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What Is Social Media Branding? A Small Businesses Guide

It’s important to realize, social media branding can be used for a variety of purposes. Whether it’s social selling, content marketing, or customer support. This provides a perfect opportunity to reach the target audience and build a brand. For example, Instagram is a great option for brands that rely on images to sell their business ideas.

However, with so many different platforms available and heavy competition. It can be tricky to set your brand apart and link it to Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, etc. On one hand, social media is turning out to be one of the most effective tools to market your brand and stand out from the crowd.

Not to mention, when social media branding is done correctly, it can and will help you connect to your target market in an optimal way. On the other hand, social media branding forms a natural but essential part of your overall marketing efforts. Especially on major social platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

What is the Right Social Media Branding Strategy?

With hundreds of social media apps out there, and new ones popping up every day. It’s tempting to jump into all of them. However, every social network might not be the right fit for your company. Therefore, you’ll need to find the networks that connect with your brand’s image and goals so as to make progress.

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For instance, if your company is a steel manufacturer, then Tumblr probably isn’t the best option for you. Tumblr’s primary followers are teens in their early twenties. A better option would be LinkedIn since it’s a B2B network that attracts business owners.

Along those same lines, I really focus on building a relationship with customers by conversing, interacting, engaging, and caring. So, don’t solely plug products or services – broadcasting is dead. Genuine, two-way communication is key because, at the end of the day, people need to inherently trust a brand and that takes time and effort.

What is a Brand Personality?

Brand awareness is cited as the top priority for marketers in both business-to-business and business-to-consumer fields. Nearly 2.1 billion people (just over two-thirds of active Internet users) have social media accounts.

So, it’s easy to understand why business and consumer marketers nearly unanimously believe that social media is crucial to building a brand personality online. But, this should be reflected in social media posts to create a social media voice.

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Bearing in mind, this is the way your brand reflects in Tweets, Facebook posts, and Snaps. Unfortunately, finding the voice may take quite some time.

But, in the long run, the business is able to settle into it. To find this voice, consider these three main elements. Including the culture like at your brand, details about the brand, and what makes it so special.

A well laid out brand factors include:
  • Tone: Be clear to followers about what and how the brand will communicate online. Is your brand cheeky and irreverent or serious and formal?
  • Purpose: Identify the main reason the brand is on social media? Is your goal to educate or entertain? Does your brand belong on Instagram, LinkedIn, or Facebook, etc?
  • Language: What type of language will your brand use online? A young and hip brand might get away with more slang. While a niche brand may use more acronyms and industry-specific language.

The use of hashtags like #IWILL in social media posts shows the company’s voice. A direct reflection of its culture. And so to say, the best way to build that is through the savvy use of social media.

In fact, 71 percent of brands plan to invest more heavily in social media in the coming year. This will enable reach new followers and build brand reputation.

How do you Introduce a Brand on Social Media?

Building a brand doesn’t happen overnight (Pantene knows this); it takes time and dedication according to the brand channel. For example, it took 15 years for Nike to cement its brand.

Below is a complete tutorial video guide on how to build a strong brand online.

By focusing on maintaining a ‘360-degree delivery’ especially, ensuring its Nike brand was consistent across all products. As well as, advertising, customer service, and packaging.

So with that in mind, it is important to build a strong and consistent brand across all social media platforms. Below are more useful guidelines on brand introduction through social media strategies.

1. Have a social media branding consistency

A brand’s profile on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, your company blog, and everywhere else it has a presence online should be unified. And in line with the brand essence and style.

Be consistent with graphics, color, style and language, and even posting routine. Like inspirational quotes on Monday and #TBT photos on Thursday. Whatever the routine, keep it consistent so followers know what to expect.

2. Use colors that make a statement

Various colors can be used to give a brand personality and meaning. And using colors with impact and meaning can help a brand appeal to its target audience.

As in the first point, be consistent with color across all media platforms – online and offline – to ensure a consistent, unified, and professional look.

3. Design an outstanding brand logo 

For your information, a successful logo is the anchor of a brand and its design should represent a brand’s philosophy.

But, when designing a logo, it’s important to realize, consider what the brand represents, and what the brand doesn’t represent.

4. Know your brand voice and style 

The product or service plus the demographics of the target audience will determine the voice and style of a brand on social media. Imagine the brand as a person and consider what type of language it would use and what types of things it would share online.

Try and describe this person in terms of age, gender, interests, and personality.  Also, try and put together a social media style guide. It will be a useful reference document for anyone in the company who speaks on behalf of a brand.

5. Talk naturally like a normal human 

Now, that a brand’s personality has been identified, use that personality to build a brand people can trust. When it comes to social media, the method that has proved successful over time is to talk like a human being.

Ditch the professionally elevated or corporate-speak and converse with other brand users like a human being would. For instance, respond to inquiries on a first-name basis (if provided), and don’t be afraid to use colloquial dialogue and humor. Quirky? Witty? Serious?

All in all, talking like a human being with a sense of personality will make a brand more relatable. And if it’s really clever, genuine, and entertaining it may even go viral.

6. Be creative and provide compelling stories

Who doesn’t love a good story? Storytelling is central to human existence. And, in fact, telling someone a story can have the powerful effect of getting them on board with an idea.

While generally speaking, it causes the listener to turn the story into their own idea and experience. And in the same way, a brand – or the idea of a brand – can become more compelling by spinning a yarn about it. In short, involve customers in a brand story and they will engage with it.

7. Be more honest and transparent

Transparency is the bedrock of any long-lasting relationship. So, in the same way, giving customers a glimpse behind the scenes of a brand can prove vital in establishing a healthy relationship.

Use social media platforms to publish information that will help consumers understand the mechanics of a brand better. Buffer is a terrific example of being transparent on social media and they rocked the business world when they published all their employee salaries (and more) online.

Of course, it doesn’t have to be as radical as Buffer’s, but simply letting customers know future plans or admitting to mistakes is a great start. Simply put, draw customers into the world of the brand or company.

8. Provide visually appealing and relevant content

It’s important to realize, users, engage with social media posts that include images more than with posts that don’t include images.

For example, you can add infographics, photographs, and other visual images to your weblog posts. And then, take advantage of Pinterest and Tumblr, which can be used to store and share visual content. But also, don’t post for the sake of posting.

Therefore, keep social media posts relevant, meaningful, and simple. While also keeping in mind, posting too frequently, and posting ‘boring’ content are the main reasons people will unfollow and unlike brands.

9. Make sure you promote your brand profile

One challenge that a lot of businesses have with social media branding is building initial traction. Getting your first few followers can seem impossible when you don’t even know where to start.

However, if you’ve been in business for a while or have other Web properties (website, blog, or other social media accounts) then you should start there. Unless you tell your current customers, colleagues, and network that you have a Snapchat or Instagram account, how will they know?

Never make the mistake of just assuming everyone knows about all your social media channels, even within your own company.

10. Claim your online brand name presence

Trying to be active on eight or nine social media sites isn’t a good idea unless you have a social media team managing it all for you. It’s better to be excellent on two or three platforms than mediocre on seven.

However, just because you’re only going to be active on a few doesn’t mean you can’t set up profiles on others. By claiming your company name on major social media platforms, you’re securing them in the event that you ever decide to use them.

This is also beneficial for SEO. When people Google your company name, some of the results on the first page may be from sites like Facebook, Twitter, and other social networks.

Which are the Right Social Media Branding Tools?

As can be seen, social media branding can be a great tool to increase your online presence. But, as more brands jump on the Internet bandwagon, marketing clutter can make it hard to compete.

In that case, be sure to not only use social media as a branding tool but to use effectively in order to stand out and keep customers engaged and interested. Assuming that, if you are an industry veteran, you probably already know the value of having a strong professional services brand.

And, if not, consider some of the benefits that come by. Whereby, with a strong Brand you can, you’ll generate online leads more easily.

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You’ll also command higher rates, achieve a higher win rate, recruit more effectively, and even have fewer competitive bid situations. After all, who wouldn’t want these advantages? But, the question is, how do you build a leading brand? That’s where branding tools come into play!

For instance, think of your professional services brand as the product of your reputation and your visibility. With this in mind, a Brand Building or rather, Branding Tool is a technique that helps you build and refine your firm’s reputation or increase the visibility of that reputation.

The best branding tools manage to do both at the same time. All in all, the best branding tools manage to do both at the same time. In addition to that, you can see the other Top 10 Branding Tools.

All in all, as can be seen, from the above guidelines, clearly, it shows that social media branding is a must tool for most brands.

Apart from the above user-based general strategies, Search Engine Optimization (in short SEO) and Search Engine Marketing (in short SEM) are equally on the rise.

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As you also keep in mind, to create a long-lasting brand online, then again, you’ll need a vibrant online support agency like jmexclusives that is always there for you. And on that note, our team has been working with many big brands. To equally create and even elevated their brand reputation and presence online.

Finally, I hope the above guide was useful to your business as well as your social media team. But, if you’ll need more help, you can Contact Us or even share your additional questions and requests in the comments section. Also, don’t forget to donate in order to support our online research work and help us grow together with you.

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