Social media is an integral part of online branding and marketing efforts. There are 4.9 billion social media users. If you showcase your branding to just a fraction of that number, you can get a lot of people to see your brand in the way you want them to.<\/p>\n
However, social media branding requires careful thought and conscious effort. You need to have a foolproof strategy to achieve your social media branding goals.<\/p>\n
But don\u2019t worry. Here are social media branding tips you can follow for the best results:<\/p>\n
Knowing your target audience will ensure that your social media branding strategy is more effective. After all, when you know your target audience, you can tailor your social media content, among other things, according to their preferences. When they consume your content enough, you can get them to associate your brand with your chosen values and traits.<\/p>\n
Really knowing your target audience involves knowing four things:<\/p>\n
You can get this information by observing their behavior on social media channels<\/a>, if you already have these. If you\u2019re just starting out on social media, ask your marketing team for information. You can also ask your target audience directly through surveys.<\/p>\n Once you have all this data, create a buyer persona. A buyer persona is a fictional representation of your target audience. The more detailed your buyer persona, the better. It can guide you as you go about your social media branding<\/a>.<\/p>\n Your brand objectives and goals are what you want to achieve with your branding effort. They should be as precise as possible and be in line with your overall business goals.<\/p>\n When defining your branding objectives, start with broad goals and narrow them down into more specific and measurable objectives. For example, you can have broad branding goals like these:<\/p>\n Then break them down into actionable branding objectives like:<\/p>\n Remember that your branding goals and objectives should also be realistic. Don\u2019t aim to increase social media brand mentions by 2,000 in one week, for instance. Ask any experienced marketer and they’ll probably tell you that\u2019s almost impossible.<\/p>\n Your brand voice refers to the tone and style with which you communicate with your target audience. It\u2019s part of your brand identity<\/a> that influences how easily you connect with your audience over time. If you\u2019re an established brand, you should have your brand voice already. If you\u2019re just starting, you\u2019ll need to choose one based on how you want your audience to perceive you. Let\u2019s assume you\u2019re this second one.<\/p>\n Your brand voice can be authoritative, professional, playful, casual, inspirational, or authoritative. It should reflect your brand\u2019s personality. This is a set of human characteristics that people associate with your brand.<\/p>\n To determine your brand personality, pick the values that resonate the most with your business. Is it elegance? Or maybe it\u2019s innovation and creativity?<\/p>\n Jenifer Aaker’s brand personality framework shows the different types of personalities a business can have and their corresponding brand voices:<\/p>\n Take your pick from these traits. Don\u2019t worry. Your brand can have more than one. Then combine all these corresponding voices until you come up with the one voice that embodies your values and appeals to your target audience.<\/p>\n A competitive analysis will help you position your brand more strategically. A critical competitive analysis allows you to observe your competitor\u2019s strengths and weaknesses when it comes to branding. In the end, then, you can identify golden opportunities to take advantage of.<\/p>\n Here are some steps to take when performing a competitive analysis as part of your social media branding strategy:<\/p>\n Use your competitive research findings to create a social media branding strategy that will make you stand out. For instance, if you find many users don\u2019t particularly love your competitor\u2019s formal and technical language, then you\u2019ll want to shun that and use a casual language in your social media content instead.<\/p>\n Your social media content strategy is a well-detailed plan that determines what you share and post on your social networks. This should be based on your audience\u2019s preferences, branding objectives, brand voice, and competitive analysis findings. Remember, you want your audience to perceive you in a specific way. So, you need to curate your social media content and other elements to achieve that.<\/p>\n You can write your social media content strategy from scratch or use templates online. Whichever strategy you choose, you\u2019ll need to incorporate the following elements:<\/p>\n Your choice of social media platform should depend on where your target audience is. What\u2019s the use of your branding if no one can see it in the first place. So, go back to your audience persona and see which platforms they use.<\/p>\n Base your decision on which platform to use on how you want to be perceived as a brand as well.<\/p>\n For instance, if you want to be seen as an authority, LinkedIn might be a great platform for you. It comes with features that allow you to create authoritative content (LinkedIn blog post). Plus, it\u2019s the top platform for professionals, with its over 930 million users. If you prefer to be seen as a fun and quirky brand, why not consider TikTok? TikTok is known for its entertaining content such as dance challenges. The platform also allows duets and has filters that can transform boring visuals into fun and quirky ones.<\/p>\n Your competitive research findings can also help you decide the social media platform to use for your branding.<\/p>\n Your content strategy should indicate which types of content you\u2019ll post on your social channel. It should also define your content themes\u2014-will your content types be educational, promotional, entertaining, etc?<\/p>\n The answers to those questions will ultimately depend on your brand personality. Let\u2019s say you decided you\u2019d emphasize \u201ccompetence\u201d as a brand. Your social media content strategy should then include infographics and educational posts. It should also specify you\u2019ll write them in an easy-to-understand language. If you\u2019re more of a fun brand, then TikTok videos and funny Tweets should probably be included in your content arsenal. Your language should be more casual and entertaining than formal.<\/p>\n When deciding what content to create, make sure you also consider what your target audience wants. This is where your audience persona, again, comes in handy. You can also check research on audience\u2019s general preferences.<\/p>\n For example, a survey reported by Hubspot<\/a> showed that consumers unfollow brands that share many promotional posts. So, if you want your branding to be effective, in general, your content strategy shouldn\u2019t include many promotional social posts. These content types won\u2019t be consumed by your audience in the first place.<\/p>\n Include your social media posting schedule in your social media content strategy, too. The key to branding is consistency. You want to bombard your target audience with enough content on social media so that they\u2019ll easily associate your chosen values with your brand. Don\u2019t worry if you don\u2019t have enough human resources to create that many posts. Nowadays, you can easily create AI in SEO<\/a> content that yields excellent results.<\/p>\n Note that each social network has recommended posting times<\/a>. Post at these times first. Once you have enough social media data on engagement, you can determine the specific posting times for your business.<\/p>\nSet Your Branding Objectives and Goals<\/h2>\n
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Define Your Brand Voice<\/h2>\n
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Perform a Competitive Analysis<\/h2>\n
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Develop Your Social Media Content Strategy<\/h2>\n
Social Media Platforms to Be Used<\/h3>\n
Types of Content<\/h3>\n
Social Media Posting Schedule<\/h3>\n