Brand of Brothers
Brand of Brothers
Start-ups and the Power of Visual Content
Welcome to the latest in installment of Brand of Brothers. I'm Doug.
Johnny Diggz:And I'm Johnny. Today we're talking about startups and the power of visual content.
Doug Berger:Alright, let's get to it.
Johnny Diggz:So let's start with this. Um, when people think of branding, they sometimes just think of a logo, but, uh, you are saying that logo isn't necessarily the brand.
Doug Berger:The logo is definitely not the brand. The brand is much greater than that. So a logo is. Something that's more along the lines of a screwdriver in a toolbox, right? So it's good for some things, but not for everything. You don't use a, I mean, if, if you're a normal person, you don't use a screwdriver to hammer in a nail, right? So the big idea when it comes to a brand is it's not just the visual, it's the verbal as well. So you need to focus on both your messaging and your visual identity and your visual identity. Again, it's not just the logo, it's your color palette, it's your typography, it's your patterns, and so on. Um, and, and, and, but one thing that I've definitely noticed is that a lot of of startups specifically struggle with crafting a brand story That, that just. It feels generic. Right. So from your experience, and, and I know that you've, you've started up a lot of companies, how can a new company create an authentic story that resonates with its audiences?
Johnny Diggz:Well, it's a really valid question. It's really hard to do, and. Uh, I can only tell you from my experience that, uh, we, we typically started with the logo first. I mean, that was actually, we started with a name first, and I think that's probably what a lot of companies do is that they, they come up with a name or an idea for a name, and then they start searching for domain names that are available. Is that, it seems like. That definitely happens a lot
Doug Berger:these days more than, than, uh, certainly, uh, in, in the early nineties for sure. Sure. And then,
Johnny Diggz:yeah, and we had all those domain, um, uh, domain name, uh, what do they call'em? The guys who bought all the domains and, oh, squatters, right? Squatters, yeah, that's the name. So, uh, but so beyond just the domain name and the name of the company. Then you have to come up with some sort of visual identity. And usually within my realm, we were, I, I've been dealing with tech startups. So tech startups, the very first thing you do is put up a website, which is why you need the domain name, and then you need, uh, a logo. But beyond that. We didn't, we didn't, you know, we didn't have money to, to hire an agency. We didn't, you know, this is pre-funding and so once you get funding, you can take it a step further. And that's exactly what we did. We got, you know, we, we came up with a, a name and a logo. We built a website, we built a PowerPoint, and then we went out and tried to raise money and we were successful, uh, in that. And then you take it to the next step, and that's when. We brought in an an agency and actually. Revisited our logo, looked, realized all the ways that our logo wasn't working, why it wasn't working. It doesn't work, you know, in reverse or it doesn't work in a box or
Doug Berger:Sure. But you started up a bunch of companies, right? Yeah. Yeah. So, so you would learn from your mistakes along the way. Was there ever a point in time where, uh, authentic storytelling was a thing for you? Or did that really become, uh, more prevalent when your, when, when really your startups became. Huge, right? Yeah. Uh, pre, pre-acquisition and started working with agencies, like where along the way would you find that the storytelling, uh, became interwoven into your overarching, uh, startup brands?
Johnny Diggz:You know, it, it sort of evolved naturally, um, because we were building a community and in, in, in both, uh, both the, the brands that I was involved with. Um, my role was more in the developer outreach and building a, a developer community, and that was sort of our brand story with, with Tropo that was. Uh, we were one and the same as our developer community because it was, that was our, or we were a platform for developers. Yeah. For the Cisco
Doug Berger:developers. Right, exactly. Yeah. Well,
Johnny Diggz:eventually we became a Cisco. Yeah, yeah, yeah, of course.
Doug Berger:Um, and, and, and to that end, what did you discover were, were some of the best platforms, your best ways to reach your audiences?
Johnny Diggz:Obviously web was, was one, but we, we, we did a multi-pronged approach. We did a lot of hackathon type events. We did a lot of, uh, events in, in live events in, in all around the world. Um, but, you know, primarily we engaged with them via the web and a little bit with, you know, blog posts. Uh, we used, you know, some social media as well, but, um, but I would say our. Our strongest in that particular realm was, was our, you know, in personal, in-person events, but,
Doug Berger:well, nothing beats in person. Right? Yeah. When it, when it, when it comes to, to creating a brand that has a, an authentic experience that, that in-person human touch, nothing can really beat it.
Johnny Diggz:One of the interesting things that happened when, when, uh. We launched Tropo, we had one, one brand identity. And uh, when I came in, we were in, in, in the midst of trying to take it to a different, in a different direction. That sounds familiar. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.'cause that's when you and I were working together. But, um, but one of the things that we were trying to deal with was the consistency of the brand. Um, we went from, uh, like a, like a cloudy type. The thing to, we wanted to get more enterprisey and, uh, and uh, and so, um, how did Hu help? Maintain the consistency. Right. Getting, like, you kind of guided us in that.
Doug Berger:I did, I did. Uh, along with, with Simon and Yeah. Yeah. And the rest of our staff here at Remix. Um, so the, the, the key to consistency kind of takes me back to what we were talking about just moments ago regarding visual identity. That it's not just the logo, it's the colors and it's the type faces and it's the patterns and textures. Along with the, the visual lang language, there was also the verbal language. Right. So what we tried to do was make it so anytime we were doing any sort of marketing, and it could have been in person, right, with your, your, your exhibit graphics. It could have been online, uh, with just the, your typical ux, the type faces. The color palettes, those were all consistent. And we tried to maintain a degree of consistency with the way that the logo was presented as well. Making it so there were brand standards that would go out, uh, like for example, when you were, uh, when, when you were, uh, sponsoring an event. Uh, you'd have to provide them a logo. Well, providing them a logo doesn't make sure that your logo appears how you want it to appear.
Johnny Diggz:I learned that the hard way many, many times that, that you just by. You, you can't trust anyone with your logo because you can guarantee that if it doesn't fit in somebody else's mind and, and how in their design they will change it.
Doug Berger:I don't know what you're talking about As a designer, I've never done that. Ever. Okay. Maybe a few times. Um, so you had just mentioned about the in-person stuff and, and it's so true, how, how effective it is. So building a brand isn't just about visuals, right? It's. Also about building communities. What are some effective ways for startups to engage with their audience beyond just posting on social media?
Johnny Diggz:Well. That you, it's so easy to fall into that trap because social media is easy to, to do. Right? So you can do for some people. Yes. Well, well, I'm saying that there's, there's very little barrier to entry. Anybody who has access to the social media account can post something. So it's, it's easy to think, oh, I did three posts this week. You know, I did two blogs and, uh, and I, and I, you know, did a couple tweets or, or Facebook posts, and that checks the box for your community engagement for the week. Um, we would, on top of that, organize events. We did organize meetups, we'd organize, uh, drink up, uh, really like doing a, a multi-pronged approach. To, uh, we also, uh, organized, uh, contests, uh, developer contests and all of these things to try to engage our audience to, to, uh, to use our platform. And, uh, you know, it's, uh, speaking of that, um, you know, visual content, um, has been a huge. Driver in, in marketing, uh, lately. And, uh, what, what visuals do you think are, are more effective in, uh, wow. What a
Doug Berger:question.
Johnny Diggz:Yeah. Uh, so, because plain, plain text doesn't always, you know, you can, you can get your messaging off over with plain text, but what, what, what are your, you know, what can you do visually?
Doug Berger:So there are a bunch of different things that can be done. Uh, from a visual communications perspective and, and just like, you know, social media creating, uh, graphics that are enticing, uh, it, and it, it, it could be as simple as, uh, and we've seen these before and it's a little bit hokey where it's a famous quote or it's a quote from someone famous, uh, uh, and, and, and. The bigger idea, the underlying idea is that that quote, for example, would reflect your ethos as a company and it would be dual purpose. That second purpose is about awareness generation, right? Then we can take it one step further. Uh, and that's with infographics. So we'll take a key series of data. And present that as pertinent information to a customer's audiences. And so the, the first way, of course, it, it's lovely to have a static graphic, but the second and more effective way is to convert those static graphics into video and animated components, especially when you're putting that stuff on social media, because we know that. Things like, uh, reels and TikTok are far more effective than even a carousel ad, and we know that carousels are, are basically second to video content.
Johnny Diggz:Um, you know, we were talking a little bit about the, uh, uh, how other people, uh, will change your logo and I was just thinking about. The, the idea of the brand guidelines, which you kind of introduced me to the, the con, the idea that there's sort of rules and restrictions that get Yes. We call
Doug Berger:it a brand Bible sometimes. Yes. Brand Bible.
Johnny Diggz:Um, uh, I kind of, I, I, I both appreciated it, but I also found it restrictive. Restrictive, yeah. So tell, talk to me about where they're appropriate, why, why you use them.
Doug Berger:So brand guidelines or brand guide or house style guide, what whatever, whatever terminology you use. Like I said, brand Bible, um. They, they are intentionally restrictive to make sure that a brand is presented in what I refer to as the three Cs, that it's cohesive, coherent, and consistent. It also, uh, increases legibility, right? So you don't want your logo, for example, to be placed on a busy background because then your logo gets gobbled up. You don't want your. Uh, typeface to be presented in a different color palette that doesn't reflect the tone of your brand, right? You don't want to introduce pink and purple when your colors are blue and gray. They're obviously disparate, and so what this does is it helps to make certain that your tone. Is put forward in an effective way and in a positive light. And the other key reason that we have these guidelines is because it's not always one person that's working on your marketing materials. Oftentimes they're teams. And even beyond that, you have multiple different groups that are working on it. So you have your internal marketing department, for example, you have your West Coast agency and your East Coast agency as a possibility. And then on top of that. You're relying on vendors sometimes to put together content, right? You might be working with a vendor who takes care of all of your SEM and who takes care of all of your social media marketing, specifically the paid side, and so you provide them your brand assets, uh, including photography. And, uh, it, it, along with all of your logo elements, your, your brand elements, and you wanna make sure that that's consistent. Whatever it is that they're creating, you wanna make sure that that is in line and in tune with the other stuff that you are creating. And, and, and one thing that I've noticed, and I I, if you'll forgive me, I want to get back to the idea of startups. Um, I find that startups. Tend to struggle with where to focus their marketing efforts. And if a startup has limited resources, like I know you certainly have experienced the beginnings and the ends of a, a startup where you have an infinite, infinite decimal amount of, uh, of, of, of resources all the way up to now you're supported by a Fortune 100 company. Um, what. Have been the best ways to prioritize online presence and engagements.
Johnny Diggz:So the, the, the key that I've always found, um, and what, you know, when you're dealing with a limited budget and you're, um, sort of, uh, gorilla marketing something yourself, um. Consist consistently, uh, touching your, your audience. So updating your content regularly is, is sort of a, a given. You have to do that, that's like the bare baseline because if somebody goes to your blog and or your. Uh, Facebook page, your, whatever. Wherever you have an online presence and you don't have recent relevant content, um, they're more likely to, to just move on to somebody else that might look like they're actively participating with their audience. So, so, uh, I think the key there is. Uh, to, to make sure that, um, that you're regularly updating your content and also, uh, keeping up with, with what's going on in your space is, is critical. Um, there are always changes and no matter what vertical you're in, uh, there's always new technology. There's always new competition. There's always news, new regulations, any, anything that affects your particular sector. Um, is something that you should actively participate in and you don't necessarily need to respond to anything or have a position on everything, but at least be aware of it and make sure that all of your online content is sort of reflected in, uh, in how your, uh, uh, proceeding.
Doug Berger:It almost sounds like you're suggesting maybe a holistic content marketing strategy.
Johnny Diggz:Well, I mean, that, that would be the optimal thing, so. Um, when, you know, when you, when you aspire to have holistic, here's the thing, most startups don't have the bandwidth to do that. And, um, and so, uh, it, it, but it's, it, it definitely helps. And when I, when I was able to, when I had a bigger budget. And was able to address things, um, across the board in all of, you know, all the aspects that we were, uh, sending out our messages. Um, it was a lot easier because, you know, again, that consistent co consistency. Uh, what, what do the three Cs a
Doug Berger:consistent, coherent and cohesive.
Johnny Diggz:I'm gonna have to, I'm gonna have to, to steal that one. So we got. You know, I'm gonna go back to the video side of things. Um, and one thing I've noticed, we have, uh, Facebook reels, we've got TikTok stories or, uh, TikTok just in general. TikTok and, well, they have their own stories too now within TikTok. Oh, man. Yeah, yeah. See, we're both learning
Doug Berger:new
Johnny Diggz:things today and, uh, we had Instagram stories. Um, and they've kind of changed, uh, this, this, uh, we call it short form content. Um, and, uh, a lot I'm seeing more and more, uh, companies kind of dive into this as a way of getting their messaging out. Um, but how do you, how do you, how do you manage video content, um, and while maintaining your three Cs. And also keeping within a budget.
Doug Berger:It. You know, it's funny, I I, I, I didn't intentionally bring up a content marketing strategy, um, but it, it's pretty clear that the answer to your question is to have a proactive content marketing strategy. So I. Uh, like you said, startups specifically tend not to have the bandwidth and, and even, uh, even smaller SMBs, right? Like there are plenty of five to 10 person companies that generally believe they don't have the bandwidth necessary to implement a proactive content marketing strategy. But if you take the time. To develop the materials and to develop a, a mode, uh, for getting the content out there. Then you have the ability to be a, a little bit more effective. Um,
Johnny Diggz:can, can, real quick on the, before you go onto the next, I wanted to ask you about content marketing because. I know what I think it is, but I want to hear what you think it is. Oh gosh.
Doug Berger:See, this is setting me up for potentially being completely wrong. Uh, so, so generally speaking. It's marketing through the use of content, right? So I'm just gonna completely distill it down to, to its bare, to its bare bones and really the words, right? Should we open the web dictionary
Johnny Diggz:defines content marketing as
Doug Berger:so, so when it comes to content marketing, uh, generally it's done digitally. Right. So like you had mentioned previously, you have your blog posts, uh, which we're moving away from the terminology of it being called the blog post articles toward articles. Articles or just post. Yeah. Um, so it, it depends, right? Because sometimes these articles even live in, in knowledge bases, right? And KBS can still be used as part of a content strategy. So the big idea here is to. Not only create relevance, uh, from the perspective of, of generating content that is meaningful today, it's also about distributing that content. And then in that distribution you are, you are gaining eyeballs, right? You are, you're telling people that you just posted an article, you're telling people that you just posted a video. You are telling people that. You're doing something, and the big idea is creating awareness. Now, the next step is a call to action. So it's not just posting on Facebook or posting on Instagram or TikTok or what have you. It's getting the message out to all of your various audiences on a, a variety of platforms. And ultimately that just means making sure that your content is adequately marketed.
Johnny Diggz:You mentioned, uh, call to action or, uh, CTA. And, uh, and you know, one of the things that, that you and I, I always joke with you about is that I'm, you know, when things get too markety Yes. Um, it, it kind of turns me off. And part of that comes from my background. As a developer evangelist that learning very quickly that most developers don't want to be marketed to. And, and, well, I think it's true of most people in general, yeah. Don't want to feel like they've got, they're getting marketed to, despite the fact that we are bombarded by marketing from every direction. Um, yeah. It's 100% true. Um, how do you, how do you balance that sort of, uh. You know that the, the, the desire to, uh, put in a CTA without feeling like you're being too markety.
Doug Berger:So it, you need to understand who your audience is for each individual platform. And when I say platform, I'm not just referring to social media, right? So on, on YouTube, for example. We are already programmed to accept people saying like, and subscribe. But we would laugh at those same people, which we might kind of laugh at them on YouTube, but, but it's expected, again, it's expected on YouTube. But if I said that on Facebook, for example, I would definitely get laughed at. So by the way,
Johnny Diggz:if you're watching this, I would like you for it to like and subscribe.
Doug Berger:And if you're not watching this and listening to it on a podcast, make sure to it hit five stars. I love this show or whatever it is that you can say. Yeah, give us a review. That was very subtle. So, uh, so yeah, it, it, it, how do you avoid coming across as smarmy? And I think the answer is just being authentic, right? So yes, people want you to tell them what you want. Out of it. But if you are going to a platform specifically to get something out of it that people don't want, there you are barking up the wrong tree. Yeah. Is that the right term? I don't even know.
Johnny Diggz:I think, I think so. Yeah. I've noticed that like specifically I. You know, Reddit, uh, is, is very anti-marketing, although they, now that they're public, they're dipping their toes into, uh, into selling ads and stuff like that. And it's very interesting to watch that the entire Reddit community sort of react, both react negatively. But also they, they don't really have a choice but to embrace it because, um, it, you know, Reddit, Reddit has evolved Yeah. It, well as a brand and it
Doug Berger:supports the platform that we get to enjoy for free. That's true. So that's just how, it's, it's augmented. So,
Johnny Diggz:so, um, to, to to, to sort of wind us down, you know, what do you see? What kind of trends do you see emerging, uh, in, in your, in your sort of CREs, the amazing Cress business. The amazing Creston, right? Yeah. Uh, so
Doug Berger:if, if I had the ability to look into a crystal ball, um, I, I think this is actually not that complicated because we talked about this recently, um, and it is about focusing on impending target audiences. That's what we can do. That's the trend that's coming forward. And that trend is coming across just like I I mentioned in the form of authenticity, right? So Gen Z is our next set of, of consumers. Um, they are, some of them are already adults. Um, some of them are already buying cars and houses. Um, and so the, the, the emerging trend is simply. For brands, especially startups, right, to embrace the idea of authenticity. Don't pretend you're something you're not. Right? If you're a startup, act like a startup because people who want to give their money to a startup rather than a chain or a franchise, you're gonna be. The beneficiary there as opposed to coming across as a Fortune 500 company. That looks like you have deep pockets.
Johnny Diggz:Now. Real quick, just one last thing. I thought we were winding down. I thought we were too, but I just had the, you know, we've been talking about content marketing, we've been talking about that. You just we're talking about this, these trends, obviously we, it's hard to ignore AI and, um, and so talk about, tell me your, your vision of. Of, of content marketing and how it relates to, uh, like these new AI engines that are replacing many of the search engines. Right. So how, how, how do you, what's the new SEO.
Doug Berger:Well, the new SEO is definitely, there are a couple different terms at, at the moment, none have really risen to the top. Um, A IO or LLMO I've, I've heard so far, uh, you know, throw, throw some letters together and, and that's what we're dealing with. I don't
Johnny Diggz:like LLMO because it's not a TLA, it's not a three letter, it's not a three letter acronym. Yeah.
Doug Berger:So, uh, so yeah, a IO uh, and, and still it comes down to authenticity, right? Write about the things that matter to you. Write about the things that you believe matter for your audiences, and then let AI take care of the rest. However, let me, let me back up a little bit there, because that sounded like, oh, AI will take care of it. So, no, that's not the idea. Um, I, I, I do believe that AI has a place, it's a tool, right? It's not a solution. I think there's a big difference there. A lot of people are trying to use it as a solution. Um, but. And, and we've discussed this previously, that AI might get you 80% of the way there. It's not gonna get you a hundred percent of the way there. And frankly, I don't think it ever will because I. A AI will never quite comprehend the, the genesis quo of, of human reactions and responses.
Johnny Diggz:Well, I'm talking about more, more in the, oh, man, I totally misunderstood the question. Well, no, well, more in the, the, the search side of it, not the, not the AI as a tool. Well, I mean, AI as a search tool, I guess. Right?
Doug Berger:So, so it's important to. With regard to content marketing, position yourself as a thought leader. Um, and, and, and part of that is because over time the, the articles that you publish, uh, and, and other media that you publish. If you allow it to be, it'll be crawled by these, uh, LLMs. Right. So Perplexity is gonna see it and chat. Uh, GPT is gonna see it, and now Copilot is gonna see it. Claude and Claude is seeing it. Gemini. Exactly. Yeah. Google's product. Um, and, and so, you know, it, it is going to replace search engines, the traditional search engine as we know it. And so it's gonna be. Just as important, like we had SEO uh, 10 years ago where it, it was important, it was critically important. It's still important, don't get me wrong, but, uh, it's, it's more important to futureproof yourself and to futureproof yourself would be to embrace these LLMs that are crawling your content.
Johnny Diggz:I think that's a good stopping point. Uh, thank you for joining us here at Brand of Brothers. My name is Johnny Diggs.
Doug Berger:And I'm Doug. Without a last name,
Johnny Diggz:we'll catch you guys next time.
Doug Berger:Thank you for tuning in to Brand of Brothers. Big thank you to our presenting sponsor, Remixed, the branding agency, along with production assistance from Johnny Diggz, Simon Jacobsohn, and me, Doug Berger. We can't forget music by PRO. Speaking of not forgetting, remember to do that like and subscribe thing and find us at BrandShowLive. com and follow us on the socials at BrandShowLive.