Taylor Swift is a savvy entrepreneur and business woman and companies can learn a lot from how she has created and maintains brand consistency.

Despite some negative media articles about her love life in the past, a feud with another music star and taking on multi-million dollar companies, Swift has managed to maintain her brand as being a real and authentic American girl next door. So how does she do it? Swift began building her brand even before she was signed. She’d perform flash concerts at departure lounges and deliver home baked cookies to anyone who mentioned or played her music. Even now, she still likes to show fans how much she appreciates them and for the launch of her “1989” album, Swift invited fans to her home so they could hear the album before it was released. She uses social media to show fans who she really is and not only posts images of her doing stuff at home, she even shares some text messages with fans and responds to their questions. They reach out to her and she responds.

Swift used that same approach when she decided to take on Apple when they announced they wouldn’t pay royalties to artists for the three month trial of their new streaming service. Swift wrote an open letter on social media to Apple instead of a press release. It was a nice letter but direct and to the point. It worked too. A few hours later, Apple backed down. Swift maintains her brand by controlling her own social media and listening and engaging with fans. That doesn’t mean that by using social media, Swift can stop articles being written about her or her name or image used for something negative. But Swift has managed to find a way to control that too. She has bought domains that reference her name and owns copyright of images taken of her by photographers at concerts and has even applied to trademark some of her lyrics in a bid to make sure that whenever her name or work is used it’s used for the right reasons. When some things are out of her control, like what the media said about her past relationships, she writes songs about it and isn’t afraid to make fun of herself which allows her to again take control of her own brand. Swift is proof that you don’t need “shock value” to be a success, you just need to remember the core value of your brand and maintain it. No wonder Kanye feels so threatened by her #success #taylorswift #business #entrepreneur #branding