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Hi, this is Jules and welcome to the full party. Recently on this podcast, we've been talking about

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branding and this is geared towards new artists and entrepreneurs who have a creative project

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that they're focused on and want to bring into the world long term. We're talking about branding

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because it's an area that I focused on over the past few years as a designer. I've been creating

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content for over a decade and whether that's through blogging, social media, or graphics and

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online visuals, I've learned a thing or two about branding. And if you want to know more about

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branding and the components that make up a good brand package, that's going to be your fonts,

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colors, icons, and imagery, and your initial mood boards, you can listen to that episode on

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Branding 101 Effective and Easy Branding for Entrepreneurs and Artists. Today, we're going

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to talk about brand values. Beyond aesthetics, branding is tone of voice. It's the words you use.

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It's typically the type of quality and standards you have for your work. In this episode, we're

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going to assume you already have a long-term creative project or entrepreneurial endeavor

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you're working on. And before we begin, I want to start with a framing, a grounding exercise for

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our minds. If you're just starting out, if you're a bootstrapping Billy or DIY Daniela, please have

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some empathy for yourself. The best thing you can do as you approach your branding, as you approach

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your creative project, is to continue trying. Keep trying until you get some momentum, even if at the

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moment you show up for practice and that practice is just for you to build confidence. The worst

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thing you can do is essentially lose consistency. Now, the reason why I say this is because I am a

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person who creates in the age of the internet. And I think before the internet, I took creative

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lessons, piano, design, and I would still show up and practice for myself, even if that meant not

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performing for an audience. These days, we can show up online and essentially give a performance

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to the algorithms that be. And unfortunately, no matter what platform you're working with,

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algorithms judge you first and foremost by how consistent you are. And then that consistency

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determines who your content gets pushed out to. There is a favoritism based upon consistency,

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so I want you to focus on this first. Keep this as a value you hold near and dear as you think about

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your artistic and entrepreneurial journey. Next, I do want to say, if you are not a beginner,

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let's say you're a multimillion dollar artist with teams of creatives, then I really want you

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to take these branding values with a grain of salt because you're the person who at the end of the

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day is the artistic executive and director of your vision. And there are many ways to create assets

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in the world today, whether that's through AI and graphic design tools. And I think many people

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believe that they can essentially cut out other creatives from the decision and design making

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process. But with that, I've also seen a lot of decline in creative work. And to me, if you've

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built up your brand as a designer or an entrepreneur, I feel there should not really be any reason for

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this. So whether the decline in design quality is based upon lack of judgment or lack of creatives

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working on a project, my hope is that defining values in branding will ultimately become the

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foundational tenets that help to redirect aesthetics and goals to more cohesive and easy to

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understand message that benefits everyone, not just the face or the head of a brand.

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So today we're going to cover three topics. The first topic is coming up with a list of traits

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that define your audience in order to corral and frame your brand values. And then second,

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we're going to discuss abstract values to guide your mission and your brand. And then third,

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we're going to talk about this one value that I don't truly think anyone can ignore these days,

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and it's ROI, return on investment. And please stick around because return on investment,

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I think first and foremost should be based upon your choices, things that you care about. And

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ultimately, the idea is to grow and become stronger as creatives and entrepreneurs. So this is

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important. It's something worth nailing down in the beginning and it will ultimately become a tool

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that will help you measure your growth. So let's go ahead and dive in and start with our first topic,

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which is how to define your audience. I find one of the easiest ways to define your audience is to

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come up with a simple list. You can make a list of traits that define your audience. For example,

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if you're a musician, maybe your fans are people who enjoy nature, folks who have dogs, like to go

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camping. You can break this up into larger categories, women in their twenties or thirties

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who like to go on hot girl walks, who love to be creative, love to have fun, but are definitely

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type A at times. And that for example, is how I've defined my broader audience. For me to go into an

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example of my specific audience, I like to reach out to those who are interested in creative projects

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who consider themselves to be independent decision makers. And I tend to cater towards a more female

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audience because I don't feel that there are a lot of podcasts made by women geared towards women

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specifically on the topic of creativity. Now, this list will definitely vary for you based upon

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whatever your creative project is or whatever product you're trying to promote. Ideally,

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you've already spent some time into choosing whatever creative endeavor you're going to work

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on. And ideally, this is something you like, something you relate to, because you're going

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to have to show up for this topic regularly in your aesthetic and your branding decisions. And so

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it's good to choose something that you can work on for the long run. Going back to this topic of

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creative podcasts, for example, even though there may also be men in their forties who consider

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themselves to be feminists or soft boys in their twenties who are trying to create a punk band,

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and maybe even AI obsessed teens living with their mommies listening to this podcast,

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I ultimately prioritize the first list I mentioned, women in their twenties or thirties who like to be

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creative as my primary audience because that's a specific choice that will guide who I speak to,

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it helps determine tone of voice, and I choose not to cater to others even though they may listen to

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my podcast because then it gets into a territory of topics I simply can't speak to nor do I desire

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to. I personally made the decision that I want to use my lived experience to help my specific

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audience. And the best way that I've determined to do that is to find overlap in those who I can

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speak to who can trust that I've had personal experiences that they can relate to. So for this

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first topic, I want you to create a list of traits of your audience and go ahead and write that down.

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It can be a quick list, set a timer for about 10 minutes, and just bullet point it out. Our next

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broader topic will address abstract values to include in your brand. And abstract values are

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a great way of defining the reason for being that your art or your product serves. Some examples of

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abstract values to include are trust, kindness, brutal honesty, and encouragement. It's great to

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define abstract values because this helps get into the territory of range and tone of voice that you

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might address in your copy, your copywriting, if you're a musician, maybe your lyrics. And the

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reality is human beings have range. None of us are entirely corporate, rule-following entities or

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hormonal, outbursting biological creatures. We have range. For example, I can be a bit of a chaotic

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person who likes to make memes, but I also pride myself in knowing the rules and operating with

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integrity. And while the tone of voice might change beyond these two personal traits I have

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within myself, I think that having broader values of trust, kindness, brutal honesty,

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and encouragement ultimately help to create a fence for these other traits that fall within

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the range. With this, you might consider what your mission is. And this mission can be broader. And

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while there are smaller values that you have like trust, kindness, brutal honesty, encouragement,

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a higher vision is something like I want to create content for the greater good and higher vision of

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my audience. I want them to be able to feel like they can create despite the fact there are many

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changing facets in the world of creation today. And I think this mission is something that you

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can keep personal to you, but ultimately it is a guiding light that helps you show up and make your

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work when it feels like the small tactical things get in the way. Again, this is going to be different

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for you, but I encourage you to start out with some abstract values and write them down next to

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your list of the audience and what traits they have. Write down at least five to six abstract

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values. For example, I included trust, kindness, brutal honesty, encouragement. Some other values

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you might have include moving forward, growth, grounding, calmness, creativity. And I think it's

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important to also hone in on what exactly these things mean to you so you can get more specific.

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And more specificity will ultimately remind you of the unique purpose you serve with your brand.

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The third topic we're going to talk about today is ROI or return on investment. And we can't get away

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from talking about ROI because the reality is one of the reasons why we want to create branding is

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so that we can essentially measure whether or not these values that we have, these abstract values

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and aesthetic values are creating a sort of desired outcome. And I think it's good to think about

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ROI in these terms, not just in terms of financial investment, because many of us start out creative

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or entrepreneurial projects without much monetary investment at the beginning. And you can think of

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your time as one of the main things you can invest, especially if you don't have a lot of capital

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upfront. And I think this is what separates a brand that is created just for funsies, just to look

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cool and a brand that actually accomplishes its goals. When we think of return on investment,

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we want to think about smart goals and smart goals are specific, measurable, actionable,

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realistic, and timely. When we talk about specificity and creating return on investment,

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we want to have a specific goal. So these specific goals can be things like gaining more followers.

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Okay, how many followers? Gaining more likes, how many likes? Gaining more signups, how many signups?

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We want to create some sort of specificity around the goal that we're trying to attain. And that

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helps with the next facet of smart goals, which is being able to measure with social media these

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days, there are a lot of metrics to pay attention to, but I would consider thinking of at least one

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or two metrics that you care about. And I honestly even recommend that you don't use things like likes

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and followers to determine the success of your goal. For me personally, I think that social media

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platforms can be quite addictive. And I find that specific goals that are more important are things

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like output. So creating a goal to put out at least one podcast episode a week. And then from

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there, it's easy for me to measure whether or not I did that episode is extremely actionable for me

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as well, because I can set aside time to create the podcast and I know what days I'm recording,

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and that makes it actionable for me. This is another reason why I don't recommend using likes

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and follows as a way to guide your goals, because they're not exactly actionable traits that you can

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control. I find that many people who go into the line of work of social media, a lot of times don't

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necessarily know what attracts their audience or they can't control for when they get their audience,

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they can mostly control for how often they create their content. So I would start from

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that broader perspective of when you create your content, how often you put it out there,

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and think of those in terms of being specific, measurable, and actionable. In smart goals,

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we want to discuss if something is realistic and timely. It's a good idea to really think about

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if your growth is realistic. And what I mean by this is that you might see growth due to some

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sort of favor by the algorithm, but realistically, the algorithm changes a lot. And what works for you

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one time might not work for another. And that can really interfere with broader timeline goals. And

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so I think it's a good idea to not necessarily create for algorithms or people outside of you,

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but to nail down specific goals that you have for yourself. And think about your goals in terms of

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a broader timeline, let's say three months to a year, and then break it down even smaller to think

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about what goals you have for yourself in three months and a year. Where do you want to be a year

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from now with the product you make, with the content you make, and then from there, create a

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schedule that you can realistically follow in order to show up for your audience. So today we

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talked about how to define traits of your audience. And then we talked about broad abstract values to

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include to help guide the content that you create for your audience. And then the third thing that

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we talked about is return on investment and how to create smart goals for you to set up your week,

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your quarter, and your year. I want to end with some journaling exercises in order to help you

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think about these as they pertain to you, because we're all going to be different. We all have

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different projects we're working on. And so I have three journal prompts for you. The first one is,

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what do I care about? And how do I demonstrate that care through my work? The next one is,

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who are my fans? Who are the people I support and inspire with my vision? And the third one is,

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what's my offering and how does it directly impact my audience? Take at least 10 minutes to journal

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answering each one of these questions and then go through the exercises within this podcast again,

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and you'll be well on your way to defining what your brand values are. And that will help you

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determine what aesthetic choices to make in your brand even more. So after you've listened to this

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podcast episode and completed the exercises, feel free to listen to Effective Branding 101 again

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and see if that changes what you might have done before, because ultimately our aesthetic should be

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married to a larger vision based upon values. If you enjoyed this episode of branding on the pool

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party, this month I'm doing a series on branding brand values and taking the years of experience

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I have from creating content in social media and a variety of other contexts to help you create a

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brand that makes sense, that is long lasting and is more actionable and helpful to you and your

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audience. Please follow this podcast on Spotify, give it a like, and if you enjoyed it, share it

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with a friend. This has been Jules and I will see you next week.