These days, all brands are expected to have a social media presence. It is a non-negotiable aspect of building awareness and loyalty amongst your current and prospective customers. But merely being present is not enough – you need to be strategic; you need to have goals, and you need differentiate yourself from your competitors.
Branding is marketing 101; it is what creates a memorable impression, and it underpins everything you do and say as a brand. It is more than just a logo – it is your voice, your personality, and your values. It communicates what you stand for as a brand, and who your target market is. And it differentiates you from your competitors.
The following advice used consistently throughout your social media accounts will help you build a strong, recognisable brand.
Social Media Style Guide
A social media style guide is the go-to source for how your brand appears and acts across all platforms. You may have heard of a ‘style guide’ before, and may already have a brand style guide. It dictates the rules or parameters of your brand – the logos, the colour pallets, the fonts, spacing and placement of how your logo can and cannot be used.
A social media style guide builds off of the brand style guide, adding in rules around how your brand is to be used on social platforms like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. It will likely have some rules around profile images and water marks for videos, as well as how branded or unbranded day-to-day posts should be.
Branded Templates
Your social media style guide should flow through to a series of pre-approved branded templates. Ideally, your brand will have 4-6 different branded templates that are used across all social media platforms. This creates consistency and ensures you stay on-brand with every piece of content.
Put simply, branded templates are established design blueprints that can be modified as needed without changing the original file. Once set up, you can access pre-set fonts, logos and colours to create cohesive graphics for your feed.
Content and Imagery
Most social media platforms are very visual. It is important to consider the content and imagery we upload on our company profiles. Ideally, it should be relevant and tie in with our brand values. This is because brand imagery is an opportunity to visually communicate your brand’s identity to your audience.
For some brands, that means ensuring you use the same filter on every Instagram image, for others it might mean making sure that you depict diversity, sustainability or professionalism in your images you select.
Instagram grids
If you want to grab the attention of a visitor, you will need to think about your feed as a whole and not just each individual post. A pleasing visual aesthetic is a window to enticing your visitors from the start.
Your Instagram layout refers to planning your Instagram grid on your profile page. Your Instagram feed is the first impression of your brand when visitors land on your profile. Having a well-planned and curated Instagram feed will visually convey who you are and what you do all at a glance.
Tone of Voice
Your Tone of Voice outlines your brand’s voice, using adjectives like ‘excitable’, ‘professional’, ‘confident’, ‘fresh’, ‘cheeky’ to describe the ‘tone’ you use in your marketing communications.
Establishing a tone of voice, and then using it to create all your social media captions ensures that your brand voice is consistent throughout all touch points your customers have with your brand. Learn more about tone of voice guidelines and how they help your brand here.
Unique Hashtags
One final thing to consider while we are touching on tone of voice, connection and conversation is to consider creating a unique hashtag. This will allow your customers and followers to engage in a unique space and spark conversation as well as contribute to existing topics. Not only is this a space for your audience, but a way for your brand to also stay in the loop.
Conclusion:
Creating a recognisable brand on social media boils down to two key ingredients: consistency and cohesiveness. Establish some rules or guidelines around how you use your logo as well as the language you use when communicating via social media. Pair these with branded templates and imagery that you stick to, and you’ll create a strong brand that is easy for your customers to recognise and recall.
If you’d like to learn more about creating a recognisable brand on social media, or would like to request a quote for any of our branding or social media services, please get in touch with the team at BeKonstructive Marketing here.
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