Today, in the interest of education, I'm going to address a few of the most common branding related things we see REALTORS® mis-term or misunderstand. Most of them have to do with things that the REALTOR® thinks is a logo. To those ends, I will explain what a logo is (and what it isn't), and then define and demonstrate what the things they misunderstand "actually" are.

1) Logo

This is an interesting one. Agents almost universally refer to anything as a logo. For instance, we've seen REALTORS® refer to "their logo" as the phone number and email that are listed under their name, their photograph, or even their slogan (which will be described later). Technically none of these things are logo.

Your name can be part of your logo. This totally makes sense, because you are your own brand. If you are going to use your name as your logo, though, it can't "just" be your name. It needs to be designed and styled so it looks different than the rest of your marketing pieces. For example:

As you can see, there is a special type face, a background element, as well as a monogram in a circle above Dina's name. A logo like this could be the spring board for the rest of the branding an agent would have (e.g. the theme of the logo works its way into the agent's postcards, magazine ads, website, etc.).