We spoke directly with the social media experts themselves on their top tips for leveraging social media to increase and improve brand recognition.
Social media is a tool that most of the world now uses; 4.48 billion people in fact. So it should be no surprise that it is the best way to increase brand recognition for your business. However, if you are a small business or start-up owner, you may find the wealth of knowledge and ideas on social media tips and tricks overwhelming. In this article, we have compiled a list of 12 tips and tricks that we have gathered from our own social media experts. If you start with these 12 steps, you will be in good shape to build brand recognition for your company.
Clear Messaging
When you create content marketing for your social media platforms, you should be clear on what the message is. If you are promoting an event that launches a new product, then you should include the 5Ws and H (Where, Why, Who, What, When, and How), so that your audience knows all the details of the event. You can’t expect them to come to the event if you do not clearly lay out the time, right? Your social media sites should show your personality but not while sacrificing clarity:
“For better brand recognition, it comes down to your brand positioning and the value you can provide with your services/products. Do not brand by selling or promoting sales. People need a reason to buy something (justification) to solve their x-problem (solution). Position your advertisements showing what your brand or product can do for them (identify pain points) and why they should consider your services/products.”
—Brandon Cheer, Social Media Specialist, seoplus+
Consistency
For potential customers to recognize your brand voice, you must be consistent. To recognize something is to identify something that you have encountered before. So if your social media posts and content marketing are inconsistent then how will you gain social media users and thus recognition for your brand? This is why consistency is key. Our expert says more:
“Top tips for social media marketing are constancy. It truly is the key. Make sure you are posting on a regular basis and that you are posting content your followers want to see. You have to remember what you’re putting out there is to attract and get your audience warmed up to become a lead and/or customer. You’re not posting for yourself. Don’t only post advertising or a constant CTA of getting people to subscribe or buy. You want to give your followers meaningful content that they can interact with and enjoy. And make sure you’re posting enough, one or two times a week is usually not enough. Make sure you have consistency and post several times a week.”
—Alexandra Van Doren, Co-founder & Senior Dynamic Social & Content Integrator, Agency onethree LLC
Share reviews
With the marketplace saturated online, customers are very unlikely to take your word for your product or service. Just because they may connect with your brand voice or love the statistics of success you provide does not mean that a potential client should or would believe that you are a right fit. This is where reviews and case studies play a key role in social media marketing:
“The biggest mistake is not promoting your business’s great reviews on social media.”
—Brian K. Saunders, Founder/CEO, Agent Hi5 Marketing
Collecting genuine testimonials from your clients is the best way to increase your credibility as a brand, creating social proof. By sharing these stories, newer clients will believe that you’re a great match for them.
Captions
“A picture is worth a thousand words” has never been so true. At a time when our attention spans are shorter than ever, not everyone has the time to read all content and they prefer to see visual content (e.g. infographics) quickly. This is where using visual content and text combined (e.g. memes, gifs, or hashtags) can be the leverage you need for social.
“Make sure that you use captions and hashtags to make your content more relevant. You have scrolled through Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and other social media channels and have seen that one person post random hashtags, right? That is what you do not want to do when you are publishing content for your business. Take some time to do some hashtag research that is popular amongst the audience you want your brand to be shown to.”
—Adam Hundley, Founder, HTX Marketing Group
It is also worth noting the importance of captions on videos. With the average millennial picking up their smartphone 150 times a day, using social media while at work is common. As a result, including captions on videos to make the content SFW (safe for work), is allowing your business to reach users more broadly.
Hear From Industry Experts
Read the latest tips, research, best practices, and insights from our community of expert B2B service providers.
Be Strategic
For our personal social accounts, we mostly post when there is something interesting happening at the moment. For most of us, we are not planning or scheduling our social channel presence ahead of time. However, this should not be the case for your business’s social media sites. It is important to schedule ahead of time as much as you can while knowing that things need to be flexible depending on the market and your business needs.
“The biggest mistakes for companies approaching their social media are simple to fix. 1) stop chasing vanity stats—shift your goals on social media to be aligned with your business. If you need to increase sales, then your social media should drive sales, not likes or followers. Many times, we hear of businesses chasing a blue checkmark, yet are struggling with sales and not making the connection that they could be doing something differently. 2) Throwing money at social media because you see your competitor advertising, or because social sites make it very easy to start advertising doesn’t mean it’s the best place to spend. Take an honest look at where you should be putting your advertising dollars.”
—Chris Milton, CEO, 323 Media Group
Just as you are strategic about how you spend money in your business for operation costs, you should be strategic about how you spend money on social networks. Just because there is the option to boost a post does not mean that you should or need to.
Be Genuine
There is nothing more annoying than when you feel like you are being pushed to buy something. It is uncomfortable and can be a turnoff, resulting in a lost sale for the business. Social media functions similarly. The messaging you provide to your potential customers and audience should be genuine. What is the benefit of your product or service? Why should someone choose you over someone else? Stick to these key questions and answers and the right target audience will follow you and purchase from you.
“Sell without selling. If you are a business that sells a product or service, allow your clients to get familiar with your business without appearing “salesy.” Remember, when it comes to social media, you need to emphasize the “social” element more than the media. E.g. Talk about your product or service from the perspective of WHY you created it for your clients. Share the benefits of each in a way that your prospects can relate. For example, if your business sells protein powder—don’t just show the canister of protein powder (that’s not helpful to anyone). Instead, give breakfast shake ideas using your protein powder—something that becomes actionable and enticing to your prospects to want to know more. Remember, your customers need to like you and trust you before they buy from you or do business with you. That’s what social media marketing is for—to build trust for your brand in a “social” atmosphere.’
—Denny Kurien, Creative Director & Co-Founder, Rayvn Design
It is also worth noting that consumers are moving towards mission-based buying. This means that while they may need to buy a benign product or service, they want to see that the business is giving back to the community or environmentally conscious. It is worth taking a look at your business’s mission and vision to maximize this potential. But it is important to stay genuine. Do not say that you are supporting sustainable practices (for example) if you aren’t.
Stay on Top of Communication
Social media is an online network where companies, clients, and person-to-person contacts are made. If your business is not staying on top of communication within your channels, then you are not maximizing the potential that your social media platforms can provide. As this article shows, engaging with your audience is a relatively easy way to increase your social media metrics towards your business goals.
“When you start to build up your social media following and begin seeing results as far as engagement and lead generation goes, now is the time to effectively manage this virtual community you’ve created. Whether it’s responding to any messages or comments in a timely manner, professionally dealing with both positive or negative reviews, or consistently posting or sharing content, failing to adequately monitor and manage your social media profiles will only hold back your digital marketing potential. You want your followers and customers to connect with your brand on a personal level, allowing opportunities for them to express their satisfaction with your roofing services—or providing them a platform to offer feedback that could lead to company-wide improvements. When you fail to respond to comments or reviews, regardless of whether they’re positive or negative, it comes off as unprofessional, dissuading any new visitors from checking out your social media profile for the first time.”
—Shianne VerNess, Director of Marketing & Strategy at Triton Commerce
Use your Target Audience
“1) Get clear on WHO you’re speaking to. 2) Let people in on the WHO behind your brand aka the soul of your brand. 3) Make your audience feel known, seen, and heard. 4) Share your expertise with your audience and position yourself as an industry expert.”
—Vanessa Castillo, Founder & CEO, VCV Agency
As with any marketing strategy, it is important to know who your target audience is—the “WHO.” Once you have a clear understanding of this target audience, it makes it so much easier to follow all the other steps of your marketing and social media strategy. In addition to creating relevant types of content, all social profiles have ways to technically engage with your target audience specifically. Examples include paid ads and dynamic insertions.
Audience Involvement
“Get the audience involved! To gain the most attraction make the viewers feel like they are a part of something and want to be involved and share their own insights that can be heard!”
—Mackenzie Whipp, Business Development Specialist, Online Optimism
As our expert, Mackenzie Whipp, states, audience involvement is key. But what does that look like? That can be photo contests, writing reviews, social media takeovers, or even influencer marketing. By finding an influencer or thought leader who is already in your industry and can help to increase your brand recognition, you are likely to increase your reach very quickly and effectively.
Deliberate Content
When posting onto your social profiles, you shouldn’t do so without being strategic about the type of content. For example, just because you got a great review today from a customer about a certain product does not mean you should post the review today. Is there something more relevant about your brand that should be shared?
If so, then wait for that review to be shared when there is something relevant to say about your product. It is also worth noting that not all content you have should be shared to all social media platforms. Using a software system to track content and content strategy and social media sites is a great tool. One of our experts has more to say:
“For B2B companies leveraging LinkedIn, I recommend optimizing your personal and company page profiles for increased visibility, credibility, and lead generation. After better positioning, your personal and company profiles, I recommend creating and posting a steady stream of high-quality content to drive awareness and attract inbound leads. Lastly, I recommend retargeting website visitors with LinkedIn lead form ads, and connecting with people who engage with your LinkedIn content, website, and other assets to grow your LinkedIn audience.”
—Chris Mitchell, Founder, Intelus Agency
Have fun
Practically speaking, social media is the modern way of collecting information from your friends and learning the news about the world. But emotionally speaking, social media is fun! You probably have your own personal accounts because you enjoy browsing the collection of stories, visual content, and connections you make there. Use the same approach when posting on your business accounts:
“Have fun. People don’t go on social media networks to be sold to, so avoid posting promotional content too often. The more you can elicit a positive emotional response with your content—smiling, laughing, crying (good crying!)—the more people will form a positive association with your brand. So, don’t be afraid to have a little fun.”
—Clare Tries, CEO, Clash Copy Corp
Brand Awareness
Brand recognition is when the general public can identify who you are from your visual content identifiers or the types of products/services you provide. However, brand awareness is when the public can identify your personality (e.g. projected emotions or impressions). Recognition is great, but once you have that down, it is best to take it to the next level with brand awareness. Our expert has some tips on how to do that:
“Understand that social media lives in the brand awareness section of your marketing funnel and the purpose of your posts needs to be to create curiosity to move deeper into your story. It’s like the first chapter of a book, except you usually only have 6 words to hook someone on social media. Lots of brands create posts that have nothing to do with their brand story because they want to get more engagement and reach. Makes sense, that is the goal. However, if you go too far off script your audience is not going to know what you do or how you can help them. Plus, you don’t want to damage your brand using the wrong tone or story.”
—Shannon Peel, Creative Entrepreneurial Owner, MarketAPeel
By boosting your brand awareness, through social media campaigns, etc, you will increase your metrics even leading to a boost in your SEO, elevating your overall brand identity, and increasing sales.
Your Turn
Our experts have laid out 12 best practices that you can use in your small business quite easily. From using influencers, increasing brand awareness, tactfully using hashtags, to engaging social media users, there are some great steps you can take today to boost your brand’s recognition. If you choose to go even deeper, there are even more tips and tricks to use.
However, just because most people use or engage with it in some capacity does not mean that everyone is skilled nor has the time to stay on top of their brand’s social media platforms. Luckily, UpCity has a detailed list of social media agencies that can help small businesses with their social media strategy and social media management. And not sure where to start? Check out this article on hiring and outsourcing your social media needs.