In previous course content, you learned to create customer personas so you can create tailored content that your customers will relate to and engage with. Think back on that content as you learn about building brand identity with social media in this reading.
Table of Contents
Reviewing past concepts
When it comes to branding your company on social media, there are many considerations to make. You have learned about several of these concepts already, but use this portion of the reading as a refresher on previous concepts you’ve covered, such as:
- Social media goals: remember that your goals should be SMART, which stands for specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time bound.
- Customer personas: creating customer personas can give you an idea of who you’re trying to reach. Naming them and associating a photo with each persona is a common marketing practice.
- Prioritize your social platforms: choosing the right platforms helps optimize your brand reach and ensures you are using your resources in the right way.
Although these considerations don’t necessarily make up your brand identity, defining them is important for building and understanding your brand identity on social media.
What is a brand position statement?
Now that you have reflected on the tasks you have completed to get here, you are ready to learn more about brand position statements. A brand position statement outlines exactly what your company does and for whom, and what makes you different from your competitors. Internally, it helps guide your team as you navigate through the current trends within the marketing world. Externally, it tells customers about your brand and its goals.
Creating a brand position statement
To create a brand position statement, you will need to know:
- Your audience
- The challenges or needs of your customers
- Your company name
- Your products, services, or differentiator (the thing that sets you apart from other brands), and
- Your company’s mission statement
When you put all that information together, you get a template that looks like this:
For [audience] who [customer challenge/need], [Company Name] provides [product and differentiator] because [brand promise or mission].
Scenario: EveryWay EveryWear
A company called EveryWay EveryWear manufactures professional clothing that is specifically designed to be comfortable. EveryWay EveryWear is made for people who work long hours giving presentations and pitches and making sales. Their customers want to maintain a level of professionalism in their dress, but they don’t want to be stuck in a suit all day.
Knowing all of this information, how might you structure their brand position statement? It might read like this:
- For [working professionals] who need a [stylish, professional, and functional wardrobe], [EveryWay EveryWear] provides [plush, comfortable clothes to wear in the workplace]—because [when you’re working long hours, comfort should come first].
Now that you know who your audience is, how to find them, what your goals are, and what your brand positioning statement is, you will want to create a look for your brand.
Designing brand identity
The next step in building a brand identity is ensuring your brand’s color palette, logos, and digital assets have some sense of consistency on your social pages, and are visually appealing to your audience. Another important part of your brand identity is your brand voice. A brand voice doesn’t refer to your physical voice, but rather the distinct personality a brand takes on in its communications. Curating your voice is an integral part of creating brand identity.
If your business already has brand guidelines, make sure your posts meet those guidelines. Use the colors, sizes, fonts, and logos detailed in the guidelines. If your company doesn’t have brand guidelines, it may be time to create some. After those decisions are made, follow these tips:
- Standardize your brand’s colors across social media pages
- You want people to immediately know a specific image belongs to your brand. And, if someone visits your pages or feeds, you want there to be a sense of consistency across all the platforms you use. Achieve this by using the same color palettes and filters for every image.
- Team up with influencers that make sense for your brand’s identity
- Influencer marketing can be a huge help in raising brand awareness, generating consideration, and converting sales. And, as your brand partners with influencers, you will gradually define an identity among their audiences—and your own—because when you collaborate with an influencer, you are acknowledging your brands align with each other.
- Create a “voice” for your brand
- Social media users need to be able to identify a post based on your voice—the same way they could identify posts from your colors, logos, and graphic design elements. Make sure to create your voice and stick to it. It may be off-putting for your followers if you switch from a humorous to a moody brand voice on the same day. And, this voice doesn’t just appear in your captions—it should be recognizable in the text you use in graphics, video, photos, and any other visuals as well.
A social media feed where the account has uniform colors and cohesive design.
