Whether your company has a longtime social media presence or you’re just now jumping on the bandwagon, it’s important to make sure you’re sending all the right messages about your brand. That is, of course, if you want people to like and share it.
With 71 percent of consumers likely to recommend a brand to their family and friends following a positive social media experience, you better make sure your brand is stepping up to meet those expectations. It’s crucial to develop a cohesive branding strategy across all your social accounts — and here are five ways to help you do just that.
Follow your style guide
You might not have control over the layout of your social pages, especially when those seem to change every month. But you still need to incorporate elements of your brand’s style guide to give all your pages a cohesive look that enhances brand recognition. This includes tone/voice, graphics, images, typography, colors, and hashtags.
Does your brand use bold, bright colors in its posts and images, or does it rely on more subdued, pastel-like color choices and filters? Your posts should blend together under a general stylistic theme, staying consistent and identifiable with that theme. On Anthropologie’s Instagram page, for example, the images all have a similar feel, giving the impression that they all belong there.
You can also create style guides for each specific type of post. For example, posts featuring discount items can share similar colors and fonts. Even without the logo, consumers will start to recognize the appearance of your posts if you properly incorporate your style throughout.
Use identifying elements
When a consumer lands on your Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook page, they should be able to recognize the brand right away — and identify it across any of your social sites. The easiest way to do that is to use the same name, About Us copy, profile photo, and cover image for all accounts. If your company has different versions of its name — such as Ted’s Outdoor Living Services versus just Ted’s — make sure you choose one to use across your pages. Images might need to be size-adjusted to fit the parameters of each site, but featuring the same ones makes it easy for people to recognize them no matter where they encounter your brand.
Nike, which has the most followers of any brand on Instagram with over 110 million, uses its logo across all social channels and its slogan as the cover image on Facebook and Twitter. Even though the layout for each site is different, Nike has made its branding clear across all its accounts.
Stick to your schedule
Top brands have figured out how to build anticipation with their social media posts. One way is by creating a consistent posting schedule, especially when it comes to timely hashtags. For example, if you want to share #SundayFunday or #ThrowbackThursday posts each week, keep it up so your followers know what to expect. Having a social media plan in place as you post the hashtagged posts each week comes off as professional and organized—and it cultivates anticipation.
Your plan should also include a posting schedule with the general times of day. You wouldn’t want to post 10 times one day and then none the next. Scheduling sites like Hootsuite, Sprout Social, Tweetdeck, and Post Planner are just a few of the options you can use to plan when your posts will go live. Some of them will even suggest the best days and times for optimized exposure. Once you determine the volume of posts that works for your brand, stick to your established schedule—such as morning, afternoon and evening daily posts. Again, this helps your followers know when to look for something new from you.
Be unique
While you want your different accounts to all look and feel the same from one site to the next, you don’t want them to get lost in the crowd. So avoid using stock images, drawing instead from your internal library. You can use original images from different campaigns, shoots, or even employee profiles. Your posts are a way to showcase your brand’s personality, which should be unique, original, and engaging.
Tie them together
One final tip to cultivate consistency at all social touchpoints is by sharing similar posts across your accounts. For example, if you share a motivational quote on Twitter, do the same on Facebook and Instagram. The quote itself can be different, but give it a complementary design so that your followers begin to recognize posts across channels. You can also create a hashtag to use on all your sites, really tying it together. All your posts, no matter the channel, should be packaged to make it clear that they’re coming from the same brand.
Posts also need to be crafted for the same people: your target audience. By staying true to your brand and audience, you’ll create a seamless social strategy to better establish and build out your brand.
