There are almost EIGHT billion people in the world. More than FIVE billion of them are on social media, as per Smart Insights. Now, I am not saying all five billion of them are your consumers – unless you’re selling air, then they all need that – it is safe to estimate that millions or at least some hundred thousand of them are within your reach only if you could come up with a social media branding strategy.
Here, we must take a pause and focus on the word ‘strategy’.
For all the vast reaches of social media and all the postings, you could do literally with two clicks, you still need a solid plan to hold your neck above the swamp of competition on these platforms. If you don’t do that, you’ll drown.
The need for a plan
You won’t venture into an unknown territory without Google Maps, right?
There are several social media branding examples to show how campaigns fail when they either choose the wrong platform or focus on the incorrect audience demographic, etc. All this is because they lack a well-thought-out plan to achieve their goals.
Why do you need to have a social media strategy in place before launching any campaign? Basically, for three main reasons:
Focus
The unimaginable reaches of social media often lure people into setting unrealistic goals. For them, anything they post has to go viral. But does it happen? No! A social media strategy helps you set realistic goals based on brand awareness, target audience, and other metrics. An outline with specific objectives ensures the focus and direction of the campaign.
Content Creation
With a strategy, you can plan a content calendar that lines up with your business goals and target audience. This will save you from posting on Wednesday afternoons when most of your audience is busy with their work or not posting on Sundays when they are on a scrolling spree throughout the day.
Measurement and Improvement
An effective strategy establishes key performance indicators (KPIs) and metrics to measure success, like reach, engagement, follower growth, and conversion rate. This allows you to see what’s working and what’s not and helps refine your approach by making informed decisions.
Social Media Branding and Social Media Marketing
Social media marketing and branding are closely related, but they focus on different aspects of your online presence.
You can think of social media branding as the foundation or overall identity you build on online platforms. It’s about who you are as a brand and involves defining your brand voice, personality, visual style, and storytelling. It’s the consistent look and feel that makes people recognize you across platforms. For example, the red of Adobe on their social media channels is their branding, helping their customers identify the brand with that color.
Social media marketing emphasises promoting products, services, or specific campaigns to achieve measurable business goals. It’s all about driving traffic, conversions, and revenue. It includes content creation, paid advertising, lead generation, tracking analytics, and metrics. Adobe running an ad campaign to promote a discount on Acrobat Pro subscription is social media marketing.
In short, social media marketing is tactical and for immediate results, while social media branding is strategic, focusing on long-term brand perception and loyalty. Now that we have established what is social media branding let’s see how you could come up with a solid plan to assert your brand on social media.
How to Devise a Social Media Branding Strategy
When it comes to creating a brand and making it successful, it takes a lot more than just a good logo and a sleek designed website. Let me quote the famous author and salesman Zig Zigler here.
“If people like you, they’ll listen to you, but if they trust you, they’ll do business with you.”
How do you build this trust? Through branding.
It is a strategy to etch your brand into people’s minds by crafting a unique image that reflects your values, mission, and what makes you different. Branding encompasses things like your logo, colors, fonts, brand voice, and overall messaging.
Let’s get started with a plan.
1. Select your platform
In 2024, the first thing you need to decide for a branding plan is what social media platforms you want to be present at. According to Semrush, there are 28 top social media platforms, if you try to be on all of them, your entire marketing budget will vanish before you can even spell branding. If you’re not on the right platform where your possible audience is, well then what is the purpose of all this?
So, identify which social media platforms are most relevant to your target audience. These could be the established ones like Facebook, Instagram, X, LinkedIn, and TikTok, as well as emerging platforms like Threads and Clubhouse.
Data from GWI (formerly GlobalWebIndex), an audience research company, reveals that a typical user browses or visits an average of 6.7 different social media platforms each month.
Here’s your checklist to nail down the platforms:
- Know your brand and audience
- Analyze platform demographics
- Consider content types
- Evaluate engagement potential
- Platform trends
2. Audience Analysis
The most important of all social media branding tips is to know who you’re trying to woo. Imagine using technical jargon to explain a recipe to a child or explaining the functions of an inverter to an old man using Gen Z slang. It wouldn’t work, right? Audience analysis helps you understand the language your ideal customer speaks (literally and figuratively). You can then craft messages that are clear, relevant, and resonate with them on a deeper level.
Here’s what you should find out in your analysis:
Demographics
Start by collecting basic demographic information about your audience, such as age, gender, location, income level, education level, and occupation. This provides a foundational understanding of who your audience is.
Psychographics
Dive deeper into your audience’s psychographics, which include their interests, values, attitudes, lifestyles, and personality traits. This helps you understand their motivations, preferences, and purchasing behavior.
Behavioral data
Analyze your audience’s online behavior, including their browsing habits, social media usage patterns, content consumption preferences, and purchasing history. This data can be collected from website analytics, social media insights, and third-party research tools.
Feedback and surveys
Collect feedback from your audience via surveys, polls, focus groups, and social media listening. Ask questions about their needs, challenges, preferences, and perceptions of your brand to gain valuable insights.
Competitor analysis
Look at your competitors’ audience demographics, engagement metrics, and content strategies to identify overlaps and differences with your audience. This can help you enhance your targeting and positioning strategies.
Monitoring and iteration
Audience analysis is an ongoing process. Keep monitoring changes in your audience’s demographics, preferences, and behaviors over time, and adjust your strategies accordingly. Stay agile and be willing to iterate based on new insights and market trends.
3. Define your Brand Goals
Having predefined goals ensures all your social media activities work towards achieving specific objectives. It saves from random posting. These goals are easy to track and help you allocate resources (time, budget) efficiently to the tactics that matter most.
Now, how do you actually set these goals? Here are some key factors to consider:
SMART goals
Make sure the goals of your business are Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-bound. Don’t just say, “increase brand awareness.” Define what “awareness” means to you (website traffic, follower growth) and set a measurable target within a specific timeframe.
Alignment with overall business goals
Your social media goals shouldn’t exist in a vacuum. Connect them to your broader business objectives (increased sales, lead generation, brand reputation).
Consider the platform
Not all platforms are created equal. Tailor your goals to the strengths of each platform. For example, building brand awareness might be a primary goal on Instagram, while lead generation might be more important on LinkedIn.
4. Content Strategy
Devise a content strategy that focuses on providing value to your audience while also showcasing your brand personality. Branding templates for social media platforms differ, based on what type of content works there and what is the user demographic.
Here’s what a comprehensive content strategy might entail:
Content mix
Diversify your content mix to cater to different formats and preferences. This could include a combination of text, images, videos, GIFs, polls, quizzes, live streams, stories, and interactive elements like AR filters or stickers.
Short-form video content
Embrace the popularity of short-form video content, which continues to dominate social media platforms. Create engaging and entertaining videos optimized for platforms like TikTok, Instagram Reels, or YouTube Shorts. Experiment with trends, challenges, and storytelling techniques to capture attention quickly.
Immersive experiences
Leverage emerging technologies like AR and VR to create immersive brand experiences. Develop AR filters, lenses, or gamified experiences that encourage user interaction and engagement. VR experiences can transport users to virtual environments for product demonstrations, virtual events, or storytelling. Explore the potential of AI-powered content creation tools. Use them to personalize content, generate ideas, or analyze audience data.
User-generated content (UGC) and storytelling
Encourage your audience to craft and share content related to your brand. UGC not only provides authentic social proof but also fosters a sense of community and belonging. Weave UGC with storytelling to humanize your brand and link with your audience on a deeper level. Share compelling narratives, behind-the-scenes glimpses, customer testimonials, and success stories.
While doing all this, maintain a cohesive visual identity across all platforms, including consistent colors, fonts, imagery, and branding features. This helps to strengthen brand recognition and recall.
5. KPIs, Analytics and Measurement
Monitor KPIs to track the success of your social media branding efforts. Analyze metrics such as engagement rate, reach, impressions, click-through rate, and conversion rate and constantly use this data to improve your strategy and make informed decisions moving forward. Here are some well-defined KPIs to consider as you go along:
Engagement rate
This determines the level of interaction your content receives, including likes, comments, shares, and clicks. A high engagement rate shows that your audience is keenly engaging with your content, which can lead to improved brand awareness and loyalty.
Conversion rate
Conversion rate calculates the fraction of users who take a desired action, such as making a purchase decision, signing up for a newsletter, or downloading a resource after interacting with your social media content. Tracking conversion rate helps you assess the efficiency of your social media marketing in driving tangible business results.
Brand mentions and sentiment
Observing brand mentions and sentiment on social media platforms helps you gauge the overall perception of your brand among your audience. Positive sentiment and an increase in brand mentions indicate a strong brand presence and favorable reputation.
Share of voice
Share of voice compares your brand’s presence on social media relative to your competitors. By analyzing the volume and sentiment of conversations related to your brand versus competitors, you can identify opportunities to strengthen your brand positioning and competitive advantage.
Conclusion
Social media branding is nothing but a meticulous plan to keep your brand relevant in a positive spotlight. It might feel like madness, but it is the one with a lot of methods attached to it. The success or failure of your branding efforts could be determined even before the campaign’s launch because going into it without a plan is a certain doom. So, brainstorm before you start, ensuring you don’t end up with nothing.
We hope this blog will have offered you all the social media branding solutions you were looking for. Share with us how you started your branding journey and how you successfully achieved all your goals.
