If you’re a small business, you might be confused about branding your social media profiles or building up your own personal brand. There is a lot of debate as to which branding method should be followed. Social media has several uses aside from brand building: support, selling and marketing to name a few.
When trying to brand your social media profiles, it’s important to:
1. Include Visual Branding in Your Strategy
Visual branding is important in an age where attention spans are shrinking. Followers shouldn’t have to scour your page to figure out who you are. Coca-Cola has its logo on all of its social media accounts.
It’s easy to know what account you’re on when you see and recognize the logo in seconds.
Twitter, Instagram and Facebook all have the company’s logo front and center. Small businesses that want to brand themselves will want to copy this visual strategy. FluksAqua, a group of wastewater professionals, does this very well.
And a logo will also benefit from increased exposure.
The more people see your brand, profile pages and logo, the better. It takes a fair amount of exposure for potential customers to remember a brand.
2. Create a Voice and Make Sure It’s Heard
Brands need to have a voice. What is a voice? It’s the way that your brand communicates with the world. A brand’s voice can be formed by looking at your company’s:
- Culture
- Audience
You need to exhibit the culture of your company while also catering to the audience that you’re trying to reach. But keep in mind that followers put a lot of stock in a brand’s authenticity. You need to be honest and true to your brand.
The voice you maintain must also be honest.
A brand that isn’t honest will risk causing more harm than good if its social media strategy backfires.
But that doesn’t mean all of your posts need to be the same. You can have a funny, trendy, friendly, helpful or honest post – it doesn’t matter.
Consistency is all that really matters.
Speaking of consistency, your voice also needs to be heard, and this is best done when posting regularly. There are a lot of options available that will provide analytics, audience insights and scheduled posting options.
Buffer, SproutSocial or HootSuite – among many others.
3. Utilize Profile Space Properly
A lot of brands, especially smaller brands, are not using their profile space wisely. You need to utilize this bio / profile space properly. This is the space that you want to use in an effort to tell your audience who you are and what you do.
Well-known brands may be able to get away with a skimpy profile; your brand cannot.
Use this small space, often just a paragraph, to explain what your company does or its purpose in the most succinct way possible. When followers go to your page, they should be able to read this section and come away knowing exactly what you can offer them if they choose to follow your social media profile.
Completely fill out your profile – it’s always worth the effort to be thorough.
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