5 Powerful Business Branding Ideas to Build Your Brand Authentically

This post is all about how small business owners, influencers and creatives can adopt these five powerful business branding ideas to create a brand identity that is memorable and authentic.

If you are creating a brand for yourself, as in, building a brand that is centered around you, you’ve got to be really strategic about how to create a brand identity, and how you show up in your business. It’s a lot different to be and represent your brand than to be promoting someone else’s brand; and while there’s a lot of pressure in that realization, there’s also a lot of opportunity to celebrate your authenticity and bring a fun, personal element to your business! So let these creative business branding ideas marinate in your creative brain and help you formulate a brand strategy fit for a small business branding genius..

Before we dive into these five juicy business branding ideas, we’ll do a quick once-over on what branding consists of.

This post explores the best branding tips for small businesses, so if you are a small business, solopreneur, entrepreneur, freelancer, etc. curious about how to create a brand image, read on and be inspired!

Your brand is like your business’s personality. It’s a lot more than a logo – consider the logo like your name. We all have names, but we are all so much more than our names.

If you want an official brand identity definition, that’s a rough one – both Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary, and Dictionary.com are lacking definitions for this incredibly important term. So in this article, we’ll dive into the facets that do create our own brand identity definitions. Here goes.

Your personal or business brand carries the voice of your business (very often this is the voice of the business owner or content creator), which translates into the way you speak about your business and other related things. It represents your business’s values, which connects to your audience’s values.

Your brand also consists of your branding color palette, any design motifs that represent your offerings, a certain style, possibly a geographic connection.. and all of this is designed to create a thread from your business to the people who need your products: your target audience.

Since your brand is likely the first connection to your target audience, it’s imperative that you really consider whether you feel you can show up authentically and connect with this audience in a genuine way. If you don’t already feel a connection to your audience, it’s hard to build a brand designed to connect you to them.

Now let’s jump into the creative journey of discovering 5 powerful business branding ideas to help small business owners and influencers stand out and show up authentically.

1 – Weave your “you-ness” into all facets of your brand, if this brand is representing YOU.

This is where you’ll want to do some of that deep soul-searching work on any hint of imposter syndrome that creeps into your thoughts (oh yayyy..). Root. That. S#!t. Out. If you don’t, you’ll feel that cringe when you step into a position of sharing – and your audience will sniff out that cringe super fast.

Mindset is absolutely key here, so if you’re not feeling confident about sharing yourself with your audience, you may want to rethink creating a brand that is based on you. This doesn’t mean you have to be flamboyant or loud, but being genuine is key. Influencers and Solopreneurs in particular may have to dance out this reality and see where they land.

If you’re feeling ready to show up totally authentically, then bring that you-ness and your brand’s unique flair to all of your distribution channels – your website, social media channels, content distribution channels, print media, emails, everything.

Saturate these places in your brand’s colors; speak in your brand voice; bring elements that are “so on brand” like swatches of fabric in a certain style, or a pillow in your brand colors, or even neon signs with motifs that celebrate the things you do. If parkour cartwheeling off of curbs is super on brand for you, consider a bold entrance to a speaking engagement!

If you’ve read this far and you’re feeling like you really want to create a brand that is more about the brand than about you, then create a brand that you can still really love and get behind – choose something that still represents your offerings well, even if you really aren’t feeling like sharing your glorious face and soul as much. This is still a really successful strategy – you just have to celebrate the brand as its own entity.

2 – Share your business origin story and how it contributed to your business branding

All businesses have an origin story, and though you may not want to spend a ton of time crafting this out (or maybe you do – and we love that!) these stories offer our audience some context of where we came from. Sharing these stories often provides genuine opportunities to give sneak peeks into your business branding origins also.

For example, if you’ve heard Brendan Burchard’s story, you’ve likely heard the phrase, “Did I live? Did I love? Did I matter?” and if you’ve heard Bonnie Christine’s story, you’ve heard, “Just do one thing a day.” Both of these successful business owners were very intentional about weaving these phrases into their brand story – and the more they repeat them, the more we remember them.

Is there a particular thing you say that feels authentic to you, that you can weave into your story and into your business brand? In particular, is there something unique to your story that also would feel meaningful to your audience? Remember that thread that connects you to your audience as you do this exploration.

Allow yourself to mull over your own story and see if there is an authentic way to weave in these business branding ideas and find a snippet of wisdom that you may want to highlight and celebrate as you share your business’s origins.

3 – Show up. Keep showing up.

This one seems simple, but it’s probably one of the hardest business branding ideas to commit to. It’s easy to get caught up in product creation or improvement, listing new products, launching programs and courses, and all of the things you do in your business.

Showing up in all of the spaces is really hard, and really critical. And I like to also add that you really must make this work in your own life.

For many small business owners and influencers, showing up is non-negotiable. For others, it can be done a little less frequently, but can’t be forgotten. I am so guilty of this.. So many of us are. It’s important to find a schedule that you can manage, and show up, show up, show up.

Maybe you can’t post a story or a video every day, but can you commit to one or two posts/stories each week? Are you repurposing your content so you can share the same video across your Instagram, Youtube and TikTok channels?

Determine how you can show up in your communities (social media communities, geographical communities, etc) and commit to being consistent. Connect with any social circles who you feel would be inspired by and support your brand, and keep those communications alive. And unless you feel like you can really commit, don’t feel obligated to show up on every platform.

The goal is to build a connection with your audience through your communities, so they want to keep coming back and eventually either purchase what you’re selling, sign up for your email marketing list or share your business via good word of mouth (which, as you probably know, is the best advertising for small business out there). So be strategic about where you can realistically show up, and focus on building connections in that community.

4 – Build partnerships, collaborations and community with other business brands who complement your brand

Once you break through any discomfort barriers, it’s a super fun tactic to collaborate with another brand on a cross promotion, product launch or collaborative project; especially a trusted brand in your industry.

The brands you connect with and the collaborations you commit to really should be “on brand” for your business – you want to take the time to think through each one. This means that if you are a boutique selling handmade baby clothing, a favorable partnership or collaboration might be with a fabric company, baby hygiene supplier, maternity wear boutique, etc.

And just to throw out an “off brand” collab for context: it would be very off brand for you to one day show up on your social media channels promoting a fuel additive for race cars, for instance.. Your audience, eagerly awaiting the arrival of your next seasonal baby pajamas, would be pretty confused..

Consider co-branding or collaborating with other brands whose audience will benefit from what you have to offer. The most successful collaborations are good for both audiences.

5 – Keep listening and looking for opportunities to build your brand and share your unique offering

It may take a little tweaking to really settle into your brand’s “brand-ness.” Maybe you’ll even have to reverse your strategy to find a brand name or identity that reflects more of your you-ness (been there). But it’s so satisfying once you land on a brand that you can wholeheartedly feel good sharing and talking about.

As you keep showing up in your communities online and in-person, be aware of things happening in your industry that may be good for your business. Or things that may signal that it’s time to pivot or make different choices. Just keep listening and looking around.

Consider how your products or offerings are being received in the current climate and address any concerns that arise. Sometimes your brand may be affected by something totally out of your control – something that sounds like your business – or is in the same industry. Be ready to speak up and restate your values and stand if you need.

And be ready to consider new opportunities that come your way. Sometimes it’s the perfect fluke – like nailing the trending song on TikTok. Or seeing your product randomly show up in a popular reality TV show. Branding a business means taking care of your brand and being ready for it to take off. Eep!

Keep reminding yourself of where you want to ultimately end up in your business and get prepped for your brand and community to grow as you do.

Hope you enjoyed reading about these 5 business branding ideas to build authentic brand awareness and community!