If there is something that is cited as most important for both business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C) fields, it is creating brand awareness. In fact, the more structured and defined the presentation of the brand, the more it subsequently draws attention to itself, thus creating a network of loyal customers.
Social media are at the center of our personal and professional everyday life; it has been proved that nearly 2.1 billion people have social media accounts and are active in them. Targeting this huge market is a crucial step for businesses that want to build brand awareness and expand sales. And while most marketers agree it's an almost necessary step to create a social media strategy, brand consistency across all marketing touchpoints remains tough, let alone elaborating it for each social media channel. Still, it's a challenge taken and the results can be highly successful for every brand. Many recent researches like the one by Riswan Tarigan published in ResearchGate showcase that marketing via social media can give impact to a company's revenue; the effect of social media toward a company's brand awareness is crucial.
Building brand awareness through social media starts by defining what is, in fact, a brand in total and how this can be effectively communicated online in a strong and consistent way. Those brand qualities are then distilled into strategy tips that best work together and can really shape the audience's perception of a brand as say, cool or with traditional values. Here, we offer a number of steps to follow to ensure your brand is instantly recognizable online in a consistent way and one that reflects its core values and aesthetics to the fullest.
Be consistent through all social media platforms
In social media brand building, consistency is key. Try to use the social media channels that actually can help your brand and design a consistent logo, color palette, bio, and handle for all. Your content may vary from LinkedIn to Twitter according to each medium's special characteristics but the logo, colors and company details should match to avoid confusion. Nike is a good example of brand consistency: While their content varies from each social media channel, their colors, handle and bio are identical and recognizable at first glance.
Deliver brand tone of voice
Creating a brand tone of voice is one most the most challenging facts and social media branding requires an approach similar to all advertising channels. The idea is to consider your social media accounts like parts of the same advertising tool kit; this way you will keep the tone of voice uniform across all platforms. Don't be afraid to be picky though; in a recent Forbes article, New York-based interior design firm Tilton Fenwick founders offer advice for choosing the right platforms. Not all social media platforms are created equal. Twitter is more of a conversation, best for sharing industry news or topics related to your brand. Facebook is similar to Twitter but with a much older audience.
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Design a logo that expresses the brand's core values, aesthetics and philosophy
A logo is the first thing most social media users will note and connect with your brand so invest in one that expresses the brand's core values and philosophy. Try to use a visual style guide and match the social profiles' colors to those of your logo—and again, keep this color palette across all platforms. Your logo and company colors should ideally express emotions and make a strong statement about your brand.
Keep content relevant and up to date
Social media is all about change and the content that you create must follow this rule. Make a list with content that drew the most response from your followers and then replicate it with similar up-to-date posts. Your brand identity is reflected in the content you post so make it relevant and as unique as possible. The key here is to choose your topic of expertise and become a leader in it; be it sneakers or travel experiences, your followers will love to know the latest in the field from you first.
Invest in strong visuals
Social media is all about great images and the more you create visually oriented content, the more you will set your brand apart. Choose great images that work effectively with each social media channel and edit them to suit each channel's requirements. Photo editing apps like Snapped can help you create a feed that looks highly professional and polished.
Engage in conversation
You have created great company pages in most social media channels and produce great content daily—now it's time to interact with your followers. Creating brand consistency has a lot to do with the online relationships you build with your followers, so try to engage in conversation, offer tips or create content to keep them coming back. The more human-oriented your brand feels, the more followers—and thus, potential customers—it can draw to your benefit.
Post frequently
Creating great content that reflects your brand's values is a necessary step but you must be committed to posting it frequently. The frequency varies from each social media channel to another but twice a week is a very good starting point, especially for Instagram. Frequent posts create engagement and promote the very special characteristics or expertise of your brand online in a constant way. As Michael Noice, founder of Entrepreneur Coach, explains, A once-weekly Twitter post or monthly Instagram photo are not going to accomplish much, if anything. For this reason, its best to focus on two or three carefully chosen social networks and try to be active on them, rather than posting sporadically to a half-dozen.
Connect with influencers
Connecting with influencers is a great way to establish collaborations and get ambassadors that will promote brand awareness for a wide audience. You will need to create a strategy that involves developing relationships with the influencers of your choice and making them see you as an expert in your field. If they feel they can relate to your brand values and identity, they will be more eager to work with you, thus promoting your brand further. Start by specifying all the influencers in your industry and then follow them. Don't be afraid to engage with them by liking, commenting or even reposting their content with tags—this is a great way of making them notice you the first time. DMs should come last—be super careful with what you write and never force things.
Create a special hashtag
Another great idea to expressing your brand identity online is creating a unique hashtag for your brand. This way, you will become instantly recognizable and will encourage others to use that unique hashtag and involve your content. Sprout Social writer Jenn Chen uses the case of Serena and Lily as an example: their branded hash tag #serenaandlily is used in every post the brand puts on Instagram and even works as a community hashtag, adding up to over 14k tagged posts.
Above all—evolve
Creating brand awareness on social media is a never-ending process—your brand identity should evolve with time and take note of all current developments in the field. Update your content to keep your audience coming back for more and try to be super aware of new developments in social media. Changes are fast and sometimes happen overnight. Telling your brand's story is a process that needs to be redefined often and new social media strategies applied along with the old ones. Instagram has made a few changes in 2019 that change the way content is posted, including experimenting with nothing less than Augmented Reality, as seen in this AdEspesso by Hootsuite article. Make sure you are informed of all changes in social media and use them to your brand's benefit.