Branding through Social Media

"Social media isn't the end-all-be-all, but it offers marketers unparalleled opportunity to participate in relevant ways. It also provides a launchpad for other marketing tactics. Social media is not an island. It is a high-power engine on the larger marketing ship."-Matt Dickman, SVP Digital Marketing at Fleishman-Hillard

Though they were labeled as fads during their humble beginnings (and still sometimes now), social networks like Twitter and Facebook have grown to include a combined total number of subscribers that exceeds one billion people. That’s kinda huge.

Most fleeting fads don’t feature this size fraction of the world’s population. As a result, many industries and organizations have not only accepted social media, but are now embracing social media as a way to brand their company and/or their product – whether it be through Facebook, Twitter, or both. And while the push to use social media has been somewhat prevalent since the middle of the past decade, some institutions are still trying to find their way in this realm in terms of expressing and building a brand across various social media channels. With this in mind, we’d like to offer a few key concepts to remember when branding through social media:

Consistency: 

Consistency is a problem for any kind of branding, but it can be particularly frustrating for branding across social media. Why? Because social media, even when formal, is a very personalized version of your company and/or product. You’re creating an e-personality and when your consumers have no concept of who that personality is, it frustrates them. Taking that into consideration, your messages via Twitter and Facebook should match in tone, what they’re trying to convey, and target audience.

Keep it simple: 

How many characters do you have at your disposal for a tweet? 140. Not 140 words. 140 characters. You have more for a Facebook post, but long Facebook posts will almost certainly turn away the eyes. People on social networks want the bare minimum and they want any information they’re going to get very quickly. There should be simplicity in the length of the statement and in the choice of words. Plus, trying to over-explain what your company and/or product is can simply complicate or distort the message.

Interaction: 

As mentioned before, whatever social profile you create for your company and/or product is essentially that entity’s personality. That personality should both interact with its “followers” and “friends” and encourage those people to interact with one another. If you’re not encouraging any kind of interaction on your social profile, you are essentially talking to a wall. People will also grow more comfortable and attached to your product if they can interact with it on this level.

Branding yourself through social media has endless possibilities and it is also quickly becoming one of the most cost effective forms of marketing. But just because it’s mostly free and readily available, does not mean it’s easy to use, so please consider what we’ve wrote about while you’re using it!