Social media branding is a relatively new aspect to branding. We all know how important branding is to a business. It’s behind the success of Apple, Google, Coca-Cola, and BMW, just to name a few. And now, with your customers connecting with your brand on so many different platforms, branding has become even more important. Your social media marketing strategy relies on branding to present your customers with a consistent message.
As more companies rely on social media to connect with customers, it’s become more difficult for small and medium sized businesses to match the success of the larger, international brands because of a lack of resources.
That doesn’t mean your brand is doomed to fail. It simply means that you need to emulate the actions of your larger competitors.
With so many customer connection points, if your brand lacks visual cohesion across all the different platforms, you’re slowly losing the faith and trust of your target audience. Now, there are too many opportunities for you to lose that trust for you to lack consistency across all the points of contact.
But what are the most important aspects for branding and social media marketing?
Consistent Social Media Branding
1. Theme
Most social media sites have a similar layout for your profile page. Normally, this includes a banner, a small photo or avatar, a description of your company, and a link to your website. Many also offer different color options for your theme, so that all links are the same color and consistency on your page.
Don’t overlook small details that add another layer of consistency to your potential buyers! Every detail is important and you want to show the consistency that sets you apart from your competitors.
The profile pages on your social media accounts don’t necessarily need to be exactly the same, though that’s a good place to start. However, they do need to be similar, especially in feel. That means use the same colors, similar photos, and the same avatar or small photo. Consistency builds trust and people buy from brands they trust. Use every opportunity to develop that trust.
2. Posts
Consistency is key!
Everything you post should be consistent with your branding objectives. That means when posting your own content, think of your logo and color palette. When posting photos, always use the same filter. Constantly changing the filters means your posts will get lost in the social media shuffle because your followers won’t instantaneously recognize that it’s from your brand. And when posting content of others, make sure it’s consistent with your brand.
Consistency doesn’t just relate to posts though! It also means being consistent with your schedule. If you post once in a while, or whenever you feel like it, you’re not contributing to the success of your brand. Your customers have too many opportunities to judge your company and your brand. An inconsistent message is worse than no message at all because it seems as though you know you should be contributing to social, but simply can’t be bothered.
Post regularly or be forgotten!
3. Audience
This is especially important if you are attempting to run your social media marketing strategy by yourself: Don’t try to be everywhere!
It’s impossible for you to be everywhere at the same time. Luckily, your target audience isn’t on every social media platform.
Instead of trying to be everywhere, focus your time and energy on the two or three platforms where your target audience spends the majority of their time. Research your target audience and create buyer personas. This helps make sure you post to individuals without trying to please everyone. Then use the tools and data, such as this by Sprout Social to find on which platforms your personas spend their time.
Tailor your posts to your target audience. And don’t forget, different platforms haves different posting cycles, techniques and best practices. For instance, the half-life of your tweets is 24 minutes. What’s a half-life? What? You don’t remember chemistry class?
A half-life means that half of all the engagement your tweets will ever receive happen in less than a half hour. That’s not a long time, which is why it’s completely acceptable to tweet many times a day. However, you should post much less frequently to Facebook and LinkedIn because the content lasts much longer.
Adhere to the guidelines and best practices of the different platforms or risk alienating your followers and losing their trust.
Social Media Marketing Strategy and Branding
Your social media marketing strategy is all about promoting your company and your brand. That means everything you post should have a consistent feel and approach. Be authentic in your message based on your company culture, target audience, and branding objectives.
Don’t just focus on posting your own content or promotions! Social media platforms are a great way to connect with your customers, create brand awareness, and build a loyal following. However, you don’t achieve that by simply blasting posts only about your company. Yes, it’s important to share promotions and your own content. But a successful social media marketing strategy consists of a mixture of your own content, sharing the posts of others, and sharing the content of others. This includes clients, industry leaders, and experts. Remember, when you post and share the content of others or of your followers, makes sure that it fits your brand and objectives.
Social Media Engagement
If you only and post and never engage with your followers, no one will engage with your posts. Just like anything in life, you get out what you put in. If you’re only contributing about yourself, not only will your community ignore your posts and tweets, you’ll probably end up alienating them and losing customers.
Be an active member and contributor to your community. This means posting, liking, sharing, retweeting, and favoriting. Post the content of influencers in your field. Stop being a passive contributor and present yourself as an industry leader.
Branding and Social Media Marketing:
Branding is more important now than ever before because your customers connect with your brand on so many different platforms. That means there are so many more opportunities for you to lose the trust and faith of your target audience through inconsistency.
Don’t be inconsistent!
Present your brand as an industry leader with visual cohesion across all customer communication. This includes, but isn’t limited to your website, your blog, social media profiles and posts, newsletters, emails, business cards, print marketing, digital marketing, and videos.
Every time your brand touches your customers, you need to show them you take the time to provide consistency. This develops the trust necessary to grow your business.
Create a social media marketing strategy that builds the trust of your target audience and grows your business! Schedule an appointment today to create a consistent social media approach that will grow your business.
