Social media is now one of the most effective tools used not only to market your business but also make it stand out from the crowd. Social media branding allows you to connect with your target audience.

Social media does not completely take over from all your general marketing efforts but it gives them a major boost with the use of major social platforms such as Facebook and LinkedIn.

Social media branding consists of constantly using the right methods to engage with your audience on the major social media platforms.

You can build a fan base that is not only loyal to your brand but also eager to buy from you.
If you are just starting out with social media for business or your brand isn’t quite being represented the way you want it to on social media today, here are a few tips you could use.

1. You Have To Choose The Right Social Networking Sites – These days, a new social network seems to pop up every year. As much as it may be tempting (and really time consuming) to join all available networks to market your brand, this strategy will not get you far. Why? First off, you should always choose a social media network that aligns with your brand’s image and goals.

For example, if you are looking to connect with professionals in your area of expertise and let them know about your brand, LinkedIn would be a better choice as compared to Instagram. There’s a lot of information on social media demographics to give you a clearer idea of which social media networks you should leverage more depending on your business goals.

2. Pay Attention To Visual Branding – It is said that humans are very visual beings and, in our opinion,, this is very true, especially when it comes to social media branding. Each of your profiles on the different social media networks should look like they are managed by one company.

You may think this is pretty obvious but it isn’t. People should be able to recognize your brand at first glance no matter what site or app they are using because of consistency in branding. Color and design should be consistent and easily distinguishable.

Here a few tips you can use to establish this:

• Choose a color palette. If you look at Coca-Cola’s branding, you will notice that it uses a classic red and white color on much more than just it’s logo.

Its posts will always have a particular red in them. People familiar with your brand should be able to associate certain colors with your brand.

• Use the same logo/avatar. Whether it’s on a document or on a picture, your logo should always be consistent for easy recognition.

• Use filters carefully. Filters are a great tool used to play around with images to make them look different or to attach a certain feel to them. However, when using social media for branding, you should use one or two filters that you will stick with.

3. Develop Your Voice – The same way you can tell whether it is your mum or dad that typed document is the same way people should recognize your company’s voice. Your voice is how your brand communicates in Tweets, Snaps and Facebook posts.

Finding your brand’s voice can take time, here are a few elements you should consider:

• What’s your company culture? Your culture is what your company is about, what makes it stand out and special. If you have a fun culture for example, your posts should show this.

• Your audience. Use lingo that your audience is familiar with. Speaking in a manner that connects with your audience is important.

• Authenticity. Find what voice fits with your brand and run with it. Trying to copy another brand’s voice will not work. In fact, research shows that the one quality that people value the most from brands on social media is honesty.

4. Be Consistent With Your Topics – Your audience interacts with your brand because they want edification on a certain topic. If you are haphazard with the topics you choose to post about, you will find that your audience will not be as engaged and may actually learn to ignore certain posts. This also applies to posts that you share with other companies.

5. Post Regularly – This is quite the tricky one. On the one hand, you do not want to flood your social media networks with posts that your audience stops paying attention.

On the other hand, you want to constantly engage your audience so that you are not easily forgotten. You have to find a balance.

One great way to do this is to find out when your audience connects most with your posts and schedule future posts in the same manner.

There is free software you can use to do this and these days, specific social media sites can give insights to this kind of data.

6. Connect With Influencers – For brands like Nike, they already have a lot of engagement on their social media sites because they have established a brand with millions of followers. For you who are starting out, it is impossible to build such a following overnight. One way that would help is influencer marketing.

This is basically building relationships with influencers allowing you to piggyback on the audience that they have already built. However, you should note that having many followers does not make one an influencer.

They should also possess the following traits:

• Active
• Authentic
• Engaging
• Expertise
• Leadership

7. Use your Bio/Profile effectively – The first thing new customers do when they find your site is to read your Bio. This should be a short description of what your company does. Do not waste it by adding motivational quotes or irrelevant hashtags. If you are just starting out, you should be able to explain exactly what your company is offering in just a few words.

Prioritizing social media branding helps you connect with your target audience better. Happy Branding.

 

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