Social Media Branding Tips and Strategies

Social media has become one of the easiest, most effective ways for brands to reach their consumers. It’s where most people go to find information, entertainment, inspiration and even help deciding what to buy. This means that for companies, entrepreneurs, artists and content creators, having a social media presence is non-negotiable.

That being said, making social media work for you is not as easy as it sounds. With millions of pieces of content shared daily, getting your posts seen can be challenging. So how do you make your content stand out and increase the chances that people will see it, interact with it and take action?

That’s where social media branding comes into play. It’s not the ultimate solution to finding success on social media, but it’s most definitely a vital part of it.

Why Social Media Branding Is Important

Your brand is not just your visual identity. Sure, it’s important to design a logo and adhere to a consistent color palette. But your brand is also your story, your mission, your values and your voice. It’s what makes you unique and attracts people to you.

If social media is a part of your marketing strategy, then your brand needs to be conveyed with every piece of content you share. This will help you stand out from your competitors and cut through all the noise that’s constantly fighting for people’s attention.

More importantly, having a coherent brand on social media will help you build trust with your audience. When you’re consistent with what you share and how it’s presented, people start to expect that your content will make them feel a certain way. Every post that evokes these same feelings reinforces a positive image, strengthens their trust in you and validates your place as an authority in your field.

How To Create an Effective Social Media Branding Plan

Cultivating and maintaining consistent branding on social media requires careful thought and planning. Take the following steps to define your brand identify and implement it into your social media strategy:

Step 1: Identify Your Target Audience

Who are you hoping to reach with your social media posts? What is their age bracket and geographical location? What are their interests and values?

The answers to these questions will help you determine which social media platforms you should focus on. They’ll also help you craft content that resonates with your target audience and strengthens their relationship with your brand.

Where you post has a great impact on how people perceive you, and posting on a platform that doesn’t fit your brand could hurt your image more than benefit it. For example, if your company serves professionals or other businesses, TikTok is probably not the best place to share your content. On the other hand, if you’re an aspiring lifestyle influencer, you won’t find your audience on LinkedIn.

Instead of trying to post everywhere, focus on a few platforms that align with your brand and are fitting for the type of content you want to share. Most importantly, choose platforms where your target audience is active and ready to hear what you have to say.

Step 3: Create Brand Guidelines

Creating guidelines and following them every time you post is what will help you convey a consistent, recognizable and memorable brand on social media. To do this, think about:

1. Your Visual Identity

This is everything people will see—your brand colors, typography and visual assets. It even includes the style, quality and color grading of the photos and videos you share.

2. Your Voice

If your brand was a person, what would they be like? Quirky or sophisticated? Witty or relatable? Would they use abbreviations, slang or emojis when they text? Keep this persona in mind every time you share written content—your bio, captions, comments, replies and direct messages. It should also be reflected in your videos, photos and graphics.

3. Your Values

What do you stand for? What’s important to you? Sharing your values will help you attract like-minded people into your community, but only if it’s one right. It’s not enough to simply list them on your website or state them in a caption. Instead, you need to demonstrate through your content that you operate in alignment with your values.

For example, if you value authenticity and innovation, then your posts need to reflect that. Share real behind-the-scenes footage, candid conversations, outside-the-box ideas and new perspectives.

4. Your Message

What do you want people to take away from their interactions with your brand? It doesn’t have to be the same message every time, but all of your posts should loosely fit under one or two themes. Like your values, you don’t need to share your message explicitly, but instead, try to subtly infuse your content with it. Over time, people who follow you should be able to easily state who you are, what you do and why you do it.

Step 4: Create a Content Strategy

The easiest way to stay consistent with your social media branding is to create a content plan and stick to it. Keeping in mind the brand guidelines you created, make a list of content ideas and a plan for how you’ll execute them. Include things like:

What kind of content you’ll share (photos, videos or graphics)
How you’ll source the media (produce it yourself, use stock media or share user-generated content)
The major themes your content will cover
Specific topics within those themes
When and where you’ll post
How you’ll respond to comments and messages

Tips for Executing Your Social Media Branding Strategy

Keep the following tips in mind to maximize the effectiveness of your social media branding strategy:

1. Consider your brand every time you post

This will help you maintain a consistent visual identity and remind you to incorporate the more subtle aspects of your brand—your values, voice and message—into your posts.

2. Don’t be afraid to refine your branding over time

Audit your social media on a regular basis and evaluate how well your content resonates with your audience. Although it’s important to maintain consistency, you can make adjustments to your branding strategy if you notice areas for improvement.

3. Take advantage of different platforms

Your audience likely uses a few different social media platforms, and so should you. Just be sure to customize your posts for each platform to optimize their performance.

4. Be selective with your collaborations

Collaborating with other brands and creators is a great way to extend your reach, but who you collaborate with can have a significant impact on your image. Make sure to work with brands that are compatible with yours in terms of target audience, values and goals.

5. Create separate accounts if necessary

If you have multiple passions or your business has several branches, it may be best to create separate social media accounts. This will make it easier to maintain consistent branding and effectively attract the right audience for each one.

Inspirational Social Media Branding Examples

Take a look at the examples below to see effective social media branding in action:

1. Tom Noske @tomnoske

Tom is a digital creator. He maintains a consistent brand on social media by adhering to the same video style, font, color grading and subject matter. His passion for creativity shines through every single video, as they are expertly crafted, filmed and edited. He covers a wide range of topics, but it’s clear that his mission is to inspire and motivate creatives like him.

2. RMS Beauty @rmsbeauty

RMS Beauty is a clean makeup and skincare brand. They engage their audience on social media with high-quality, aesthetically pleasing photos and videos of their products. They also frequently share videos of real people using them. Their content has a consistent voice, look and feel and effectively conveys their mission to bring high-quality, non-toxic, sustainable beauty products to their consumers.

3. Polina Poturemskaia @toysbypolina

Polina sells hand-sewn toys, but it’s clear from her social media presence that her mission is much larger than that. In addition to sharing beautiful photos and videos of her finished creations, she also invites her audience behind the scenes and shows every step of her creative process. It’s evident that she values transparency and authenticity and hopes to inspire others to try toy sewing for themselves.

Stand Out with Social Media Branding

Your social media presence should be a natural extension of your brand. If you’re an entrepreneur, content creator or artist, it’s even more important that your personality and your values come through in your content.

Take the time to think about how you want to present yourself or your business online and stay consistent with it. Over time, your social media branding strategy will help you build an engaged and loyal community of followers and customers.

Written By

Sayana Lam

Sayana is a musician, writer and graphic designer based in Toronto, Canada.