November 05, 2013

Social Media: How Can It Build Your Brand?


Today’s guest blogger is Ashley Wiederhold, Project Manager here at Addison Whitney!

Social media is just one of many double-edged swords in the marketing arsenal. On one hand, when done right, social media marketing is a highly effective way to appeal to a target audience. On the other, the wrong approach to social networking can be disastrous. The key to leveraging social media platforms to build your brand lies in one simple task: understand your brand.

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This may seem obvious, but you would be amazed by how many companies are engaging in social media marketing campaigns that detract from the brand they’ve established. While using Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and the like may seem easy, it’s actually quite a strategic activity for companies that do it right.

So, how do you go about understanding your brand? The key lies in doing a bit of soul-searching about what your brand stands for. If you’re a new company that has just gone through the name or logo development process, you should have a strong knowledge of your brand’s mission and values. If not, take the time to answer the following questions, which were inspired by an article published by the Huffington Post:

  • What does your brand look like? This means surveying the graphics that your company has developed to represent it, such as the logo. Additionally, gather details about your brand’s color palette, font, etc. It’s a great idea to create a brand standards document where you can keep all of this information (and distribute internally to ensure brand continuity).
  • What does your brand sound like? Believe it or not, your brand has a voice. The point of social media marketing is to amplify this voice by proclaiming it from social networking platforms. To successfully do this, though, requires consistency. The posts that are published on Facebook should be consistent in tone. Additionally, this tone should be carried across platforms, such as onto Twitter or Pinterest.
  • Why is your brand online to begin with? The simple answer to this question is to increase awareness. You want to increase your revenue by attracting new customers, and the only way you can do that is through an increase in visibility. The Internet opens a very big door with this regard, but your brand will only make it through the door successfully if you understand the purpose behind your social media activity. Do you want to inform your target audience? Do you want to keep people entertained? Keep this goal in mind when creating social content.

Source:
Huffington Post article

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