Nothing you can say is going to speak more for your company than your brand. It’s the first thing people will notice about you, it’s what they’ll remember and it’s what will keep them coming back.
What’s your brand saying about you?
To make sure you’re making a good first impression, we’ve put together 8 tips for brand building through social media.
1. Use the Right Social Media Platform for Your Business
Before you start tweeting or using the “gram”, first make sure those are the channels your target audience is on. If the majority of your prospects don’t use twitter, you won’t want to put as much focus on that channel.
The first step here is building a social media branding strategy. Identify your target market and what social media channels they’re active on.
Facebook tends to have an older audience, and also relies heavily on nurturing conversation. Twitter is great for conversations and less image reliant.
If you’re a visual brand, Instagram is going to let you show that off. This blog has more information about Instagram specific visuals.
Once you know where your prospects are, you’ll know where you need to be and you can hone in and target your efforts in the right places.
2. Find Your Voice… and Own It
It’s easy to get caught up in social media trying to portray a character. But the best way to connect with your audience is to be authentic. Think about who you are as a company and what your goal is.
Or as Simon Sinek says, “start with why.”
Why was the company started? Why do you provide the services or products that you provide? Once you have the answers to these questions, you’ll know your “why” and you’ll be able to convey that to your audience, authentically. When you’re not playing a character it will also be easier to be consistent with your social media branding.
3. Be Consistent across all Social Channels
Once you’ve developed your voice, you want that to remain consistent across all social media channels. This is going to go a long way toward making your audience feel comfortable, or as if they know you.
The last thing you need is to convey a persona on Facebook, only to have another on Instagram. Building a brand relies on loyalty, from your audience and vice versa, so consistency is important.
4. Find Your Look
A brand style guide is priceless. It’s going to keep your images and color palette consistent. Think about the type of visuals you want to promote. Are infographics your thing? Or do you tend to use more simple images?
Whether your audience is using Twitter, Instagram or Facebook, they should know it’s you–from the color palette to design, to voice. While you’ll make minor changes to perhaps the amount of content you post in one channel or the type of content, your brand should still shine through.
You’ll also want to keep the same profile picture across all channels. It’s the first thing they see and you want them to remember that and associate it with you.
5. Provide a Variety of Different Content
People consume content in different ways. Some prefer videos, others want long-form content, while others will want smaller, easily digestible content. So give them what they want.
One hack to quickly come up with content for social media is to start with your white papers or website content. Take out the stats or any pertinent info and turn that into an image. A simple visual with a stat or a quick fact is going to entice your audience and leave them wanting more.
Leave a snippet of your long-form content and then include a link to the actual white paper in your post to start getting leads from social media.
6. Post Regularly
Create a posting schedule….and stick to it. Your audience is going to get used to your cadence and if you slow down or take a break you better believe they’re going to notice.
It may be enough to cause some people to unfollow you. When you’ve worked this hard on your brand, you’re going to want to show it off and you’re going to want to keep the followers you’ve earned.
7. Reach out to Influencers
What’s more important than what you say about yourself? What other people are saying about you.
If you can form relationships with other leaders in your industry or niche, you’ll have them in your corner to vouch for you and your services.
Just make sure you return the favor. Reaching out to influencers is an important aspect of any social media brand strategy.
8. Engage Your Audience
“If you build it [they] will come.” But if you don’t maintain it don’t expect them to stay. Once you start noticing your audience is growing, you want to make sure you keep them interested in what you have to say.
To do this, think of social media as a two-way conversation, rather than you just talking about yourself. No one likes that anyway. Ask questions to your followers. And when they respond, follow up with them.
Answer all comments (or at least “like” to acknowledge you’ve seen it). This is work, and a lot of it, because you have to monitor it consistently. Put someone in charge of this task. It can easily be a full-time responsibility, especially as you continue to grow.
You can also do polls. This eases the task of having to respond to every single comment but allows you to acknowledge the results of the poll in a separate post.
Brand Building Success
Consistency and authenticity are the underlying keys to brand building success and should be the basis for everything you do.
Follow these guidelines for branding on social media and soon you’ll have a brand that speaks for itself.
Check out our blog for more tips like these, and start growing all aspects of your business.
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