In our last blog post we looked at how exhibiting a personality in your communications can contribute to building a musical brand.  Today we’re looking at how your personal values can help you create a brand around your music. Let’s get started.

Brand Values

You might not realise it, but most many consumer brands (the branded items that you buy each and every day) have human characteristics attributed to them by their marketing people. One of these characteristics is ‘values’ a set of beliefs and ideologies about how the world should be.

These ‘what we stand for’ values often originate from the founders of the company and are embedded into how a company operates.

The non dairy milk ‘Oat-Ly’ recently ran a print advert to promote their brand values.  They believe that everybody is of equal worth, that humans should come before profit and that “companies have as much responsibility as politicians to build a good society”.

Ben & Jerry’s ice cream also have a set a core values which they promote.

If a product is seen to exhibit a set of values, people with those same values and beliefs will have a greater affinity for that product.  This creates ‘loyalty’ for that brand and hopefully will increase long-term sales.

Musicians With Values

Here are two examples of musicians whose values are evident in their social media postings.

Left wing musician Billy Bragg  tweets and comments upon the issues of the day which impact on his politics.

Queen guitarist Brian May is a large advocate for animal rights.

Social media is an ideal place to tell your followers about your own personal beliefs and give a platform for the things that are important to you.  You can be quite vocal in your opinions perhaps writing ‘thought pieces’ on your website or just RT news stories without comment which highlight topics which have great importance in your life.

I think this is the hardest part of brand building as it may put you in ‘opposition’ to some of your audience.  If you choose to exhibit your values you may push some people away but you will also draw more people closer towards you and I think creating a stronger connection with an audience is a good thing.

Take Away Tips

• Use your social media channels to help define your own values and ideologies.
• Sharing and comment on news stories which highlight your values is the easiest way to achieve this.
  

Next time look back over all our branding topics and how to ‘put it all together’

Got any questions about this post or how you can better market yourself?

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