5 Beneficial Social Media Branding Strategies
Social media branding is a topic that a lot of people are constantly reflecting on, yet, there’s a surprising lack of tangible, actionable advice on how to approach it. Simply being present on various social networks that are popular with your target demographic is not enough. You need to devise the right approach, send a message through the right channels and, most importantly, think about the form of the message as much as you do about its content. With this in mind, here are five beneficial social media branding strategies that you should think about.
1.Influencer marketing
The first thing you need to understand is that influencer marketing takes a lot of work on the side of the marketer or business owner. Most people assume that it ends with the outreach but this is A) completely incorrect and B) on its own not an easy thing to pull off. The way in which you approach the influencer, the terms of your negotiation and the way in which you maintain the communication channel are, on their own a strong determiner.
Apart from this, the reputation of the influencer and their reliability are also what matters. For instance, an online personality with a knack for controversy may drive a lot of attention your way, however, there are different forms of attention and not all of them are positive ones. You don’t want to be placed in a situation where your outraged consumers demand that your severe ties with someone you worked so hard to win over. If you’re not careful, your influencer marketing efforts can become more trouble than you’ve bargained for.
2.Working on your personal brand
Companies come and go, yet, your online activity has a bit more permanent character. After all, most people have their Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn profiles for a lot longer than they are running a company. Others host a blog or act as regulars on certain industry-related forums and Subreddits. In other words, your online activity follows you, no matter what you do and it’s this digital footprint that you leave behind that a lot of people are going to judge your brand on.
Keep in mind, however, that, while a single contradictory tweet from 2011 can do a lot of harm to your brand unless you’re already in the center of a controversy, most people won’t dig that deep. In other words, giving your personal brand a bit of a facelift, shouldn’t actually be that hard.
3.Visualize your brand
Company names are important, yet, visual elements of your brand are what makes your company more distinctive from its direct competitors. After all, human brain processes visual information about 60,000 faster than verbal, which directly results in us receiving 90 percent of all the information from the outside world through visual means. Because of this, branding should be your top priority, which means that this vital function is even worth outsourcing. Moreover, you need to realize that a vital part of your brand is your logo, and your logo needs to be both niche and format appropriate. After all, it will be displayed on business cards, product packages and much more. But, perhaps the most important part of your branding is professional web design, especially nowadays, if you don't have a web presence, and a sleek one at that, you might as well be invisible.
4.Consistency
When it comes to your brand, you need to be as consistent as possible not just with your opinions and attitudes but with your posting schedule, as well. Otherwise, you risk being forgotten by your audience, seeing as how posting a single article, video or infographic per several months won’t be enough, even if it’s the most enticing, highest-quality content that the internet has ever seen. Seeing as how you might have trouble achieving this on your own, getting in touch with some reliable content creators and negotiating a contributor status might be the best course of action and your best odds at achieving these ridiculously high requirements.
5.User-generated content
In these online interactions, like in real life, the other party (your audience) aren’t there to listen to you holding a monologue, day in and day out. What they want is for their voice to be heard, regardless of the topic. Now, in order not to misinterpret this, it needn’t necessarily be their personal voice but at least a voice of someone who speaks from their point of view. This is where the user-generated content (UGC) comes in. With its aid, your brand will not only get more humanized but also get some validation from the source that counts the most. Moreover, it’s one of the key tools for boosting your social media reach and growth.
In conclusion
While these five techniques may seem a bit too simplistic to some, the truth is that this is probably their main strength. They are universally applicable, regardless of the industry or context and they can be put to action even by inexperienced social media managers. Overall, you get a solid foundation for your brand in a simple, reliable way.