Branding Advice from the Orlando Social Media Experts, BeatCreative Marketing
If you are anything like us, you spend a lot of your time “ooh-ing” and “ahhh-ing” over your favorite Instagram account or catching up on your favorite blogger’s newest post. You’re thinking to yourself: I take good pictures and have good content, so why am I not growing the same following as them? One word: Branding!
What is a brand?
A good majority of people will put together a name, a logo, and company colors, and think they have their branding completed. It goes so much further than that though. Simply put, your brand is the general feeling you create for someone when they think of your company. It creates a feeling of trust for your audience because they know what to expect from you and the content/ product you produce.
In order to start creating a brand for yourself, you must first ask yourself these questions:
- Who am I? (Be honest.)
- Why am I here? (What is my mission and goals?)
- How am I different? (Why should people care about what I’m offering?)
What does your brand encompass?
Now that you have figured out who you are and what your goals are, you must put together a brand strategy. Your brand strategy outlines your company’s direction, what content you are going to post, how often you post, how you are going to look, feel, sound, even smell sometimes. Seriously. Here are some key things you need to put together in order to create a strong brand:
via http://lookaheadstayahead.com
- A message and a tagline. Make it pop!
- A logo and a watermark to put on ALL of your content. Make it yours.
- A color scheme, and put some thought into it! This color scheme is what you will use on all your blogs, business cards, content, etc. Make sure you look into the colors and their effect on others before deciding. They need to stay true to your message.
- Create a voice for your brand. Is your brand sassy? Approachable? Fun-loving? Your voice is what will come through on all written communication so it will make a huge impact on your following!
- Create templates for everything! Email marketing, blog posts, social media posting and images. Photoshop is an excellent source if you are familiar with it, but there are a ton of other great options on the internet as well.
You’ve put together your brand, now what?
Stick to your plan! Consistency is the most important part of branding. Stay true to your voice when posting on social media and keep it the same for all email marketing. Have a set of edits and use them for all graphics. Make sure to keep graphics similar to each other content-wise, and make sure they create the same feeling for a follower over time. Are you going to post a blog twice a week? Make sure they are on the same days every week. Consistency, consistency, consistency. By doing this you are creating a bond of trust with a follower because they know what to expect from you and will look forward to your posts.
You might be thinking: if I am posting something this specific, I might be eliminating people from following me. Our answer? That’s ok! The most successful social media accounts have found their niche market and flourished within it. You can’t make everyone happy, so make sure to stay true to your brand in order to find the right people. Once you find them, make sure you continually grow those relationships and create a strong bond. End result = that cult following you’ve been working so hard for.
Need some inspiration?
If you’re more of a visual learner, check out some of these social media accounts that are well-known for their incredible branding
Disney Company
Disney has gone above and beyond what most companies even consider when putting together a branding strategy. They not only has a voice, but they have their own language that covers even the tiniest details. Every item produced by the company maintains their rigid brand structure, which Walt designed himself so many years ago. He wanted innovation to meet nostalgia and that’s exactly the feeling you get when you follow their social media accounts along with the content they produce. It is hard to conclude exactly how many followers they have as they have so many different accounts, pretty much suiting anyone’s interest, but just think of the word ‘Disney’ and see what emotions it provokes in you.
Check out one of our favorite Disney accounts @disneystyle and see why they have 831k followers on just that account alone!
Frank Body
Frank is known for their killer body scrubs made out of ground coffee beans, but the true star is their social media. The creators own a communications company, naturally, and decided one day to recycle coffee beans from a local coffee house and create Frank Body. Their trademark? Let’s be frank. . . everything about their voice and branding is cheeky and has led to their 696k followers on instagram, 131k on facebook, and 17.3k on twitter.
Check them out for more inspiration! https://www.frankbody.com/us/
Salty Pineapple
On a smaller scale, the Salty Pineapple is a favorite for branding because of the absolute consistency in all content created. A small business owner, the Salty Pineapple created a content planner for bloggers and is a graphic designer living part time in Hawaii. You can almost smell the sunscreen and coconuts coming from your phone when you browse their social media pages, that’s how strong of a brand they have. If you’re looking for some true graphics and color scheme inspiration check them out on instagram @katgaskin and see why they’ve accumulated over 52k followers.
Need more help with branding? Contact BeatCreative today and let us help you!