5 steps to improving your organisations social media branding
Social branding is being used to build brand awareness, entertain and engage, and provides a real-time channel for customer service and to sell. Although most marketers find it difficult to mark proven ROI when it comes to social media, most brands see the value of these channels. According to Adweek, in 2018, 91% of retail brands used at least two social media channels. Mashable reported that 81% of small businesses were using socials. These stats are the reason smart marketers are upping their social media presence. There are many ways to improve your social branding, but here are some tips from the Blue Whale marketing team.
1. Choose your channels wisely
It is important to use the correct social media channels for your business and its target audience. If you are using a social media app that has a target demographic that is 18-24 then it wouldn’t be a match for your brand if your target demographic is 35-50. You will need to do your research and look for specifics important to your target audience using social media demographics. When choosing your channels some questions you may want to ask are: will the people using this channel help with our objectives? Are they using this channel in a manner that will make sense for our needs? Will the content we share fit in with the channel and how people use it?
2. Use your channels wisely
Once you have chosen your channels, you will need to make sure you are using each channel wisely. Just because you post something on one channel doesn’t mean it needs to be posted on every channel you have. As discussed earlier, each channel has its own target audience which means not every post will fit into every channel. Some of the best top channels to use are; Facebook, Instagram, Linkedin, Twitter and Pinterest.
3. Set the right tone with visuals
Images often speak louder than words when it comes to social media posts. It is important to get a clear understanding of the correct tone when posting online especially with your visuals. They offer a first glance at your brand and its identity. Although you are using different types of images across each channel, the tone should be consistent. This includes your colour palette and your logo. To keep consistency throughout your channels you could create templates and use them for your next posts.
4. Choose your topics wisely
Ensure the topics you choose to post about are consistent and streamlined. You don’t want to confuse your audience by posting lots of different topics. You could use a mix of curated content such as; videos, images, GIFs, and links for blog posts and articles. To stay on point choose a few different topics to talk about which relate to your industry. The goal is to stick to your area of expertise so people can rely on you and your company if they need to.
5. Engage and leverage comments
Social media is called what it is for a reason; it is social. Many organisations forget this is one of the most important aspects of social media channels. You need to look for comments to reply to and engage with in order to engage more with your followers. It is always important to have someone to reply to comments consistently. You may also want to think about asking questions when posting e.g. “we love this design, what do you think?”.
These 5 steps will help provide your business with better control over your social media strategy and fine-tune the tactics you use to improve your socialbranding