Branding | Kenneth Ronkowitz

Instagram during the pandemic via instagram.com/cedarbeanscoffeejoint

I have some designs and content lists I use based on categories. For example, I have done several writer’s sites (especially poets) and ones for artists and photographers. Each has some unique needs. Artists and photographers obviously want to feature their images – and also protect the images so that they won’t be downloaded at high quality and used without permission. It’s hard to fully protect images other than watermarking them because it is so easy to do screen grabs. So, designers will use smaller or lower-quality images and perhaps code to disallow right-click saving.

Writers probably want to show some of their writing – an excerpt of prose and maybe a few poem samples. As with images, it’s hard to fully prevent copying of text and that may be the cost of being online. You can make a page of text into an image to prevent quick copy and paste of the text, but you may also want to share your work and sometimes even encourage sharing via social media links.

During these two COVID-19 pandemic years, many restaurants found their website more important than ever. It may have needed an upgrade to allow for placing online and takeout orders. Menus and hours may have changed. They may have wanted to include information about the safety measures in place.

I haven’t worked on any restaurant sites in a few years but I read this article on designing restaurant websites which has an eye to the special needs of that category and to what the pandemic may have changed. Small things like adding a pop-up info box or notification bar on your home page so that that you can feature changing elements (like hours, availability, or even staffing needs) is one design element that may have been needed.

I know that my local favorite coffee place, Cedar Beans Coffee Joint in Cedar Grove, New Jersey – added information (shown below) in a notification bar to its already well-designed website.

“Excited to announce 100% capacity indoors with masks optional in NJ. We are also operating with curbside delivery and walk-ups in the store. Please continue to utilize the MyCoffeeHelper app to place your orders (it’s fun!).
Follow us on Instagram and Facebook to stay informed about events, and promotions.”

They added the app for ordering quick and contactless pickup in the worst of these pandemic times, notifications about policy changes, and they have an email option for updates that is always useful, along with a very dynamic social media presence.

via cedarbeans.com

It helps that the Cedar Beans’ owner is Dave Fletcher who also runs a digital branding agency, The Mechanism, and so was well aware of what needed to be done.

Design by categories is a good approach and it always includes taking a close look at what your direct competitors as well as what others in your category are doing as best practices.

image via Flickr CC by 2.0

I received an offer recently to become a “brand ambassador” for a product line. The company is owned by someone who is an acquaintance and knew I had a background in social media marketing. Boosting brand awareness by using celebrities, customers and employees is becoming more and more common.

Though customers and employees may not have the audience and followers of a celebrity, they may have more believability as a spokesperson, especially if they are not being paid to endorse (which is what celebrities have been doing for a lot longer than there has been social media).

When you officially make some a brand ambassador, you should not just let them go on their own.

Most brands will create clear guidelines as to what they can post. A bad post can do a lot of damage.

You would need to create and curate relevant content for them. Images, logos, and text can be provided with guidelines how how much personalization and variation can be done.

I did this kind of campaign with a large national professional organization. The official but “unpaid” ambassadors who completed a series of campaign tasks around a national conference could get all or a portion of their conference stay covered. It was a good motivator.

Employers will often use a platform like Hootsuite or Smarp to facilitate employee engagement and advocacy by providing an internal content management system. Employees can access shareable content and schedule posts.

Customers – who are generally unpaid and unofficial ambassadors – can also be effective. As in my own experiences, when someone retweets or shares your official post they are endorsing (unless they make a negative comment along with that share!). That kind of 1:1 or 1:many word of mouth promotion is very powerful.

You’ll see offers made in this vein. For example, retweet this to your followers with a special hashtag and the company will select 10 retweets to win a product package.