A brand is the sum of how a product or business is perceived by those who experience it—including
customers, investors, employees, the media, and more. A brand is how you make your customers
feel, and it’s built by taking a consistent approach across every interaction they have with your brand.
Social media is a valuable digital marketing tool for all businesses. Social media has technically been
around for about 40 years. It wasn’t until after Facebook was launched a little over a decade ago that
companies began paying attention to it as a powerful tool for marketing. It used to be that branding
would be focused on print media, broadcast ads and newsletters. The addition of social media meant
that companies now had another way to connect with their consumers.
Consumers respect and remember brands that get with the times in terms of understanding what
they want, reaching them in new and innovative ways and consistently delivering products and
services that surpass their expectations. Here are four ways to keep your brand relevant in fast–
changing times:
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Fully Update Your Social Media Accounts
Decide which social media account(s) you are going to focus on, and delete any old accounts that you
no longer use. For the networks you will be using, make sure all of your information is complete and
accurate. This will help you to direct and grow traffic to the networks that will showcase yourself and
your work.
2. Identify Your Area of Expertise
Everyone’s an expert at something. You, therefore, have to identify the type of content you’ve created
that your followers have responded to and check if you can replicate it with other similar content or
repurpose something to re-engage. The more unique and engaging content you create on your
the chosen topic of expertise, the more your followers will start to think of you as a leader in your
chosen field.
3. Make Posting Easy with Social Media Apps
There are many social media apps such as Sprout, ![]()
Buffer, and Hootsuite that can enable you
to connect to your social media networks and allow you to cross-post across different social networks
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schedule content. This eliminates the need to log in to multiple websites. Most major social
media networks, including Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook are compatible with these applications.
4. Regularly Share Content
In the early days of social media, the more you posted, the more engagement you could prompt.
Today, over-posting leads to fatigue and annoyance. You want to keep the lines of communication
open with your audience, but you also don’t want to overshare so much that you look desperate.
There will be days when you don’t post, and that’s perfectly fine. Identify and analyse the data
associated with your posts and identify a pattern that works.
5. Import Your Contacts
You might be amazed to see how many people you already know on the social media networks
you’re using. There may be so many people with whom you haven’t yet connected with. Import your
email contacts or contacts from your phonebook, into your social networks to find out how many
connections you’re missing. LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook and Twitter all allow for a free import of a
certain number of contacts.
6. Keep Social Posts Positive & Engaging
Think of your interactions and content as a resume of your work, and a reflection of your
professional attitude and overall personality. Reposting others’ content is a smart thing to do, but it’s
not all you should be doing. You also need to share content that you’ve written, to demonstrate
industry expertise.
Creating engaging content means taking a fresh approach to the types of updates you share with
your network. If you have concerns about not being able to voice your opinions to the extent you
wish, consider creating two sets of social media accounts: one for private use and one for personal
use. Keep your personal pages private to close friends and family, and use your professional accounts
to build new connections and career opportunities.
In conclusion, social media platforms are powerful tools for reaching and communicating with
potential customers. If you create an effective social media branding strategy, your business will
successfully show your target audience why they should buy from you.