Sneaker Twitter Marketing 101 pt.1: Brand Image
Inspired by everyone’s favourite Michael from Notify and because I’ve received multiple requests, I’ve decided to start up a blog as well to talk about marketing/PR in our community. While I have absolutely no doubts that I will eventually stray off-course and turn this blog into a rant-fest, I plan to try and help you guys better understand and practice marketing techniques here on sneaker twitter with facts, statistics and numbers.
First and foremost, some credentials.
I graduated with a diploma in Communications a number of years ago, and in May next year I’ll be graduating from university with a Bachelor with Honours in Communications as well. Throughout my 6 years of school, I’ve worked with 3 global PR firms and marketing agencies on 6-month internship terms, as well as an (albeit short) full-time position in one. I’ve helped worked on local and international brands, with the notable ones being Samsung and BBC. TL;DR: I’ve had a lot of experience with major agencies servicing major clients.
With all that said and done, I’d like to explore a simple yet often overlooked topic for my first post: Brand Image.
P.S. these posts will definitely be more helpful towards existing and potential company owners, as compared to the general public.
Brand Image and the lack-there-of on Sneaker Twitter.
It’s one of the earliest and important steps when you’re creating a service and/or product, yet it’s something that I’ve noticed a lot of Sneaker Twitter companies miss out on. If I offered you $1 for every company that started up and faded into obscurity (at least in my opinion), you could quite possibly pay for an AJ1 Mid at this point.
I find that a lot of companies — old and new — have barely any brand image beyond their 10 or so success RTs on drop day. There isn’t a lot that screams ‘appealing’ to me, nor do I get a sense of what it’s like in their Discord servers. Why? Because the default marketing strategy for most companies is to
1) host giveaways
2) RT success posts
3) screenshots of monitors
and it stops there. There’s no soul behind the Twitter account; there’s nothing that tells potential customers what it’s like inside your server; there’s nothing that explains what the company stands for and what its’ values are. Creating a brand image doesn’t stop at having a fancy logo, you really have to put some thought into it.
While it might have worked in 2019 and earlier this year, our market has been cluttered with similar upcoming companies that clutter an already diverse community. What makes your group any different from a group that’s been here for years? Why should someone pick your bot to run when another bot has about the same checkout rates as yours? That’s where your brand image comes in. You need to build an impression and recognition for your brand.
While I attribute part of the problem to the fact that the average age of our community is ‘virgin’ and therefore no one really knows about marketing, a part of me also knows that its basically because people don’t care enough as long as they see x new followers per month. Having more followers is always a good thing, but there’s no point in having thousands of followers if none of them actually want to support your company. And rest assured — if you have this part pat-down, you’ll find the same sort of growth in followers and engagement as hosting repetitive giveaways.
This is why brand image is so important; it makes an impression and creates recognition. Are Wendy’s burgers really that tasty? Not really, but because they switched up their brand image into something young, hip, and cool on social media, they’ve flocked to the top of the fast-food chain — they were ranked #1 on FC’s Most Innovative Companies list in 2019.
How to build a brand image?
First and foremost, what exactly is brand image? There’s a lot of different definitions on the Internet, but to put it simply — it’s what customers think and perceive of your brand. This might sound strange to you, but people can actually have differentiating opinions from what you think of your own brand. That’s why it’s important to maintain a consistent brand image as it will directly impact your sales and customer retention in the future.
Building a brand image is never easy and it begins from the foundations of your company. What do you want your company to stand for, and what kind of impression do you want to leave on your customers? Do you want to come off as funny, do you want to exhume professonalism, do you want to be known as an aggressive company? All of that boils down to your brand image and positioning within the community.
Firstly, you need to determine your brand mission, values and vision. This will pretty much dictate the style in which your tweets and messages will be delivered to the audience. If you’re inconsistent, it will hurt your brand image. To aid you in this part, you can think of a positioning statement (which will also be your Twitter account’s bio) you want your company to revolve around — what exactly is the one key factor/feature that makes you stand apart from the competition? Research your audience and competition, and find what makes you unique (as a tip, avoid common features such as ‘FAST MONITORS’ or ‘FAST CHECKOUT RATES’). With that statement, you can then build your mission, values and mission — and thereafter, your brand image will be born.
A simple example: when CookBeast first started out on Instagram in 2019, we did prior research and realized that Instagram resellers are fairly new to the game as compared to Twitter users. Consumers on Instagram are less likely to have bots or even know what cookgroups do, and that’s why I positioned CookBeast to be a newbie-friendly community where people can learn and increase their chances of copping a shoe. Notice the keywords I used — you have to find the right words to describe your product/service in a single sentence to avoid boring your potential customers, and at the same time entice them to buy your product/service.
With this positioning statement, we lined up our messaging accordingly. We posted simple-to-read analysis, ensured that we avoided complicated jargons and used simple words to describe what we are and what we do, and at the same time used a lot of appealing images/screenshots to show what CookBeast is about. Thus, we had an influx of members, albeit the fact that they generally had no prior reselling experience.
Just by determining what your brand positioning statement is, you’ll be able to build your image around it and therefore your brand image will come afterward. It might seem like a long-winded and unnecessary process, but when your product/service is known for something — it really helps in gaining new traction in an otherwise cluttered community. For example, if you have a brand image that’s about being positive and bright, you will find that people are more forgiving when you make mistakes. It’s really that simple, because you’ve already built an impression in your consumers’ heads.
Changing your brand image (if need be)
That being said, you want to avoid having a brand image that doesn’t suit your brand vision/positioning statement as well. Getting too much into it without doing anything about it will lead to serious consequences in the future. Afterall, what’s the point of owning a company if you aren’t happy with the direction it’s headed to?
A simple example I have for this is Crocs. Rewind a few years ago, absolutely no one wanted to wear Crocs because they’re old-fashioned and makes you look like an actual Ronald Mcdonald. Why? because their brand image revolved around being practical and useful instead of focusing on its’ design. Crocs realised the problem — kids, especially Millenials and Gen-Z consumers have been mocking and ridiculing the brand as ‘uncool’ on social media. The solution? Crocs began collaborating with notable pop figures such as Post Malone, Justin Bieber and Bad Bunny, and even had a whole fucking chicken on their sandals in their partnership with KFC.
While Crocs hasn’t exactly turned it around yet, you can gradually see more and more people entertaining the thought of wearing Crocs and some of them actually do have some sort of resell value. They’re opening up and trying to tell their younger audiences that “hey, we can be cool too”.
Creating your brand image isn’t an easy task, but it’s something that everyone has to do if you’re thinking of starting up a new company. Hopefully this inspires some of you to start thinking of your brand’s positioning on Sneaker Twitter and we’ll see more interesting content on the app.
To conclude, if you haven’t already thought about your brand image — do so now. Simply someone to manage your social media account isn’t going to cut it today. You need to make your brand more appealing in order to welcome in actual users and not flippers who wouldn’t even bother joining the Discord if they don’t have to.
