Branding a business through a combination of conventional outbound advertising along with web-based pay-per-click (PPC) ads will prove successful to a limited extent.
The use of social media and additional avenues, both online and offline, will prove essential for branding your business.
However, simply signing up for one social media platform, uploading an image of your business, and superficially using the platform moving forward will not suffice.
There is a common misconception that merely updating a business Facebook page once every week or so is enough to successfully brand a company through social media.
Facebook status updates featuring new and informative content are certainly important yet they are only one piece of the social media branding puzzle. Let’s take a look at how to brand your business the right way with social media.
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Define Your Visual Brand
A visual brand is much more than a logo.
Your visual brand extends to the images you select for social media posts, your website, and other components of your online footprint. Implement photos, infographics, and additional visually striking images throughout your social media content.
Each component of your company’s visual identity should contribute to a unified overarching brand image.
Sweat the small stuff of your company’s aesthetics shared on social media ranging from your logo to colors, icons, charts, infographics, and so on. As an example, using the right logo colors will help make a lasting impact on the viewer.
Your logo colors should be carefully selected and subsequently implemented throughout the entirety of your social media branding effort as well as the remainder of your inbound and outbound marketing campaigns.
From carefully selecting text font to the proper use of white space and beyond, it is the subtleties of a company’s visual identity that make the difference between a brand that is forgotten and one that is remembered across posterity.
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Share Content Your Audience Cares About
Above all, what matters most in the context of creating a truly indelible brand through social media is providing a steady stream of engaging content.
Create your own content or outsource the work to content specialists and you will be able to expand your social media audience with ongoing informative posts. Ideally, the content you provide will provoke your audience to think more about your industry or value offering, solve a problem or feel good in some way.
Continue to update your social media profiles with links to your website, blog, and other components of your online footprint, share information through informative write-ups and the ongoing engagement will inspire your audience to return to your social media pages.
The best content motivates followers to share posts, articles, and other content with those in their social media circles.
Provide your audience with intriguing articles, links to industry advancements and other interesting information relevant to your industry and one of your posts just might go viral, steering that much more online traffic to your social media page as well as your website.
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Engage with your audience
Audience engagement extends beyond captivating them with intriguing content. It is important that you invest the time and effort necessary to interact with your online followers.
If people comment on your social media posts, ask questions or pose concerns, you should respond in a timely manner. Continue to engage with your audience across all of your social media platforms and those valued customers will feel respected and valued.
If you don’t have the time or energy to respond to questions and comments posted throughout your social media pages, consider hiring a part-time social media specialist or even add an intern to help manage your social media for the optimal branding impact.
Keep in mind, social media is not just a numbers game. A couple thousand loosely connected followers who don’t pay close attention to your social media pages won’t be nearly as enthusiastic about your brand as those who are deeply engaged with your company both online and offline.
Strive to amass a following of high-quality followers rather than adding as many as possible and your branding will make that much more of a lasting impact.
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Celebrate Your Customers
If your customers are satisfied with your service or product, encourage them to post a review to one of the many online review directories. You can even feature snippets of positive reviews directly on your website.
It is also in your interest to ask customers on social media how they have benefitted from your service/product and what can be improved upon to address their pain points that much better.
Continue to share customer success stories that have a tie-in to your value offering and it will encourage those who have not yet converted into paying customers to make the transition through the sales funnel.
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Be Consistent in Your Approach
The subtleties of your branding should be uniform across all mediums.
This means the logo, colors, slogan, jingle and even the language used on your social media accounts should be the same as that used on your website, PPC ads, offline ads, and other advertising efforts.
Using the right logo colors throughout the entirety of your online content makes it clear your brand has a coherent, cohesive and consistent identity that is well-formed and meaningful.
Be consistent with your design in all regards moving forward and it will be that much easier for customers to quickly identify your business based on aesthetics alone.
This is the immediate brand recognition your company needs to capture more market share in the short term and also continue to grow in the years ahead.
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Serve Content in Different Formats
Some people spend hours on social media every single day. Certain people gravitate to Facebook while others are partial to Twitter, Instagram, or Pinterest.
Some customers prefer to surf the web rather than use social media. Another group of customers largely refrains from using technology altogether.
Use all social media platforms as well as inbound and outbound marketing channels to expand your reach and your brand will be exposed to that many more people.
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Ask for Feedback
A large part of the challenge of branding is to get people to think about your business and remember it. Ask your social media followers and others who make their way to your social media pages what they think about your business.
Request feedback from your social media followers, thank them for their responses, make the necessary alterations based on that feedback and you will move forward knowing your social media content is exactly what your audience is looking for.
There is a chance the majority of your audience will simply state it is impressed with your service or product and has few or no complaints.
However, you won’t know where you stand with your customers unless you ask.
Though there is certainly a risk in asking for feedback in that harsh criticism of your business might be posted to your social media pages, the mere fact that you asked your audience for their feedback indicates they are genuinely valued.
This emphasis on customer service reinforces your branding efforts all the more, encourages customers to think about your business that much more frequently and also promotes discussion of your business in a constructive, mutually beneficial manner.
