Social media can be used for a variety of purposes. Whether it’s social selling, content marketing or customer support, social media gives you the perfect opportunity to reach your target audience and build your brand.
However, with so many different platforms available and heavy competition on all of them, it can be difficult to set your brand apart and carve out your place on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.
Is your brand being represented the way you want it to on social media? If the answer is no, follow these 10 social media branding strategies to amplify your results:
1. Choose The Right Networks
If you’re not gaining any traction on some of the social media platforms you’re active on, it may not entirely be your fault. 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. Your job is to find the networks that align with your brand’s image and goals. Otherwise, you’ll struggle to make progress.
For instance, if your company is a steel manufacturer, then Tumblr probably isn’t the best option for you. Tumblr’s primary demographic is teens and people in their early twenties. A better option would be LinkedIn since it’s a B2B network that attracts business owners.
If you’re struggling to find out which social networks your target audience is most active on, take a look at these social media demographics to get the perfect starting point.
2. Don’t Overlook Visual Branding
Visuals play an important part in social media branding. If each of your profiles looks like they’re owned by a different company, it creates a disconnect for your users. You want your branding to be consistent across all channels. This will help people immediately recognize your company no matter which site or app they’re using.
3. Develop Your Voice
Your brand’s personality should be reflected in your social media posts. That means developing a social media voice. This is the way your brand communicates in Tweets, Facebook posts and Snaps. Finding your voice can take some time, but you’ll settle into it eventually.
4. Be Consistent With Your Topics
Sites like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn are very good for content curation. Curating is a great way to help you build authority in your industry as well as provide a steady flow of social media posts that aren’t self-promotional. Finding blog posts, videos and other content to share with your audience sounds simple enough. However, many businesses go into it blindly without creating a strategy or guidelines for what topics to share.
5. Post Regularly
Nothing will kill social media branding efforts more than irregular posting. If you only Tweet once every few days or upload one new Instagram picture a month, you’re going to be forgotten. Shortened attention spans combined with rapidly growing social networks have made publishing more important than ever.
6. Connect With Influencers
When companies like Nike and Starbucks post a new image on Instagram, they get a lot of engagement. That’s because they’re both established brands with millions of followers. If you’re just starting out or don’t have a huge audience, your content won’t get the same amount of attention since you’re relatively unknown.
A good way to achieve faster results and amplify your social media branding efforts is to build relationships with influencers. Influencer marketing allows you to piggyback off the audience that established people in your industry have already built. Since the influencer has already earned the trust and respect of their followers, getting a co-sign or mention from them carries a lot of weight.
Keep in mind that just having a lot of followers doesn’t qualify someone as an influencer. They should also possess these traits:
Authentic
Active
Engaging
Expertise
Leadership
7. Don’t Waste Your Bio/Profile
Far too many brands make the mistake of letting their bio or profile section go to waste on social media. When you’re in the process of building your brand, letting people know who you are and what your company does is vital. Brands like Nike can have #justdoit in their profile because they’re well-established and people already know what they do. Most companies don’t have that luxury.
Don’t fill your profile up with random hashtags or motivational quotes. Treat your bio like an elevator pitch.
9. Engage, Engage, Engage
If the only time you post on social media is to share content, it’s like having a conversation with yourself. As we alluded to earlier, in the beginning stages, your brand will be unknown. You can start building awareness for your brand on social media by engaging and interacting with other users. It’s as simple as replying to Tweets and commenting on Facebook and Instagram posts.
Some companies feel weird about replying from a company account. Don’t worry, it’s perfectly acceptable for companies to reply to each other on social media. For instance, Wendy’s isn’t shy at all about going back and forth with the competition on Twitter.
10. Claim Your Name
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.
