Over the years, social media has evolved to become a very powerful tool for businesses. In fact, a lot of companies have already invested in social media marketing to establish their brands online. However, along with the benefits come its capacity to break your brand if not done right.
Why is Social Media Branding Important?
Social media branding is the way to create a cohesive image for your brand across all social media channels. It creates the consistency that will make it easier for you to reach and connect with your target market, earn their trust, and eventually, enable you to get the most relevant people into your sales funnel. Overall, it relates to creating a trustworthy and distinguished brand, forging stronger customer relationships, and building a better business that entails conversions.
Sound interesting, right. But the question now is, how do you create a cohesive social media brand that gives a distinct appeal for your business?
The Foolproof Guide to Social Media Branding
- Know the Most Appropriate Social Network for Your Business to Leverage
Keep in mind that there’s a thin line between social media success and failure–and one factor that plays a key role here is being active in the right platform. This is the network that will allow you to reach out and build connections with your target audiences.
Remember that being active on several platforms is not as relevant as engaging in a channel where your target audiences are. You have to identify the platform that will help you achieve your branding goals to ensure that efforts that you put into it will not be wasted. To do that you can first check and test the platform to know which complements the overall goal of your brand.
- Establish Consistency
You have to understand that people who use social media recognize patterns and themes and they tend to get more involved with brands that practice consistency in using graphics and text content. Brands who are consistent with their efforts for a period of time are the ones who easily win the trust of their audience and build rapport with them eventually.
You also have to make it a point to know your audience like the back of your hand. In order to incorporate to your message a tailored approach that basically recognizes their needs and wants. And as with choosing the right channel, the content to use in connecting with your audience has to go through a trial and error process to be able to identify the type of content that is most relevant and works best for your target audience.
- Make Posting as Frequent as Possible
Consistency in posting is best complemented with frequency. Regular posting doesn’t just get your message across your audience, it also facilitates interaction between people and your brand. Meaning, the more frequent you post on social media, the greater impact it will create among the people who interact with it. This will also make it easier for your brand to be retained in the minds of your audience, in spite of the wealth of information that they also get access to online.
When posting, make sure to create the best impression as your first interaction with them will be the initial step to building a strong relationship with your audience for a longer period of time.
Below, you will find the ideal number of content to post per day depending on the social media channel that you’re using.
- Facebook: at least 2 posts a day
- Twitter: 3 or more posts a day
- Instagram: once per day
- Linkedin: once per day
- Pinterest: 5 or more posts a day
- Google+: 3 or more posts a day
- YouTube: 5 or more posts a day
- Create a Voice that Matches Your Brand’s Unique Personality
Establish a brand through a personality that will make it unique from others. However, you have to make sure that the personality you’ll use will be reflected in the content you post. To do this you have to find your voice that will send your message across to the people that you want to reach.
Aside from observing consistency in branding, your social media brand voice should have the following attributes:
- Character: it is the persona that you will use in delivering your message and should reflect your character (eg. friendly, playful, adventurous, authoritative, inspiring, or professional)
- Tone: use a tone that is most effective for you to find a voice that can connect your brand with your audience. (eg. personal, direct, humble, clinical or scientific )
- Language: your audience will understand your brand based on the language you use. While simple language may work for some, there are audiences who prefer the complex type. (eg. serious, fun, whimsical, jargon-filled)
- Purpose: your voice should be geared towards the results that you want to achieve. (eg. engage, educate, inform, amplify, entertain)
Whether it is posting an update on Facebook or a video on Instagram, it is important that your message gets heard. Developing a voice doesn’t happen overnight. It takes a while to find it and get comfortable with it. But once you do, creating the right kind of content becomes more practical and easier.
- Pay Attention to Your Profile Bio
Keep in mind that your social media profile puts your brand forward and sends your message across your audience. It is important to optimize your bio to make sure that your audience will find useful information about your brand once they look at it and not leaving them clueless about who you are or what you do.
Another important consideration is to make sure that your profile reflects your values and should describe your main objective by using a few words. You should also utilize the space to showcase your accomplishments and the key features that you want your brand to be recognized for.
A lot of companies serve as proof of the power of social media. While the success that is achieved thru social media branding doesn’t happen overnight, it matters to start taking little steps that will put your brand across your target audience, build valuable relationships, establish rapport, and eventually drive conversions for your business.
Company Bio:
M2Social is a digital marketing agency in Quezon City that is committed to help businesses establish their brands online and on social media, through engaging content and conversations focused on things relevant to them and to their business.
