- Think about the audience you’re targeting. How do they engage with content? Are they quick to jump on for the next big thing, or do they maybe require a little more time to hop on board?
- Think about the content you’re creating. Is it playing off a current trend which might be gone soon? Or is it showcasing something about your brand without a time component?
Most importantly, in my opinion, do you enjoy your own brand? If you focus too much on what other people think of your brand instead of what drove you to make it in the first place, sooner or later, you will burn yourself out. Determination is a finite resource when it comes to sustaining a brand long-term. Identify what you love about what you’re making and stick to it. If you start losing that personal appreciation somewhere along the way, it might be time to consider a rebrand.
Conclusion
Successful branding is not just about visibility; it’s about creating meaningful connections and delivering authentic experiences. Whether leveraging social media, exploring new content creation avenues, or evaluating when to pivot your strategy, the goal is to build a brand that people love and trust. Stay committed to your brand’s values, enjoy the creative process, and be open to change when necessary. This approach will help your brand thrive today and ensure its relevance and impact for years to come.
