Brand Equity: What Is It and Why Does It Matter?

Brand Equity. It sounds important. It sounds like you should have it. But what exactly is it? And why does it matter? We recently conducted an internal training to talk about just that, and we thought we’d share some of our insights and tips with our Hedge IT audience!

Brand equity is commonly defined as "a set of assets linked to a brand’s name and symbol that adds to the value provided by a product or service to a firm and/or its customers¹." Traditionally, branding elements include a company’s name, logo, images and perceptions.

For example, Eze Castle’s brand can be seen throughout our corporate website (pictured here) in the logo, colors and fonts we use.

So why does brand equity matter? We’ve narrowed it down to 8 key reasons.

1. Drives buying decisions

2. Builds customer loyalty

3. Grows market share

4. Defends market share

5. Supports pricing premiums

6. Creates a halo effect

7. Helps business expansion

8. Increases market value

In addition to understanding the importance of your company’s brand, you should also be thinking about your personal brand. Particularly as social networking sites become such important parts of our daily lives, our personal branding becomes even more important.

Photos

First impressions are important, in real life and also on social networking sites. Our eyes are naturally drawn to someone’s photo before their posts and ‘about me’ information. But what does your online headshot or profile picture say about you? Best practice here suggests you should be mindful of who you’re connected to on various sites (your Facebook friends likely differ from your LinkedIn connections), and use a photo that best represents the message you want to send to that audience.

Social Content

After someone notices your profile photo, they are going to start taking in the rest of your content. Status updates, photos, personal information, what groups you’re in or pages you like. All of this information is readily accessible to your profile viewers.

Consider your online profiles like marketing pieces. Even if you aren’t trying to sell yourself or look for a new job, you still want to ensure you are giving off the right impression about yourself. Your status updates, tweets, online reviews, LinkedIn recommendations and comments all contribute to your online personal brand. Having a positive online presence can influence how others think of you. But having a negative online presence can also do the same.

Important Tip: Stay in control of your online privacy settings. You have the ability to control who sees what information about you, but you have to actively take steps to ensure your content is protected if you want it to be.