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How to Transform Your Business through Social Media Branding in 2023

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By Jessica Wong

Social media branding blends platforms’ expansive reach with the potent influence of finely crafted brand messages. This dynamic duo becomes the bedrock of highly effective marketing campaigns, fuelling amplified brand awareness, trust and audience engagement.

In less than two decades, social media has transformed how people communicate. Social media platforms have also dramatically altered how brands reach potential customers and build long-term relationships.

Social media enabled brands to break down barriers and reach their audiences directly. As a consequence of making it easier for companies to reach audiences, more businesses are leveraging social media for growth. Effective social media branding can help companies stand out in busy marketplaces and strengthen their brand identity simultaneously.

Social media platforms may have started as a way for individuals to connect. But as millions and now billions of people have joined them, they have also become powerful marketing tools. The latest statistics at the time of writing showed that more than four and a quarter billion people globally used social media at least once a month.

While that figure is impressive, the power of social media is not limited to user numbers. According to industry experts, nine out of ten people buy from brands they follow on social media platforms. There is no doubt about the strong connection between an engaging social media presence and conversions. Social media platforms are powerful tools to help build brands.

Defining social media branding

Social media branding combines the strengths of two cornerstone elements of successful marketing strategies — branding and social media marketing. To deliver transformative results for a business, social media branding strategies must do more than add a logo to a post.

Brand teams must integrate the brand’s unique value proposition with its look, voice and feel to craft memorable messages. Some of the most captivating social media branding is focused on encouraging interaction and engagement between a brand and its audiences.

Using social media branding to build brand awareness and reach

Through social media platforms, brands have an unparalleled opportunity to extend their reach beyond their existing audiences. By developing captivating content, companies encourage their existing audiences, or followers, to share it with others. Without additional effort on the side of the business, the audience grows.

Hashtags are another excellent way of reaching new audiences interested in a topic the brand is discussing. As non-followers pick up your company’s content and share it, there is an opportunity for it to go viral and be seen by thousands or even millions of social media users who may otherwise never have known about your company.

Establishing brand identity and differentiation through social media branding

Building awareness and reach are only two components of successful social media branding. As social media use grows, more brands use these platforms for their marketing, and it is becoming increasingly more challenging to stand out from competitors.

Social media branding allows companies to show their audiences what differentiates them from their competitors. Few other channels offer the same level of choice of communication, what to talk about and how to interact with their audience without a barrier. This is why social media platforms are such powerful tools for sharing value propositions and clarifying how brands are different.

Engaging and connecting with target audiences

Connecting with audiences has been somewhat of a side note throughout this article. However, connecting and engaging directly with an audience is perhaps the greatest strength of social media channels.

This immediacy allows brands to listen to feedback from their audience, respond to it directly and build stronger relationships. At the same time, brands can show their personality more easily than on other channels. For example, Taco Bell’s social media content and interactions have a distinct funny and sarcastic tone to them.

But brands can also showcase their values to their customers as Starbucks does with its community-focused Facebook content. One of the keys to maximizing the impact of social media branding is consistency in both verbal and visual messaging to reinforce the brand’s identity.

Leveraging user-generated content

The next step in building engagement is utilizing user-generated content. For example, by sharing a genuine product review, brands can highlight their unique value propositions through a third-party endorsement. User-generated content is a powerful tactic to build audience trust.

Influencing consumer perception and trust

Consistent social media branding, especially user-generated content, consumer reviews and testimonials, can influence and change consumers’ brand perception. Today, many consumers are sceptical of companies’ statements in their marketing campaigns.

Content that has been created by a product’s or service’s users automatically benefits from greater credibility and helps build trust between the brand and the audience. Brands can reinforce that trust by ensuring their messages resonate with users’ content.

Driving website traffic and conversions

Aside from allowing brands and consumers to connect directly, another strength of social media platforms is driving website traffic and conversions.

Social media posts are an excellent tool to introduce a topic and entice the audience to visit a website and learn more. Clear calls-to-action are imperative to encourage users to click on a link. Without them, it is too easy for content to get lost among competing messages.

Measuring social media branding success

Without measuring the impact of different social media branding activities, brand teams cannot know which campaigns have been successful and which need refinement.

Tracking critical metrics like views, reach and conversions is essential. To make analytics even more meaningful, companies can analyze the sentiment underlying reactions and adjust the effectiveness of their activity. Most social media platforms continue to develop more sophisticated metrics and tools to help brands in their journey.

Social media branding combines the reach of social media platforms with the impact of carefully crafted brand messages. Together, these two can help companies build highly effective marketing campaigns. Increased brand awareness, brand trust and audience engagement all drive business growth for years to come.

By Jessica Wong

Jessica is the Founder and CEO of nationally recognized marketing and PR firms, Valux Digital and uPro Digital. She is a digital marketing and PR expert with more than 20 years of success driving bottom-line results for clients through innovative marketing programs aligned with emerging strategies.

Sourced from Entrepreneur

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In News

How to Transform Your Business through Social Media Branding in 2023

No Comments

By Jessica Wong

Social media branding blends platforms’ expansive reach with the potent influence of finely crafted brand messages. This dynamic duo becomes the bedrock of highly effective marketing campaigns, fuelling amplified brand awareness, trust and audience engagement.

In less than two decades, social media has transformed how people communicate. Social media platforms have also dramatically altered how brands reach potential customers and build long-term relationships.

Social media enabled brands to break down barriers and reach their audiences directly. As a consequence of making it easier for companies to reach audiences, more businesses are leveraging social media for growth. Effective social media branding can help companies stand out in busy marketplaces and strengthen their brand identity simultaneously.

Social media platforms may have started as a way for individuals to connect. But as millions and now billions of people have joined them, they have also become powerful marketing tools. The latest statistics at the time of writing showed that more than four and a quarter billion people globally used social media at least once a month.

While that figure is impressive, the power of social media is not limited to user numbers. According to industry experts, nine out of ten people buy from brands they follow on social media platforms. There is no doubt about the strong connection between an engaging social media presence and conversions. Social media platforms are powerful tools to help build brands.

Defining social media branding

Social media branding combines the strengths of two cornerstone elements of successful marketing strategies — branding and social media marketing. To deliver transformative results for a business, social media branding strategies must do more than add a logo to a post.

Brand teams must integrate the brand’s unique value proposition with its look, voice and feel to craft memorable messages. Some of the most captivating social media branding is focused on encouraging interaction and engagement between a brand and its audiences.

Using social media branding to build brand awareness and reach

Through social media platforms, brands have an unparalleled opportunity to extend their reach beyond their existing audiences. By developing captivating content, companies encourage their existing audiences, or followers, to share it with others. Without additional effort on the side of the business, the audience grows.

Hashtags are another excellent way of reaching new audiences interested in a topic the brand is discussing. As non-followers pick up your company’s content and share it, there is an opportunity for it to go viral and be seen by thousands or even millions of social media users who may otherwise never have known about your company.

Establishing brand identity and differentiation through social media branding

Building awareness and reach are only two components of successful social media branding. As social media use grows, more brands use these platforms for their marketing, and it is becoming increasingly more challenging to stand out from competitors.

Social media branding allows companies to show their audiences what differentiates them from their competitors. Few other channels offer the same level of choice of communication, what to talk about and how to interact with their audience without a barrier. This is why social media platforms are such powerful tools for sharing value propositions and clarifying how brands are different.

Engaging and connecting with target audiences

Connecting with audiences has been somewhat of a side note throughout this article. However, connecting and engaging directly with an audience is perhaps the greatest strength of social media channels.

This immediacy allows brands to listen to feedback from their audience, respond to it directly and build stronger relationships. At the same time, brands can show their personality more easily than on other channels. For example, Taco Bell’s social media content and interactions have a distinct funny and sarcastic tone to them.

But brands can also showcase their values to their customers as Starbucks does with its community-focused Facebook content. One of the keys to maximizing the impact of social media branding is consistency in both verbal and visual messaging to reinforce the brand’s identity.

Leveraging user-generated content

The next step in building engagement is utilizing user-generated content. For example, by sharing a genuine product review, brands can highlight their unique value propositions through a third-party endorsement. User-generated content is a powerful tactic to build audience trust.

Influencing consumer perception and trust

Consistent social media branding, especially user-generated content, consumer reviews and testimonials, can influence and change consumers’ brand perception. Today, many consumers are sceptical of companies’ statements in their marketing campaigns.

Content that has been created by a product’s or service’s users automatically benefits from greater credibility and helps build trust between the brand and the audience. Brands can reinforce that trust by ensuring their messages resonate with users’ content.

Driving website traffic and conversions

Aside from allowing brands and consumers to connect directly, another strength of social media platforms is driving website traffic and conversions.

Social media posts are an excellent tool to introduce a topic and entice the audience to visit a website and learn more. Clear calls-to-action are imperative to encourage users to click on a link. Without them, it is too easy for content to get lost among competing messages.

Measuring social media branding success

Without measuring the impact of different social media branding activities, brand teams cannot know which campaigns have been successful and which need refinement.

Tracking critical metrics like views, reach and conversions is essential. To make analytics even more meaningful, companies can analyse the sentiment underlying reactions and adjust the effectiveness of their activity. Most social media platforms continue to develop more sophisticated metrics and tools to help brands in their journey.

Social media branding combines the reach of social media platforms with the impact of carefully crafted brand messages. Together, these two can help companies build highly effective marketing campaigns. Increased brand awareness, brand trust and audience engagement all drive business growth for years to come.

By Jessica Wong

Entrepreneur Leadership Network® Contributor

Founder and CEO of Valux Digital and uPro Digital.

Jessica is the Founder and CEO of nationally recognized marketing and PR firms, Valux Digital and uPro Digital. She is a digital marketing and PR expert with more than 20 years of success driving bottom-line results for clients through innovative marketing programs aligned with emerging strategies.

Sourced from Entrepreneur

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5 Benefits of Branding for Businesses Big and Small

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By Dan Haverty
When it’s allergy season you ask for a “Kleenex” instead of tissue paper; you might enjoy a “Popsicle” on a hot summer day instead of an ice pop; and you “Google” something when you need to search the internet for information.

This is expert branding in action. Some companies have so successfully pushed their brands that the brand name itself has overtaken the generic term, as in the above cases.

Good branding is indispensable to the success of your business, and there are numerous benefits that come with it. Having an easily recognizable brand drives new business through word-of-mouth referrals while making it easier to roll out new products. It also helps build coherence within your company and attract the best talent to your open roles.

Keep reading to learn more about branding and the five biggest benefits for small and large businesses alike.

What Is the Purpose of Branding in Marketing?

It’s easy to conflate branding with other forms of marketing, but they aren’t exactly the same thing. Marketing is what you do to drive your products and services to potential customers, whereas branding is basically the way your company presents itself to the world.

Branding includes the obvious components of name, logo, colors and fonts, but it also includes your mission, values and motivations, creating an all-encompassing brand identity that, if done right, customers will readily associate with your company. This is key: You want your customers to feel something when they think of your company.

The main purpose of your brand strategy should be to differentiate you from your competitors and create brand equity, or commercial value derived strictly from the perception of the brand. Doing so builds trust and loyalty among your target market and puts you at the forefront of your potential customers’ minds when it’s time to buy.

Developing an easily identifiable tone and logo, aligning your values with those of your customers and evoking a strong emotional response at the sight and thought of your brand are all signs of a great branding strategy.

5 Benefits of Branding for Companies

1. Brand awareness: One of the strongest and most impactful benefits of high-quality branding is brand awareness. Customers who already trust your company and recognize your distinct color, logo or font style are far more likely to buy your product or service. In this way, brand awareness does much of the heavy lifting for you when it comes to selling your products or services.

2. Drives new business: Word-of-mouth referrals are still the tried-and-true way of driving new business. This is especially true for small businesses, 85% of whom report that word-of-mouth referrals were the best way to drive local business. When customers can quickly and easily recall a brand they use and trust, they’re much likelier to refer your company to their friends and family members.

3. Shared values build company coherence: Strong brand equity doesn’t just help strengthen your relationships with your customers and clients — it also helps build a clearer sense of mission and direction within your company that boosts coherence and ensures your employees are all working toward the same set of goals.

4. Easier to rollout new products: If you have a strong brand in place, much of the work of marketing and selling your products and services is already done. Once you’ve built up a level of trust among your customers, it’s far easier to convince them that your latest product is worth buying. Think about it: Apple doesn’t need to do a whole lot of convincing to generate interest in and sell the latest iPhone, right? That’s good branding at work.

5. Better job applicants: Customers want to buy from brands they know and trust, but the same is true for job seekers. Good branding can actually help you attract a larger and more talented pool of applicants to your open positions, ensuring that you’re hiring the best of the best.

The Main Types of Branding, With Examples

Visual Branding

The visual components of your brand are some of the most important — and ultimately attention-grabbing — features of your brand. A good visual brand strategy conveys your company’s personality and style to your audience through visual cues (i.e., are you easy going and laid back or serious and resourceful?). This helps them learn about you without having to dig too deeply.

Think Apple: Apple’s visual branding style is silvery, sleek, sharp and new, and this is evident in their stores, logos and, of course, their devices. You don’t need to know much about Apple to understand that it develops and sells some sort of cutting edge technology, based on its branding alone. And that’s exactly what good visual branding should do.

Social Media Branding

A huge proportion of social engagement and consumer activity today happens on social media, so it’s important that your company has a clean, consistent online presence across all social networks. Social media is one of the few places where attention is measured in mere seconds, so it’s important that users can identify your company in this short space of time.

Amazon’s Twitter presence should serve as a model for other companies. It operates dozens of different accounts for many of its products and services. While each account has its own distinct edge to it, there is a clear sense of continuity involving similar colors, tones, fonts and messaging threaded between each of them, all of which marks them as Amazon’s. The bottom line is users shouldn’t have to work hard to recognize that your social media account belongs to your company.

Corporate Branding

Corporate branding covers all elements of your company’s branding strategy, from marketing its products/services to ensuring that all digital touchpoints are in sync. At the end of the day, a customer should feel like they’re getting the same message from the same company no matter which part of your business they’re interacting with.

Nike stands at the top of the corporate branding world. Its mission to enhance physical performance through top-tier athletic attire permeates every section of its branding and marketing, from its motto “Just Do It” to its marketing materials, featuring athletes in the zone.

Don’t overlook the importance of branding. The right branding strategy can make or break a company, and it’s important to ensure you have a clearly defined brand that permeates across all of your products, services and touchpoints to ensure you’re front of mind when your customers are ready to buy. Doing this drives your company forward.

By Dan Haverty

Dan Haverty is a content writer at Brafton. Currently based in Boston, he also spent time living in Ireland and Washington, DC. When he isn’t writing, Dan enjoys reading, cooking and hiking, and he recently became an avid yoga practitioner.

Sourced from Brafton

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