Once you’ve found the right social media mix for you, you need to make sure all of your accounts are working together to strengthen the core of your brand—your identity!
As with every workout, if you want to see results, consistency is key. When it comes to asserting your brand in 2024’s vibrant social sphere, it’s important to communicate the same message across all of your chosen platforms. In other words, your visuals, voice and values should all be consistent.
You can reap huge benefits from creating a cohesive identity on social media, from increasing brand awareness to creating a streamlined online experience for your customers. Here’s some handy tips to help you stay on brand online…
Raise Your Voice
At the very heart of a humanised social media presence is a clear voice—one that authentically communicates your brand's identity and speaks in a tone that resonates with your audience.
Unlike an analytic you can track, voice and tone are more nuanced, subjective constructs. Asserting your brand’s unique voice may be a tricky challenge at first, but with some planning and a little practice, it’ll become second nature.
Voice: To find your voice, think about how you would best describe your brand’s character and values. For example, it could be enthusiastic, creative, professional, sarcastic, informative or serious. Your writing style should be a reflection of this.
Tone: Tone adds an extra layer to your voice based on additional factors, such as audience, context and platform. Think about your target audience and tailor your tone to suit them. For example, younger audiences will most likely resonate with a more casual tone.
Ultimately, your brand should have one clear voice across all of your socials, and a range of tones that help deliver that voice to the correct audience. When you take a moment to establish and apply these concepts effectively, your audience should be able to hear the same voice speaking at all times, regardless of who in your marketing team is creating content.
To help your voice pervade all of your socials, you could use custom taglines or phases that typify your brand’s personality. For example, the smallest detail of whether a hotel uses ‘guest’ or ‘customer’ to address their audience makes a huge difference when establishing their values.
Look the Part
This is where you can really get creative! Visual elements are a smart way to create a common thread between different components of your brand online. Having strong, cohesive visuals across your socials will not only set you apart from your competitors, but will also help your audience quickly identify your brand anywhere, on any platform.
Start with profile pictures and cover images. Ensure they’re all uniform and clearly displaying your company logo. If you’re unsure about the optimum image dimensions for each platform, you can find them here.
Next, think about what inspires you and your business, and transform those ideas into a colour palette that’s unique to your brand. You may find inspiration in meaningful landscapes, an emotion or even a particular object. Once you’ve selected a set of colours that compliment each other, you can use them as a guide when creating visual content for your socials.
Another way to strengthen your visual story is through fonts. The perfect font has the ability to capture attention, evoke emotion and reinforce your brand message. As with colour schemes, when you consistently use the same fonts in your visual content, your audience will learn to associate them with your brand. Think about your brand voice, and choose a font that evokes the same attitudes. For example, if you’re a serious and informative brand, a more traditional font may work best. If it’s fun, a quirky font could help express your brand’s personality. Contrasting fonts can also enhance readability and guide your reader through your content. To learn more, here’s a deep dive into the art of the perfect font.
Have a play around and see what works best!
Flex your accomplishments
As important as visual elements are, your brand is more than a logo and colour scheme. Once you’ve refined the appearance of your socials, you need to back them up with authentic, high-quality content.
The most important trick to staying on brand is ensuring all of your content is faithful to your company’s mission and values. From celebrating team achievements and customer stories to promoting the inspiration behind your products, you’ll see real results when you consistently create an emotional connection with your audience.
You can’t go wrong if your content is interesting and honest!
For expert help shaping up your social media marketing - getting your Facebook fitter, lifting up your LinkedIn, invigorating your Instagram, and so much more – contact OCOCO Media today for a complimentary consultation.
