We believe one of the most important things for any brand to be is 'real'. How do you do that? Developing your brand through content marketing shows off your greatest assets - your team and your passion - and speaks directly to customers.

If you're wondering how to to humanise your brand, you're not alone. It can feel particularly frustrating when you spend time and energy on a marketing campaign, only for it to end up feeling like a Twitter bot shouting about your company.

Perhaps you're working with stock images, instead of real photos of your team and the stuff you do. Maybe you're struggling to engage with your customers online, and you're not quite sure where you're going wrong - why aren’t they liking your posts and clicking your links? Maybe you’ve just completed a branding project and are dipping your toe into social media and digital marketing.

One pitfall when marketing a business is the risk of boring people to death. You might feel like what you're selling isn't special, but there's a creative way to market anything.

Brands are mingling with their customers online every single day, so it's important for you to both 'blend in' and stand out. You don't want to be the kind of corporate company killing Twitter or Facebook. You want to be one ‘sticking your head above the parapet’ and cutting through the digital noise so your customers notice.

So, how do you do it? Here are 5 things you need to do as part of your content marketing strategy to humanise your brand.

#1 Target human emotions

Your customer is a human consuming content, and you’re a human creating content, so make sure you sound like it. Emotions, humour and opinions (when used properly) are great at cutting through.

Take this corporate company, for example. Tasked with creating an advertising video about themselves, they could have swayed to the usual kind of flat, uninteresting video campaign. Instead, they made something sharp, funny, and, ultimately, real.

Another brand that hits hard with emotional triggers is John Lewis. Their Christmas adverts - now a British TV phenomenon - are always led by emotion, and that's what impacts upon their consumers.

It was revealed in a 2015 documentary that when a John Lewis advert first airs live, their marketing team is in the office ready to respond to their customers online. When Twitter and Facebook blow up with activity, they're ready and poised to talk, engage, and jump into conversations with consumers - connecting on a human, emotional level.

By using 'emotion' as a hook in your marketing, you're more likely to increase engagement and give your audience a reason to reply, share and interact.

#2 Write real, not robotic

If you don't already have a blog and an editorial team, get one. Next, make sure you write like a living person with layers and a personality. It seems harder than it looks, and not everyone has a 'writer's pen', but if you're talking about something you know, that you're passionate about, this will translate.

The same goes for your social media promotion. The Twitter account for Google UK Business has thousands of followers and a lot of products to push. They opt for a very dry approach to selling and marketing.

In contrast, the Twitter account for the literary publisher Canongate Books also has a lot of products to sell, but a totally different way of promoting on social media.

Screenshot of twitter post showing dog working in the office

Speaking like a human sounds obvious, but it's a lost art online. It's estimated that we're being shown up to 5,000 adverts every day, offline and online. If you're going to be 1 in 5,000, make your marketing stand out with humour, intelligence, and a personality.

#3 Ditch the stock

Stock photos and videos don't engage people. They're so obviously stock. Even politicians are now using video stock in their ads, and being exposed for it (Last Week Tonight with John Oliver video clip). Nothing beats real, alive-and-kicking photo & video production.

One of our clients needed a video for their new personal brand. For her first video, it was a simple 1 minute exercise routine, and it allowed potential customers to see her doing the exercise, rather than watching a stranger.

It might not have been as polished or perfect as stock, but it's instantly humanised her brand.

#4 Create brand ambassadors

We all want to form relationships and share our experiences with others. A good way to humanise your brand is to engage directly with your consumers. Chat, offer help, comment, like, join in the buzz, deliver great content, be real.

Remember, engaging people using a real, human brand will help sell whatever you're selling with much more ease.

While you build relationships with people, they'll shout and share your stuff for you! Netflix is on the ball with engagement and brand ambassadors.

You can check out some more specific guidelines for great social media engagement here. Know that it takes time to build relationships, just as it does in real life, but the benefits are worth it. Real humans with real positive commentary is priceless.

Netflix UK responding to a tweet of someone talking about their company

#5 Stay fresh and reactive

The reason Netflix and Canongate Books do so well online is that they keep their followers up to date with 'real' moments. People connect with these moments. A lot of brands are so flat in their marketing; you forget there's a real human at the other end of the keyboard.

A quick Instagram snap about some work-in-progress is exactly the type of thing we try to do, when possible. From our experience, our Team page with all our faces is always in the top 3 most viewed pages on our site, because people want to see who we are and form some kind of instant connection.

And there we have it! 5 things to help you humanise your brand & connect with your audience.

If you’re looking for help developing your brand or digital marketing - please get in touch.