Whether you’re a small business trying to cultivate a brand or an aspiring influencer aiming for a bigger audience, optimizing your use of social media can drastically change your fortunes. Gone are the days when advertising was exclusive to organizations with million-dollar budgets. Thanks to social media, you now have the power to engage with an audience of over a billion people. This incredible reach has revolutionized the advertising landscape and opened up endless possibilities for businesses of all sizes.
Yet increased access to the means of advancing your brand has also led to more competition than ever. Social media is full of small businesses for all products and services. Cultivating a unique brand identity that makes you stand out from your competition is necessary in this saturated market. This article is here to help guide you in creating such an identity and learning all the tips to market that brand such that it gets the highest engagement possible.
- Make Your Content More Visual
With social media becoming a more dominant marketing presence, visual ads are experiencing a rise to prominence and are becoming more crucial than text-based advertising. Content with images on social media gets up to 650 percent more engagement than posts with just long paragraphs of text. And while some social media platforms like Twitter are more responsive to just text, Instagram and Facebook, the two biggest brands for advertising and selling goods, require visuals for greater engagement.
Make your brand identity as visual as possible. Incorporate high-quality videos and photos that make your page pop and stand out. Even if you can’t afford high-quality camera gear, you can take advantage of stock photos that give you access to professional-quality images for free. If you are primarily using Instagram, perhaps select a color scheme, such as photos that are either warm or cool colors, which will give your page a kind of coherence and recognizability.
- Figure Out Who Your Content Appeals To
Too often, companies pursuing universal recognizability make their brand so generic that it ends up appealing to no one. Instead, the aim should be to recognize who your audience is likely to be and foster a brand identity that appeals to them.
So, before you begin posting, take the time to identify which demographic you want to target. It will depend on the industry you are entering and the kinds of consumers that give that industry business. Once you have discovered your demographic, research their interests, social media preferences, and online behavior patterns. By understanding how your audience spends their time online, you can cultivate a brand that is suited to their visual palette and meets their needs.
- Make Your Content Interactive
Before advancements in digital technology gave birth to social media, the interactions between brands and consumers were one way; the brand would place advertisements in newspapers, television, and radio which consumers could view or listen to. Today this is no longer the case; marketing is a two-way street, with brands cultivating an image and consumers responding to it.
These changes have also affected consumer preferences who are looking for brands with whom they can develop a relationship, ones they feel are actively listening to their consumers and responding to their demands. Take advantage of social media tools to make your content more interactive. Frequently use polls through which consumers can give their opinions on new products or campaigns. Have a responsive team that quickly answers any questions on your page, whether in the comments or as a direct message. Being proactive in answering queries and cultivating an identity where it seems you are interested in the opinions of your target audience helps attract loyal customers who are likely to give you long-term business.
- Craft Compelling Tales
Whether you’re a small business, a fitness instructor, a motivational speaker, or a traveler blogger, having a captivating narrative, whether for yourself or one of your products, is vital to creating engaging content. People are not interested in following things that appear impersonal, and the more they know about your profile, the more they are likely to form a connection with it.
Most of the largest brands in the world also rely on storytelling. Nike isn’t just a sports brand, it is a statement on striving for excellence and performance, encapsulated by its trademark ‘Just Do It.’ Coca-Cola isn’t just a beverage company but a drink that unites people regardless of country, race, or creed. Your brand should similarly try to create a narrative central to its identity and seen throughout its product line.
- Post Consistently
Sometimes you feel like you’ve done everything right, made the perfect post, used the best images and video possible, and crafted a great story. Yet, your post still does not get the engagement you want. Conversely, it may be that this post exceeded your expectations, and you now feel comfortable in the audience you have gathered. The wrong thing to do in both these circumstances is to stop posting consistently.
If you are demoralized and have lost the will to be as consistent in your social media activity, do not despair. It is the act of regularly updating your profile that will slowly bring a larger audience to your product. Don’t see a post you’ve put in which didn’t get the views you wanted as a failure but a building block upon which a future brand with a larger audience will stand.
If you did well, do not get complacent in your efforts. Virality can come and go fast, and your brand can go from being the talk of social media to being invisible if you stop putting in the effort. Maintaining your viral status is just as hard as attaining it, so you must be consistent in your efforts.
Conclusion
For many people, becoming a viral trend on social media is more a matter of luck than intentional effort. If you want to engender your personal or business brand on social media, you cannot rely on something as arbitrary and must develop a strategy to gain your audience. By following the tips of this article, you can not only reach a much wider audience but work towards a long-lasting connection with them that will ensure your future for many years.
