How to Brand Yourself as a Cosplayer
Cosplay as a culture has exploded over the last couple of years. Now there are more opportunities than ever to take your hobby to the next level. If you’ve ever thought about how to establish a brand for yourself as a cosplayer than you’ll want to stick around to hear some tips about getting the ball rolling.
Now, let’s talk about branding. To ensure that you are successful in using these tips, you have to treat yourself like a business. If you don’t take yourself seriously, then why would anybody else? The goal here is to create your identity in the cosplay niche. In short, how do you want to portray yourself?
The easiest way to sort this out is to brainstorm and solidify your voice, image and tone.
Voice
Your voice sets the stage for your identity. Like your speaking voice, it expresses energy and personality. People flock to brands because they relate to them and support the values that they possess. Think of your favourite famous cosplayer, how do they write captions on Instagram? What do they tweet about? Consider the words you use and the way you use them. Be intentional and obviously, be yourself. You’re already dressing up as a fictional character, you don’t need to act like one too.
Image
The main question to ask yourself is how do you want to be portrayed? Consider the type of content you are putting out on social media and how that is going to effect the way people perceive you. Think about the differences between Jessica Nigri and Kamui Cosplay. Now of course, not everybody is gonna like you, but thats fine because not everybody is your target audience. You don’t have to necessary pigeonhole yourself but its important to know where you fit in the grand scheme of things. If someone new stumbles upon your page and you’ve got memes, cat pics, cosplay tutorials, recipes and selfies, I guarantee they won’t stay for long. Image also refers to not only your personal pictures, but also, the fonts, colours and icons that you use. So be intentional and consistent. Think of Harley Davidson and Disney, two very different brands but a distinct vibe as to who they are.
Tone
This one kind of goes hand and hand with voice, but dives more into the spirit of your brand. The way it which it is expressed. Tone is the way you communicate and interact with your audience. It should be distinctive and play off of your style. What vibe do you want to give off? Everyone has a story to tell, so think about how you are going to narrate it to the world.
Before I say some sort of concluding line to wrap this up, I want to remind you that these are merely guidelines. I come from a background of marketing so I practice these things both in and out of cosplay. Take these and use them in your own practice. They definitely can’t hurt!