Incisive Social Media Branding Strategies

By CIOReview | Friday, April 21, 2017

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In today’s digital world dominated by social media, businesses need to engage in a "two-way conversation" with their audience, to increase brand awareness and to stay relevant in their domain. The process of building a brand is much more than creating a dazzling social profile, as brands must present themselves in a manner that attracts audiences organically. With a focus on goals such as creating brand awareness, engagement, web traffic, brands need to have a robust social media strategy today. In addition to increasing their online exposure, social media campaigns allow brands to enhance multiple facets of their operations--lead generation, sales, and customer service.

Start by Setting the Goals

The social media marketing efforts of an enterprise should be aligned with its overall goals and values. The first step toward creating a social media strategy is evaluating the enterprise-wide impact of social media in terms of how it will best assist the company's major goals. For instance, building partnerships with influencers and brands is an effective way to reach out to a newly targeted market. Enterprises can also create and promote branded content to drive top-of-the-funnel growth in new markets. For companies looking forward to add new products to their portfolio, running social media campaigns is the best option to promote upcoming product launches. In addition to raising awareness about the new products, social media campaigns help enterprises drive engagement for them as well.

Zone in On the Right Audience

Before ramping up a social media strategy it is crucial for a business to recognize their target audience on social media. As social media marketing is going to be a prominent part of the strategy, it is also important to decide on the right channel to focus on. With a multitude of social networks attracting potential buyers, it would be wise for brands to build a multi-channel social media strategy. By taking into account the different metrics that a social media strategy covers, brands can leverage diverse channels to achieve the desired objectives.

Create Memorable Human-driven Experiences

Businesses thrive on human connections and the social media marketing is all about leveraging this element. To make the best of social conversations and relationships that contribute to brand building endeavors, enterprises must build their social media strategies with a focus on delivering helpful and relevant content in a timely fashion. In an age where customers seek instant gratification, adoption of the best content marketing tools and technologies contributes immensely to an enterprise’s digital marketing efforts. One of the latest technology trends being adopted by popular social media platforms—Twitter and Facebook—is the live video streaming feature which is a valuable addition to a business’ content mix. Live broadcasts are a great option for brands that want to build and engage with a large audience. This symbiotic association with their audience based on creating positive connections and human experiences, will help businesses reap long-term benefits in the form of prolonged brand loyalty.

Redouble the Focus on Mobile-friendly Content

With mobility taking over as the driving force in the IT realm, the mileage derived out mobile-friendly content should not be underplayed. In addition to generating value-adding content businesses must ensure that their online content is mobile responsive as well. For instance, infographics are quite a popular format for disbursing value-adding content online, the only glitch being their incompatibility with mobile devices as they are often designed to be viewed on desktops. This problem can be resolved by designing an HTML5 landing page to present the information in the infographic in a mobile-friendly format. Additionally, the firms should build a robust mobile content strategy by identifying the content consumption patterns across various channels and customize it accordingly.