Branding vs Brand Identity – What’s the difference?

Branding vs Brand Identity – what’s the difference?

Gone are the days when small entrepreneurs would simply create logos for their businesses and then call it a day. Now more than ever, defining your brand has been recognized as a crucial step to business success. I know you’ve probably heard it in countless iterations by now:

“Build your brand!”

“You MUST be consistent with your brand identity!”

…so on and so forth. They might seem to be synonymous terms for the unfamiliar, especially since they’ve been used interchangeably by people who also don’t know any better.

But as you can already tell from the tone of this paragraph, they actually don’t mean the same! So what’s the difference?

First, how would you define branding?

Well, let’s first state the obvious: it is the process of defining and solidifying one’s brand.

Your brand is the emotional relationship you have with your customers. With that said, you can think of it as the intangible elements of your business—how you make people feel, what impression you make, and how you’re perceived by your audience.

It is the overall experience you offer to your customers. It is what makes them trust, love, and recommend your business. It’s a promise that you make to your audience. And as with all promises, delivering on them will help catapult you to success.

So it only makes sense to really pay attention to branding, since it’s the collection of steps and actions that’ll make your brand come to life.

Now, a smaller (but definitely crucial!) part of branding is brand identity.

Okay. So what is it then?

Unlike branding, brand identity is tangible. It’s comprised of the visual elements that you use as the first line of attack for newer prospects. You can use it to introduce your business through design. This is where fonts, layouts, color palettes, and logo design comes in (which can be used in your cover photos as well).

Brand identity is the visual aspect of branding. If you have this taken care of, you can use it to evoke the feelings you want to evoke and to make the impression you want to make. Sounds pretty darn powerful to me, wouldn’t you agree? ☺

Wow. That was a lot of information to take in!

I know, I know. If knowing the difference wasn’t important, we really wouldn’t bother to discuss it, either. But the reality is, these are crucial to your success!

But since I want to make everything easier for you (I mean, that’s what I’m here for, right?), let me sum it all up:

Branding is the process of establishing your brand and building awareness.
Brand is the emotional relationship between your business and its customers.
Brand identity is the tangible elements and visual design that you use in branding.

I hope this post has been helpful. See you on the next one!