In the extremely competitive business environment of 21st century, where competition is only one click away, building a strong brand image is more important than ever. Strong, well-established brand will do wonders at empowering customer loyalty, strengthening customer loyalty, and attracting ideal clients. For startups and small businesses, establishing a strong brand image on social media can seem like a daunting task. However, with the right approach, it’s absolutely possible.
Here are 5 simple ways you can get started:
1. Define Your Brand Values and Mission
The foundation of any strong brand identity is understanding who you are and what you stand for. Before jumping into social media, take the time to clearly define your brand’s values, mission, and unique selling points. Ask yourself:
If you want to have a powerful, established brand image, you first need to know exactly who you are and what do you stand for. Define your brand’s values, mission and unique selling point as clearly as possible, before positioning your brand message on social media.
Ask yourself several simple, yet critical questions, and try to answer them as concretely as possible.
What problems does your business solve?
How do you want your audience to perceive your brand? What do you want them to feel when they interact with you?
Once you have a clear vision of your brand’s core values, make sure to reflect them in all aspects of your online presence, from visuals to the overall tone of your posts and content.
2. Know Your Audience Inside-Out
Once you have a crystal clear vision of your brand, it’s time to develop an even clearer vision of your target audience. Understanding who is it that you’re trying to reach, what do your customers need, and how you can approach delivering solutions to their most pressing problems is one of the most crucial aspects of your future business success.
Understand which platforms do your users prefer, and tailor your message as well as visuals to their unique preferences. This will enable you to quickly create stronger, more meaningful connections.
Pro Tip: It’s a great idea to utilize analytics tools (such as Facebook Insights, Google Analytics, LinkedIn Analytics, and Instagram’s audience insights) to learn more about your audience, their demographic data, and understand your followers better.
3. Create Consistent Visuals
Your brand’s visuals are often the first thing people notice about your social media presence. From your logo and color scheme to your social media templates and photo filters, consistency is key. Consistent branding helps create familiarity and trust. Stick to a recognizable color palette, fonts, and image styles across all platforms to create a cohesive look and feel.
Besides being your audience’s very first contact with your brand, visuals also convey important emotions. From your logo, color scheme, to your social media templates and filters, you should never neglect remaining consistent. Consistent branding is excellent for building familiarity and trust. You’ll want to stick with a recognizable fonts, image styles, and color palette in order to deliver a cohesive brand image outlook.
Example: Think of the business giants such as Coca-Cola and Nike – their logos, style and colors are so consistent that they are almost instantly recognizable on social media.
4. Develop a Unique Brand Voice
How does your brand “sound” to your audience? Your brand’s voice needs to align with your brand’s values and mission. Whether you’re going for a humorous, formal, casual or professional tone, it’s crucial that you remain consistent throughout your messaging.
Ask yourself:
Do you utilize an authoritative or more conversational tone?
Do you use humor often, or keep things strictly professional?
5. Post Content that Provides Value
Gone are the days when social media was purely for promotion. Today, successful brands post content that informs, educates, or entertains their audience. The more value you offer, the more engagement you’ll get. This can be anything from useful how-tos and guides to behind-the-scenes content, customer stories, or even interactive polls.
Social media is no longer purely a good portal for brand promotion. It’s a platform on which your brand can thrive through delivering educating, informational, and entertaining content. The more value you offer, the more engaged your followers are going to be. This can range from useful how-tos and mini-guides to behind-the-scenes interesting content, engaging customer stories, or even interactive polls.
Pro Tip: We suggest balancing your promotional posts with value-driven content in a ratio of 80/2o – 80% valuable, educational or entertaining content and 20% promotional.
6. Engage and Build Relationships
Your brand is not just your logo. It’s the unique relationship it has built with its audience. Nowadays, it is crucial that you engage with your followers timely, and often, by responding to comments, participating in conversations and asking questions. You can successfully utilize your social media presence to foster a community around your brand.
Call to Action suggestion: Ask your audience to share their experiences with your service or product, utilize polls and interactive features to engage discussion.
7. Leverage User-Generated Content
There are few things brand’s credibility can benefit more from than user-generated content (UGC). People look up to recommendations from other users. Even more so than they do spicy advertisements. Therefore, encouraging your customers to share their insights about your brand, product or service can be extremely useful. Share customer testimonials, reviews, and UGC to build social proof and showcase your happy customers.
8. Analyze and Optimize
Building a strong brand identity on social media takes time, however, with a clear strategy and consistent approach, you’ll manage to establish a brand that sets itself apart in your industry, and regularly attracts loyal customers.
Are you ready to take your brand’s social media presence to the next level? Reach out to Katic Digital for expert social media management services that will help your brand soar!