So, this month’s topic of discussion is all about something I am an absolute sucker for; and that is branding.
What is the first thing that comes to mind when you think of branding? For most people, the first thing that will come to mind is usually a particular logo or colour scheme used by a brand. For me, the first that comes to mind when I think of branding are the distinct logos of brands like Starbucks (love you x ) or Nike - and if you were on a similar wavelength as me, you’re not wrong at all! In fact, the visual aesthetic of a brand really goes a long way in the process of building strong brand awareness and recognition, especially in a day and age where social media has become so visual.
But I have a big disclaimer to let you guys in on - the visual elements of a brand really only scratches the surface of what a brand really is...
Think of it like this; your brand is the embodiment of your business. Sure, that means it involves making your business look great, but let’s not underestimate how important personality is here people!! I’m sure we can all recall knowing someone that is pretty as a picture but has the personality of a brick, for the sake of this post we’ll call him “Andy”. Welcome to the chat Andy...
Wait Andy, did no one ever tell you that style over substance is so 2001? Awkward.
I think I’ve made my point clear. Surprise, surprise, personality also applies to your branding! This personality refers to the distinct voice, tone, phrases and language that you utilize to connect and resonate with your audience on a human level and to communicate your values, interests, thoughts and feelings. Don’t worry if this all sounds a bit much, I’ll get further into brand voice and tone later on (it's not as scary as you might think)!
Now that we’re on the same page as far as branding is concerned (with the exception of poor old Andy #lostcause), let’s get into my five pro tips to creating your dream brand on social media!
My 5 Pro Tips to Build your Dream Brand on Social Media
1. Don't skip the basics! Your social profiles are your foundation!
It’s no secret... How you portray your brand through these little aspects of your social media profiles will help to lay down a super vital foundation for your brand presence online! So you want to make sure your social profiles are fully optimized so that potential customer instantly know:
1) What your business does
2) What value you can provide them (why they should follow & interact)
3) How they can contact you
4) How they can access resources to learn more about you (your website, your blog etc).
I know it sounds simple, but you’d be surprised how easy this step is to get so wrong!
According to research, around 52% of brand discovery now occurs through social media channels, you don't need me to tell you that that's a whole lot of opportunity handed to you on a silver platter! So, assume that your brand's social profiles will most likely be a potential customer’s first point of contact with your brand and start to see it as your chance to make a great first impression. Always strive to leave your mark!
But how?
To start off, you want all of your social profiles to be consistent (you're gonna be so bored of this word by the end of this post, but I assure you, it really is that important). In branding, consistency is key - it really sets apart those that have a strong sense of who they are as a brand from those who don’t! First of all this means using the same logos or submarks across your chosen social networks to make your brand instantly recognizable to new and returning customers, no matter which network they discover you on. Even just this basic level of consistency helps to establish a firm brand identity online, building up the credibility and clarity of your brand and everything it stands for!
Another way to create a strong on-brand first impression for your ideal customers is to have an enticing and impacting bio! Set 👏 the 👏 scene 👏 for 👏 them 👏. This is your chance to tell your customers exactly why they should be following you! Get creative and spread the FOMO! Trust me, I know this can seem a lot easier said than done, after all 150 characters really doesn’t give space to say much at all! My best advice would be to keep it short and sweet, less is always more! Inject it with your brand personality and get straight to the point! You can do this!
2. Your visuals have the first say - make them branded and impressionable!
So now that you’ve got the basics covered, let’s move onto something that requires a little extra thought and planning; your visual aesthetic. I know the word planning often incites dread into many of my clients, but with all the content clutter on social media sites these days, you often don't get the chance to get a word in edge ways before a user swipes to the next, post, story, email... so put that dread aside and let your visuals have the first word! Whether it’s your website, social media visuals or even your email newsletter, when your customers view your content, you want to make it instantly recognizable to them, and luckily for you, there are a number of ways that you can achieve this!
Firstly, presets are a great way of establishing a polished touch to your images for social media and an even better way of keeping things looking uniform or on brand! Adobe Lightroom is one of the most used app in my phone and it really will be your social media guardian angel! The great thing about presets is that there is such a variety available, giving you the opportunity to find the perfect fit for your brand. They can also be incredibly cheap or even free - I highly recommend FLTR to anyone new to the preset game that may want to have a little experiment with some free presets before committing with your cash $$$.
Just have fun with it, but bear in mind (sorry to any commitment-phobes out there), the next step is to make a decision and stick with it! Of course, you may notice brands and influencers change up their presets every so often, but to create a visually cohesive feed, the chopping and changing should be kept to a minimum.
Another thing you can do to make your branding visually consistent is to create a brand identity board. This is usually the first thing that I do when I am involved with a branding project. 1) It makes the rest of your work ten times easier, because you have already made the hard executive decisions on design and 2) they’re actually so fun to make!
Essentially, a brand identity board is a vision board made especially for your visual branding, which will depict aspects such as your primary colour palette, typography styles, logos and a board of images, symbols, patterns and even vector art that you feel reflect your brand or the visual aesthetic you are looking to achieve. It sounds like a lot, I know, but honestly, once you get this small task out of the way, you will be so happy you took the time out to make some executive decisions on the visual aesthetic of your brand! Your brand identity board is your holy grail, trust me on that one. It makes creating branded content so much quicker, easier and again - so much more consistent.
@candykittens
3. Get to know your audience!
Hold up, I’m not finished there! Sure, you’ve made a great start by achieving a visually cohesive and on-brand feed but really, that’s only scratching the surface of your strategy to build a strong brand identity on social media. After all, it’s always great to have attractive content, particularly on visual-heavy social platforms like Instagram or Pinterest, but if it doesn’t resonate with your audience then you’re putting in all of this hard work for nothing!
You might be sat there thinking “well, what does this have to do with branding?”, and I get it, but this is where branding becomes a whole lot more than just what you see. In order to build any sort of brand presence, you need to be able to leave a lasting impression on your audience - and to achieve that, you need to know exactly who your audience(s) are, what they care about, what their interests are, how they use social media… I could go on, the list is endless. The bottom line is, all of this data will help you to create quality content that shows you to be a relatable and relevant brand to the appropriate consumers!
If your page has a low follower-to-engagement ratio (in simpler terms, lots of followers but few likes/comments/shares), I’m talking directly to you! You may be making the right content and it’s just not reaching the right people or you’ve got the right people in front of you but you’re just not creating the right content. It’s as simple as that. Get to know the potential customers of your business and you will see an incredible shift in the presence of your brand on social media.
4. Let your brand personality shine!
Now that you have a good idea who you should be targeting, you can start to work out how you should be reaching out and connecting with them - because if we’re keeping things simple, this is exactly what finding your brand voice and tone is all about! See your brand voice as the distinct personality that you want to depict through your communications efforts (your captions, your blog posts, your comments and even your DMs!), and also keep in mind how you want to be received by your audience.
A great way in which you can determine the voice or tone you should undertake is by first taking a few minutes out to work out what you want your audience to experience when they interact with your brand - and it really can be as simple as listing three words! How do you want your customers to feel? For me, when my audience interacts with my brand, I want them to leave feeling empowered, confident and accomplished. What are your three words? Let me know in the comments!
So you’ve taken some time out to understand how you want to communicate to your audiences, next you need to understand how your audience enjoys being communicated with! This may sound a little vague, but it’s very simple - how does your audience interact with other brands and how can you leverage this?
Learning how to use your brand voice to target what customers value most really will put you on the path to establishing unbeatable brand loyalty, and more importantly, unforgettable customer experiences. Customers are actually pretty straight forward, take the time to engage with them, care about their complaints or even their positive feedback, always be transparent and let them in on your brand journey (take them behind the scenes or get personal with your storytelling!). I’m telling you, this will work wonders!
@latermedia
5. Review, Review, Review!
By now you’ll be happy to know that you’ve got the basics of your brand fully covered, all that’s left to do is an audit a few weeks or months down the line to measure how on-brand you are with your digital efforts! I know you’re really more interested in the fun branding stuff but trust me, this step is so important to understand how your brand holds up across digital marketing channels and even from post-to-post! After all, you’ve put in all this hard work constructing your brand to make it instantly recognizable, now you just have to make sure everything is - yep you guessed it - consistent!
This audit is essentially an analysis conducted to make sure your branding is helping you to fulfill your business goals and create customer value. It will help you to determine where you’re winning the branding game, and also which areas still need a little work, so that you can go from strength to strength as a brand and get even closer to your audiences.
And don’t worry, it’s okay to complete an audit and realize that your strategy isn’t perfect just yet - that’s the whole point of the audit! It really will make it easier to realign your strategy and work towards a stronger future for you and your brand!
The bottom line...
Social media is an increasingly important consumer touch point for your business and it isn't going anywhere any time soon, so make sure you're doing it right! These five tips are so easy to implement and you will get so much value back - guaranteed! So if you haven't already, set some time aside this evening, or on the weekend to get that branding strategy under way!
Still need a little extra guidance? Fill out the enquiry form on my contact page so I can help!
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