November 21, 2022
Author:
matthewjmedia
When it comes to basic branding, we won’t get into too many details, but you should make sure your logo, colors, bio, boilerplate, and handle are consistent. Some companies change the logo style slightly between networks depending on the size of the photo space and the audience’s interests. In order for people to identify your brand, you should have a common thread, regardless of the method you choose.
If you look up Nike on social media, you can see it is clear that Nike uses the same logo for Facebook as well as Twitter. There is also no difference in their banners. Despite the fact that their banners match, it is not a requirement to match across networks. This approach works because the banner colors match the logo colors. The same brand color palette could be maintained across different networks, even if the text or imagery changes.
If you can maintain the same tone, aesthetic, and color palette across social networks, you understand the basics of social media branding. As a next step, you need to determine where your audience consumes content and develop a marketing strategy to reach them. As soon as your social media campaign is up and running, you must listen to your audience. Monitoring engagement on social media is a vital part of the process. You can start developing strategies around the posts that get the most engagement by examining which posts do the best. When you have a new account, it is best to give your plan somewhere between 3-6 months once implemented before completely changing gears. In order to meet the needs of your audience, I recommend you conduct quarterly audits and updates once you are up and running.
Keeping track of your customer data on a quarterly basis will allow you to determine which strategies are working and which need to be tweaked. For data to be consistent, it’s important to post consistently. Therefore, a posting schedule should be prepared. As you prepare your posting schedule, you will need consistency, forward-thinking, and focus to establish your online presence.
When creating a social account, it is imperative to keep a regular posting schedule. By maintaining consistency, you give followers a sense of what to expect and your able to create a baseline for reporting. Following 6 months of consistent posting, you can align your posting times with your audience’s habits.
Starting out, I recommend posting three times a week at the very least!
• Perform a social media audit of all your social media accounts. Be sure your content aligns with your branding.
• Make a content calendar. If you are building out your first schedule, consider your target audience and aim for consistency.
• For three to six months, maintain a posting schedule of three posts a week on all platforms. Keeping track of your audience habits throughout the process will provide a baseline for future strategies.
Developing your brand visually is the next step! Now that you have a content calendar schedule, it is critical that all your network accounts maintain a consistent aesthetic. You should ensure that your images, graphics, and videos use the same colors and fonts.
When someone visits your Instagram page, can they immediately tell it’s your brand? Is the font you use for the overlay text on a video similar to the one you use in your blog post’s featured image?
If your posts are consistent and recognizable, your customers will recognize when a post is from you without seeing your brand’s logo or social media handle. Brand recognition is essential to social media branding success.
Let’s take a look at Olipop Soda:
With fiber, prebiotics, and botanicals, Olipop is a gut-healthy soda that supports a healthy gut microbiome and digestive system. They have a pastel color palette of earthy tones and nostalgic flavors.
Generally, the brand feels retro, light, and airy, which reflects their motto “Healthy Meets Delicious.” Taking a look at their Instagram feed, you’ll notice a consistent brand identity. Their content is a mix of graphics, pictures, news articles, promotions, and videos, but they maintain a consistent look and feel.
In order to accomplish this, they use font styles and nostalgic design elements that complement one another. You reinforce your brand identity when consistently using these recognizable elements. As your followers are exposed to your brand’s visual approach over time, they will recognize your brand’s unique visual approach even without your logo or brand name.
• Make a visual brand guide that includes: fonts, their uses and colors, color palette, and imagery examples. Although this is a good start, the top-recognized brands extend even further. For example, here at Matthew James Media , we help brands define their branding guidelines by outlining elements such as logos, logo uses, typography, colors, imagery examples, brand guidelines, and icons. Providing a template for 3 months’ worth of content.
• Create graphic templates for the same types of announcements (e.g. new product announcements, testimonials, product shots, using similar fonts, colors and graphical elements).
• Take photos and videos that reflect the aesthetic and color choices of your brand. There should be seamless transitions between the posts.
There will be differences between your marketing personas across the networks to reach your target audience. TikTok audiences, for instance, are younger than Facebook audiences. As a result, using the same content on both networks will not resonate the same way. For this reason, you should create multiple personas to match your target audience for all your marketing campaigns.
Meeting your customers where they already are will make it much easier and less costly to reach them. Your goal here is to make your content easy to digest for your potential customers.
Start by mapping the company’s current customer base to its social media networks. You might notice you have your millennial parents’ persona on Twitter, while small business owners might be targeted on LinkedIn. Your content ideas will then need to be narrowed down and perhaps even adjusted to align with these platforms to meet your target audience.
Netflix uses memes on their Instagram account to connect with its target audience. They’re tongue-in-cheek memes that usually make people laugh. Each new piece of Netflix content is accompanied by a new meme, which establishes a certain level of brand awareness.
• Identify at least three marketing personas for your target audience and assign them social media networks that are appropriate for them. You can study the demographics of your networks or set up listening queries to figure out exactly who they are. If you need more assistance, let us know how we can assist.
• Create content that meets the needs of each persona. By using an existing advertisement, create three different pieces of social media content that convey the same message but in different ways to reach the different personas you’ve identified.
In addition to developing personas, captions and related copy are important elements of social media branding. There is usually a certain amount of personality in company social media accounts.
In some cases, it may be sarcastic or snarky, while in others, it may be informative or witty. There is a possibility that you already have a brand voice in place for your other marketing efforts.
It is highly recommended that you extend that approach to social media, as well as cultivate an approach specific to each social platform.
An effective voice and tone guide should include details such as the brand persona, company catchphrases, and personality traits.
Keep your writing consistent by paying attention to the smallest details, such as whether you use the term “clients” or “customers”. In the event that you have more than one person managing your accounts, having a guide to refer to ensures that everyone is aligned, preventing the impression that your company is writing from a variety of viewpoints.
• Analyze your own social media posts in order to identify where your voice and tone can be improved
• Completely develop and write out your voice and tone guide. Ideally, you would be able to validate some of your writing style decisions by listening to social media and providing examples.
• Make sure the guide is shared with teams that write copy and that they are educated. Then have your social media team, including customer support, use this voice and tone guide when writing new posts.
