by By: Lucia Estrada
In December, Ad W
eek named top-ten brands that claimed either boomed or busted via social media during the 2014 year. (http://www.adweek.com/news/technology/which-brands-boomed-and-which-ones-busted-social-media-year-161893) As recent as five-years-ago, every brand that wished to appeal and stay relevant to younger audiences wanted a slice of the social media pie. While Facebook lead the frontier for brand representation in social media, Twitter is easily identifiable as the most viable source of social outreach due to its aspects of interactivity. The first step of establishing a strong presence for your brand on social media is building a strong following. It sounds simple, but there’s a great difference between the number of followers and exposure of a brand; if only 1/10th of your followers are engaging in social media, there is little worth in the population. A brand should never have to buy followers, and there is little return in that investment. The significance of a brand is seen through its social currency, i.e. how these posts are being interacted with and shared, and how followers value this brand. Are the posts bland and uninformative, or are they compelling and engaging? And an interesting post doesn’t always have to be groundbreaking; it can also hinge influence on humor and entertainment.
However, fortune plays an important role in the social media industry. It is not difficult for well-established brands to promote themselves and gain followers. But the aspiring social media influencer must consider that there are already tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of other people established on social media platforms. In that case, any aspiring media influencer tends to buy Instagram followers (or any other platform) to get a head start in a crowded market and, hopefully, the engagement they require to be successful.
Coming back to an established brand, to create effective social media, here are three tips on solidifying your brand on these social mediums.
- Create a distinct voice and identity to your brand. Is your brand light and bubbly, or serious and down-to-earth? Traits of tone reflect the overall message of the brand and prompt users to connect on a personal level and associate an identity with the company.For example, the goal of the World Wildlife Fund (https://twitter.com/WWF) is to bring attention to the various environmental impacts we have on the world and the change we can bring. Therefore, the tone of their posts is consistent with their call to action objective, and their posts are often educational and motivating to reflect this. If social media posts are random and off the mark on identity, followers will feel confused and quickly disengage or ignore.
- Post frequently and effectively. The best way to build followers and spark interest is by posting on multiple channels (always vary the content across each social medium) 2-3 times a day; Twitter should always be your most frequent, and content should vary from photos to gifs to short videos, etc. Effective posting means all previously discussed pointers, but also posting smart. This means no screw-ups, ever; with a great social media presence comes great responsibility. Users only need one minor screw up to unfollow and/or worse, promote negativity for your brand. In this era, public forum is at an all time high, and users value the opinions of other users; and people love to see you make mistakes. Don’t end up like Delta Airlines and have to apologize for your brand when the damage is already done . (http://www.businessinsider.com/deltas-world-cup-twitter-ghana-giraffe-2014-6) . Don’t post without thinking of consequential implications; never give your followers a reason to hate you. Simple.
- Interact with highly-valued users and brands. Interaction with users should happen consistently throughout the building stage and established stage to provide worth and connectivity between the public; this is most likely achieved optimally through Twitter. Consistent interaction and co-promotion with other brands is a great way to build exposure and make invaluable partnerships. Some strategists employ the 70-20-10 rule; 70 percent of content should build your brand, 20 percent should be shared from other brands, and 10 percent should be self promotion (http://blog.sonicbids.com/how-to-perfect-your-bands-social-media-strategy-the-70-20-10-social-media-rule_). Highly-valued users includes followers already involved in your brand’s industry who have an active, respected voice on social media; these followers and potential interactions are priceless. Everyday users can also be useful as well, as it gives a feeling of personal connection and voice to your brand and it noted and respect amongst observers. If someone tweets at you, should you always engage? Depends on the content. If it’s a praise, favorite; if it’s a question or critical feedback, reply. If it’s mindless jabber or unrelated content, ignore it. There are other aspects other than responding to social media comments to keep your brand going, like maintaining interaction behind scenes. This should also be consistent and professional, for example when you’re sending invoices to clients who have used your service they should be able to understand and read them. You don’t even have to create them yourself, there are lots of companies out there that offer free invoice templates! This will keep clients coming back to look at your page and use your service so your brand can grow.
Lucia can be reached on:
Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/luciaestrada
Twitter: @lestrada2016
Lucia, I enjoyed reading your tips of what companies can do on social media.
The two that really stood out to me was tip number three. I think this is where a lot of companies look towards when it comes to social media strategy. Many want the straight forward answer of who they should be interacting with. I don’t think there’s really an easy answer. Unrealistically, I believe that answer is everyone. In order to know your key influencers, you need to listen and interact with each person in your audience. It’s fairly time consuming, but in a perfect world I guess. 🙂
Thank you for your post Lucia.
It’s really interesting how simple it is to be successful in building a brand via social media. It’s even more interesting how many companies struggle with being successful, however. All too often we do see situation like the one with Delta Airlines and question how hard it can be to not make mistakes as such. the social media realm is powerful yet very unrelenting, and I think if more companies took these three tips to heart they would see how easy it is to take that world by storm.
Nice post, Lucia.
These are some good essential tips. I think “Don’t post without thinking of consequential implications” is a pretty loose guideline though. I am pretty sure social media mistakes occur even when they have put some thoughts on consequences that might arise. The bigger question is that are those thoughts correct? Are those potential consequences reasonable and rational? It seems that companies actually need multiple layers of authorization/approval system so that mistakes that make people go “How did that even get approved!?” won’t happen way too easily.
“Don’t post without thinking of consequential implications” This is so important, even on a personal level. Things on the internet live forever and if you mess up even for a second, the internet won’t forget. However, their is the fine line of getting too caught up in making sure everything is perfect. If you spend too much time analyzing every which way a post could be taken, you’ll probably miss out on trends your brand could capitalize on.
Great post. I do agree I think it is quality over quantity. If you have 50 followers and they all engage I think that is much better than seeing a profile with thousands of followers and very little engagement. These days that is associated with negative connotations like buying followers. I do think though that it is really important to have a clear and foolproof set of guidelines for your posts. There should be no grey areas. I think there should always be a pros, cons, and risks evaluation when it comes to each post.
Really great post Lucia! I particularly liked reading this once because I related to in from the follower side on social media. I starting following a fashion blogger on Instagram earlier in the year and though she had an incredibly consistent humorous and sarcastic tone throughout, I would become frustrated with how inconsistently she posted. In addition she tended to gain followers extremely slowly because she did not utilize hashtags, following other bloggers in her field of interest, and tagging various brands when necessary. Though she continues to blog very periodically, I continue to follow her because I like her style and find her write-ups quite funny. However I do believe that your three steps to social media success seem spot on.
Love these insights, Lucia! Personally, I think this is huge: “Create a distinct voice and identity to your brand. Is your brand light and bubbly, or serious and down-to-earth?” I think that finding ones voice on social media, both on a corporate level and on an individual level is something that many people struggle with. It’s tough to find a voice for something that isn’t living and breathing, and can’t actually speak, but when you do it seems to lead to success. I’ve seen many brands that jump back and forth from serious to humorous, and if anything it makes them less relatable.
Hi Lucia,
Great post! I really enjoyed your 3 tips, especially because this is a bit like what I wrote about in my e-book. What I find most interesting about your 3 pieces of advice is how they can all apply to an individual as well. For those seeking out different companies to hire them, you could, in some ways, consider yourself a brand that needs to be recognized by employers and use your three pieces of advice when trying to get their attention via social media. I know I certainly have found success when engaging with companies I would like to work for and by posting frequently and effectively.
Thanks!
-Alysia
Hi Lucia,
I definitely agree with all of your points! I definitely think posting 2-3 times a day on all channels is ideal. Especially if you pay attention to your analytics and find the most opportune time to post which will get the most engagement. Definintely using hashtags helps with voice and even humor with posts. It also helps congregate posts together. Thank you for your posts! They will definitely help me when trying to manage social media!
Makenzie Hammond