Going Digital: A Simple Guide To Cultivating Your Brand’s Online Personality

going digital marketing

Small business owners and entrepreneurs are a lot like the horses at the Kentucky Derby — fast, determined, and 100 percent focused on the finish line. Start going digital if you want to succeed.

Everyone who runs a business for themselves has a specialty that makes them so successful. Whether it’s food, retail, construction or technology, the type-A entrepreneurs of America are very good at that one specific thing that makes them so successful.

If you want going digital and to cultivate your brand’s online personality, you will need to go digital. Here is a simple guide you can use.

Be a Marshawn Lynch

A successful business isn’t Usain Bolt running as fast as he can from point A to point B in the 100m dash — it’s Marshawn Lynch running a 67-yard touchdown in the playoffs, bursting side to side and shaking countless defenders until finally leaping into the end zone. Good businesses are run by Usains, but great businesses are run by Marshawns — the multi-tooled, multi-talented businessmen and women of America. And a big chunk of that skill set starts with building your brand online.

Meet Chubbies

Our case study for this article: Chubbies Shorts. What are Chubbies Shorts? Well, they’re simply shorts for men that have an elastic waistband and a shorter inseam — that’s it. They are made in the US and have a couple other gimmicks consumers love (they also make swim shorts). But Chubbies didn’t build a successful brand by just making short shorts (to be fair, they are nice shorts); they created an entirely new culture online.

The people behind Chubbies know shorts, yes, but more importantly, they know the “cool” behind the shorts. Just look at this email I received from customer service when I inquired about changing my order:

“Thanks for reaching out! We can cancel this order and all you will need to do is place a new order with the shipping method you wanted. Let me know if you want to do this and we will get it taken care of.

Boom to the yeah, hope this helps. If you have any questions in the future, feel free to shoot em my way. Until then, keep those thighs liberated my friend.

Sky’s Out! Thighs Out!”

That humor is spread across the entire company — packaging, website, social media, everywhere. Chubbies Shorts built a company on personality, and now they can’t keep enough shorts in stock because of it.

When “Cool” Doesn’t Work

Don’t try to be cool when you’re not, suggests Entrepreneur. The best companies understand when “cool” work for them and when it doesn’t. Take Drivetime, a used car, and auto loan company, for example. They’re not running up and down the beach holding the American flag like Chubbies Shorts, but they do know how to work with humor on their Facebook page.

car sales

Used cars and auto loans will never be as cool as trendy clothing, but that doesn’t mean you have to completely hold back your sense of humor. They key is to understand your audience and don’t force what isn’t there. Drivetime’s social media outlets are a synergistic blend of functional and funny, the combination you need when your goal is to entertain your viewers and maintain a healthy engagement that will eventually lead to more sales. Whether you’re about to open the next Chubbies Shorts of Drivetime, grow your brand’s personality in a way that is natural and your audience will reciprocate.