This week we continue our Brand and Social Media series with a disucssuion about aligning your social efforts with your brand.
With all the hype about social media, we may have forgotten that any social media marketing efforts must be aligned with your brand! When leveraging the myriad of social media outlets, it is important to keep the core tenants of your brand in mind. Social media provides you with additional channels through which you can communicate and interact with your target audience. Social media allows your message to be broadcast and shared widely, globally and freely.
With this openness in mind, what do you need to consider when establishing your social media strategy – particularly as it relates to your brand? First, don’t forget what your brand is. We reviewed this last week. Remember, your brand is a promise. Your use of social media should reinforce that promise and provide a level of transparency and authenticity that invites engagement from your target markets. How can social media help?
Social media platforms should visually and contextually reflect your brand. Consistency of logo, color and voice are important. Of these three, voice is the most critical. What is the voice of your brand? Are you fun, knowledgeable, edgy, caring, geeky, innovative. Understanding your voice should drive how you communicate via your social channels. For example, if you are innovative, your social communications should provide insight to market trends that your company is addressing, share your opinions on the impact of these trends and how your company will act to influence a shift in the market.
Now that you’ve aligned your social efforts with your brand and discovered your voice, it’s time to ENGAGE! Do I need to ask why you want to interact with your customers? Engagement with your customers WILL lead to business. It will lead to greater knowledge about what your customers and prospects are thinking and saying about your brand. It will help you become proactive instead of reactive. As you engage, remember what your brand stands for and provide consistency in terms of voice and topic. While it may be fun to share your thoughts on random topics, you are socializing on behalf of your brand. Your tweets, Facebook posts, Slideshare presentations or YouTube videos should be relevant to your brand, your company, your products or your industry.
Just in case you are still wondering why you should consider social media as a key aspect of your brand strategy, check out these data points from Forrester Research and Business Week:
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- 67 percent of Twitter users who become followers of a brand are more likely to buy that brand's products
- 60 percent of Facebook users who become a fan of a brand are more likely to recommend that brand to a friend
- 74 percent of consumers are influenced on buying decisions by fellow users after soliciting input via social media
are influenced on buying decisions by fellow users after soliciting input via social media
Your brand is your calling card. Social Media must reinforce your brand. Think about your brand and your voice before you engage – but definitely ENGAGE!
What’s your perspective?
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Flickr, myspace, Facebook, Twitter and countless others have turned everyday people into content producers, influencers and experts. We basically tripled down on the information overload How do you know which channels to select for deploying your social media
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such a mission. The site is not another social networking platform. Yet the portal to all your existing social media channels. The platform helps you, your fans, your potential clients to make an intelligent decision as to which company to connect to or follow
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