Building a Brand via Social Media!

It’s a digital age, the era of knowledge, the time where only unique messages get across, where pictures, info-graphics and videos have more impact than written words. The trends being followed these days compel the brands to cater distinctiveness in their brand image and every brand is striving to offer their service/product to masses using all platforms available, these include social networks, blogs, online videos, forums, podcasts, document sharing, webinars, info-graphics, research papers, email marketing, e-newsletters etc

The common social media networks like facebook, twitter, instagram, Linkedin, pintrest , tumblr or the exclusive like google+, HARO, Quora all offer the businesses simple yet innovative techniques to boost their brands. Facebook and Linkedin enable the brands to make their personalized pages via which they can easily talk to their clients, customers, stakeholders or simply announce the updates/news to general following. Using these networks is by far the easiest and most rewarding way to build a brand whether one is starting from scratch, introducing new features/offers or planning to revitalize an old brand.

Some facts about social media networks:

1. Online adults aged 18-34 are most likely follow a brand via social networking (95%). (Source: MarketingSherpa)
2. 71% of consumers who have had a good social media service experience with a brand are likely to recommend it to others. (Source: Ambassador)
3. There are 1.65 billion active mobile social accounts globally with 1 million new active mobile social users added every day. (Source: We Are Social)
4. 96% of the people that discuss brands online do not follow those brands’ owned profiles. (Source: Brandwatch) .
5. Visual content is more than 40 times more likely to get shared on social media than other types of content. (Source: HubSpot)
6. In 2015 Facebook influenced 52 per cent of consumers’ online and offline purchases, up from 36 per cent in 2014. (Source: The Drum)
7. There are 40 million active small business pages in Facebook and 4 million of those businesses pay for social media advertising on Facebook. (Source: Forbes)
8. There were over 4.4 million videos uploaded directly to Facebook in February 2016, generating over 199 billion views. (Source: ReelSEO)
9. Link clicks account for 92% of all user interaction with tweets. (Source:HubSpot)
10. 78% of people who complain to a brand via Twitter expect a response within an hour. (Source: Lithium)
11. 90% of Instagram users are younger than 35 (Source: ScienceDaily
12. Products were the top content types for the top 200 global brands in terms of engagement, at 60% in 2015 beating lifestyle category by over 20%. (Source:Hootsuite)
13. Posts tagged with another user (56%) or location (79%) have significantly higher engagement rates (Source: Simply Measured)

There are a few simple steps that need to be considered while planning how to go about building a brand over social network:

1. Choose which set of networks best suits a brand i.e. what is the target audience, if the target audience is teens then facebook, tumblr, insta and pinterest would be suitable if it is business professional or graduates etc than linkedin would also be included
2. Make sure that one logo and one theme in all the social networks is used. Use of logo gives a brand its identity so does the theme i.e. tag line, color scheme etc
3. Use loads of appropriate media i.e. pictures and videos supporting your campaigns. Remember no one these days have extra time, if a message can be conveyed via a simple picture or info-graphic than why write a whole para.
4. Make sure that the information used is authentic, once audiences trust is lost, the game cant be won again. More over use the tone of the campaigns as per the culture of the organization so that the audiences can get the feel of the brand.
5. Be consistent and be regular. Always have something new for the audiences to see, read, enjoy. Its not always important that the posts shared should be related to the brand info etc, it can something to support the brand image forexample a tele-health social page can have health facts/health tips posted regularly to engage the audiences.
6. Make a good profile and then invest time in sharing that profile in the means that not only engage the audiences but leaves them with a positive impression as well.
7. Make sure that the campaign name or the age name is unique and is purely yours and have an intro video that explains exactly what the brand is and what it offers

Use the social networks and discover the magic it unravels in building your brand image. It will not only make your brand recognizable but is an effective mean to create positive equity. No matter what ever your business is and how unique your brand idea is, social media is your way to success in today’s world!