What is Digital Branding?

The digital world is filled with content and messages from brands and creators. So, the key to success isn’t more marketing campaigns – it’s all about a digital branding strategy.

As of 2024, there are over 5.4 billion internet users worldwide, and the number is increasing every day. So, if our brand does not focus on developing an online presence, we risk losing a large portion of our potential customers. In fact, think of a brand without an online presence, just like a car without tires – it won’t get us anywhere. And the solution is simple – digital branding. 

Read more to find out everything you need about what is digital branding, the best examples of digital branding, and the elements of digital brand management. 

Digital branding is all about establishing and improving our online presence and how we are perceived by users in the digital world. At the same time, digital brand management represents creating and using digital assets, such as videos, images, and other types of content, to build a community around our website, social media accounts, or email marketing. And when done right, digital branding can be the solution to building a loyal customer base that can lead to more clients and sales. 

A digital branding strategy can be implemented in three ways:

• Identity: to build our brand identity, we should focus on content marketing – whether it’s blog articles or videos on social media platforms. 
• Visibility: our digital brand management should focus on search engine rankings, digital advertising, and social media SEO practices.  
• Credibility: the focus should be building brand authority through social media accounts and ratings or reviews. 

If you want to establish and develop your online brand, these categories are exactly what you need to look for. But remember – once we have built our online brand identity, it will be easier to grow our brand visibility. However, depending on our needs, wants, and resources, we might want to focus on one at a time or all simultaneously.

Difference Between Digital Branding and Digital Marketing

Indeed, a digital marketing and digital branding strategy can be pretty similar – but it’s important to remember that they focus on two different aspects of our business growth. 

Digital branding refers to how our business presents itself to the target audience and includes strategies that foster customer relationships and engage our potential customers. On the other hand, digital marketing is all about promoting our products and selling them to our customers through various digital methods – whether it’s digital advertising, paid marketing campaigns, or other targeted marketing efforts.

The end goal for both strategies is the same: to grow our customer base. However, to have a successful digital marketing strategy, we must develop a digital branding plan to establish a sense of identity in the digital world. In other words, before simply illustrating our product’s benefits (digital marketing), we should highlight our brand’s values and what we can provide to our users beyond just our products (digital branding).

1. Nike

Nike is one of the most successful brands in the world – and for a good reason. Besides the company’s ability to get to its customers in a way that is both relatable and compelling, Nike knows precisely how to appeal to its target market. The company empowers everyone through videos and images promoting its values and culture, using partnerships with various athletes and celebrities. This way, Nike knows what buttons to push to make us follow their social media accounts, helping them stay on top of our tongues whenever it comes to building a healthier life. 

2. IKEA

IKEA’s digital brand is known for its creative content marketing campaigns, which focus on providing us with inspiration for our new home. Its social media carousels and videos are all about establishing a cozy and welcoming environment that gives us the same feel when we decide to purchase. Even more so, IKEA’s Instagram descriptions display the same idea, like “Bring some sunshine indoors” or “Maximise that calm and effortless vibe.” 

3. Notion

Notion’s digital branding campaign combines its fun illustrations with usability and productivity. At the same time, digital brands are all about being relatable to everyone. And Notion does precisely that. For this reason, during Valentine’s, they posted a few videos about “Three stories of love, from Notion to you.”, where they showcase how Jay uses Notion to create a system for their family, the way Elizabeth builds a Notion board to plan her wedding, and how Connie shared her document related to her dating scene. 

When developing a digital brand management plan, here are a few elements that we should focus on that will make us stand out: 

• Logo: 75% of people identify and associate a brand simply by looking at its logo. So, creating a logo that matches our business’ personality and is unique enough to make our customers remember us is important. 
• Website: In most cases, the website is the first touchpoint of our users with our brand. So, it’s one of the most critical aspects of implementing a successful digital branding strategy. Not only does it include all the information about our products and services, but it’s also a way to interact with our potential customers.
• Social Media: In today’s world, social media is everywhere. And these platforms have become an integral part of our everyday lives. If you’re asking a millennial or a Gen-Z, if you’re not on social media, you don’t exist at all. So, developing a digital brand relies heavily on building our social media presence. Whether educational content, memes, or simply promoting our products, social media platforms can be the backbone of our business growth.
• SEO: Indeed, social media can be an incredibly powerful tool for generating leads. The most traffic to our website and leads comes from organic search. Google and other search engines represent the primary avenue through which our users can find about us on the internet. So, we must create SEO strategies to help rank higher on search engine result pages and become successful digital brands. 
• Brand Message: When people see “Just Do It!” they immediately think of Nike. This is why it’s essential to develop a unique and memorable voice and message that will make our users remember you for a long time – just like Nike did. Our brand message should answer the questions about “what do we do?”, “what do we stand for?” and even “why do we matter?”. 
• Content Marketing: To create a digital brand, we should promote more than just our products. Instead, we should focus on sharing valuable and engaging content that can help us build a community of loyal customers. And this is where content marketing becomes necessary, as it represents the human side of our business.