Scared that your community's online brand is too fuzzy? Here's how to sharpen it now!
Online communities benefit from establishing their own brand. While they must fit the organization's approach to branding, they really begin to thrive when they convey a sense of place, of value... when they carry their own vibe.
In this episode of Talk About Your Community, Todd Nilson of Clocktower Advisors is joined by Morgan Burns Nielsen of Purple Unicorn. Morgan specializes in branding and will provide her unique perspectives and guidance about incorporating branding principles to your community concept.
About Morgan
Morgan Burns Nielsen stumbled into the branding world after graduating with a BA, no direction and feedback that she was a "good writer." Fifteen years later, after building a career working in-house and agency-side, Morgan launched Purple Unicorn, a brand consultancy. Morgan sees your brand as more than a pretty picture. It's a complete story with a compelling narrative - sometimes we just have to shore up some plot holes.
Show Notes
3:10: Morgan begins with explaining where she starts when it comes to working with a company with branding. She lists understanding your vision and the intended impact of it.
10:15: Digging deeper in values and commitments, Morgan mentions picking on a few core values and being cautious of common values like ‘innovative’. A commenter mentions values being actionable, and Morgan gives the example that if brands have to get super granular on behavior, then the values are not clear enough.
17:08: Morgan touches on using the question ‘What did you want to be when you grew up?’ to provide insights into personal values. Using herself as an example, she wanted to be Rainbow Bright as a kid and now runs a company called Purple Unicorn. However, she uses that question for CEOs to go in depth into how they choose to structure their company and the values they focus on. Todd provides his own example of loving discovery and exploration within Star Trek translating to Clocktower Advisors.
27:20: Todd and Morgan move onto brand archetypes. Morgan mentions applying emotional intelligence to archetypes and using them as a framework. Using the sage archetype as an example, they can also be seen as a trickster to teach you something about yourself. They discuss having a single archetype and how it’s not your identity.
