4 Fundamentals to Building Your Brand on Social Media No matter which your business sector is, no matter if you want to sell products or services, gain subscribers, persuade people to follow you, like your posts and engage them to your cause, they’ve got to know who you are in the first place. Your success – or not – to encourage and bring off any of these actions comes from your brand’s power and value and one of the best ways to build that is through the savvy use of social media. In fact, recent research from https://econsultancy.com shows that 71% of brands plan to invest (even) more heavily in social media in 2015, in order to reach new followers and build brand reputation and equity.
Want to join high ranks and become known in your industry? Here’s everything you need to know about using social media to build your brand, in just 4 steps: 1. Choose networks that support your brand image According to http://www.convinceandconvert.com, 22% of Americans use social media multiple times a day, making it one of the best mediums on which to build your brand. There are literally hundreds of social networks out there, but most of them aren’t worth investing your time and energy. And, ok, we hear you…. American market may be too many steps forward but we surely must try their recipe!! So, find the platforms that best support your brand image and strategy and start working!
Facebook is by the far the best platform for promoting brand awareness, due to 2 major key points. As nearly as 3/4 of Americans and Europeans use it and has a very heterogeneous user base. Instagram is a great option for brands that mostly rely on images, such as clothing companies and retailers. It’s also particularly effective for reaching young adults. Pinterest is an excellent social network to reach women, especially for brands selling jewelry, clothing, sharing recipes and DYI ideas which easily become viral. If you operate a business-to-business company, LinkedIn is a stronger choice for promoting business-related content and connecting with other corporate influencers. Groups, articles and even job offers are an effective way to widely distribute your message. People are still getting used to using Twitter, but since it provides instant communication, generates leads, boosts your brand's personality, highlights trends, enables feedback and per cases provides customer service, is already a tough player.
Finally, while Google+ hasn’t taken off as well as many people predicted, it can be a great platform to reach men in the technology industry, as 2/3 of the profiles are men, most of whom work in engineering or other technical professions.
2. Provide valuable and shareable content More and more often on social media world, we hear that “Content is the king” and “Share is the queen”. So, it should go without saying that your reputation will be much stronger if you focus on creating useful content that viewers will enjoy and want to share. Keep the following principles in mind as you craft content for social sharing:
Every single piece of content you share should support your brand image. Always remember, though, that humor can be difficult to pull off. If you aren’t 100% sure how your audience will respond to your humorous attempt, don’t do it and play a safer game. Figure out which content is most likely to gain visibility on your social networks. Images may echo better with your audience than blog posts, but you will only know by looking closely to your statistics and data. Don’t be afraid to use visual content. Articles with images receive 94% more views. Twitter content with images receives nearly twice as many views as text posts, even though there are seven times more text posts on Twitter…
One of the easiest ways to create content for deployment on social media profiles, that’ll support your brand building efforts, is to see what types of posts others have been successful with and create your own, better versions. Say, for example, that one of your competitors has received good social traction with a blog post titled “12 best Spring outfits for him and her” Instead of wasting your time building content around unproven topics, you could share a stronger content piece on this same subject. For instance “100+1 Spring outfits to wear all day”, or you could ask real people on the streets to photograph for you and comment! 3. Leverage influencers Publishing killer content to your social profiles is important, but it’s only one part of the equation. If you are a start-up and have a relatively unknown brand, your voice is likely getting lost in the social media noise and unfortunately, you are going to need some time in order to make your strategy work. A much faster approach is to leverage the existing audience and influencers of your industry for your benefit. There are a few different ways you can do this:
Mention their names or cite their websites / blogs in your content and posts (using hashtags is always a good way). Influencers will see your content through Google Alerts or other notifications and most likely they will respond! Be friends with these influencers, follow them and invite them to do the same for you. Email influencers after you’ve published your content to let them know they’ve been referenced in your work. The goal of all these different actions is to trigger them, inform them, entertain them and then get them to share your content with their followers via social networking. It can take time to build up the kinds of relationships which lead to influence sharing, but if you’re consistent about producing quality content, your efforts will not go unnoticed.
4. Use social campaigns to promote content Always keep in mind that, in an age of diminishing organic reach (http://www.marketinginteractive.com) paid campaigns – especially those run through native advertising platforms (http://www.entrepreneur.com) – may be one of your best options for building your brand on social networks. More and more brands worldwide use strategies such as contests, gamification, newsletter campaigns through social media, poles etc to successfully gain a spot at the timeline of thousands of users, engage with their target group and generate leads. In order to take advantage of this effect, provide your audience with valuable incentives that encourage user participation and make sure that your campaigns offers value to all participants. While social media is one of the most powerful ways to reach new leads, it’s easy to waste time or discourage people if you don’t use it appropriately. That’s what makes having a sound social media strategy in place so important. If you make it a priority to consistently share great content and leverage the power of existing social media influencers, your brand building efforts are bound to pay off in the long-run. Read more at http://realmarketing.gr/blog-grid-blog-sidebar/ …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… http://realmarketing.gr/ + 30 694 860 2966 info@realmarketing.gr | business@realmarketing.gr https://www.facebook.com/realmarketingconsultingservices https://gr.linkedin.com/in/ioannasoulachaki https://twitter.com/IoannaSoulahaki