What is Social Media Branding?

In this day and age where researching online before making purchase decisions has become the norm, it’s never been more important for businesses to ensure that their social media marketing is consistent with, and positively representing their brand, in the same way that flyers, signage and the like did in the past. Now more than ever, social media updates have become customers’ and potential customers' main window into a business. The reality is that they won’t always go to the effort of visiting a website or even looking at advertising, but they will at least glance at updates as they scroll through their social media feed. So, ask yourself the question – is your social media marketing doing your brand justice? Effective social media branding allows you to maximise your engagement with customers while understanding their needs and discovering how you can better serve them. Here are a few tips to help you get on the right track.

Align online with offline

Firstly, make sure that the image you are portraying online truly matches the perception you have created through all your offline channels. The ideal starting point here is your brand guidelines. If you don’t have any formal brand guidelines in place, then we highly recommend that you look at creating some. Of course, we would be happy to assist here. Then, make sure that the colours, tones, visuals etc used here match what is being used across your social media updates.

Choose the right content

When choosing which content to create and/or share on social media, always keep your customers in the forefront of your mind. What you are looking for here is content that is interesting and engaging, while also linking back to your brand in some way. Strong engagement is achieved by placing your customers’ needs above that of promoting your business, while subtly providing a solution to their need or desire.

Make it human

Social media is all about real people. Customers don’t want to see another faceless brand. Inject some human personality into your updates and watch your engagement improve. Everything from photos of staff to interesting industry news to the occasional joke and meme. As long as they align with your brand, then go for it and have some fun. Once you have your branding right, you’ll soon discover just how lucrative social media marketing can be for your business. For more advice and support, contact us at Mark 2 Creative today.