Building a cohesive branding and social media strategy is paramount for a business’s long-term success. Cohesiveness boosts your brand’s credibility and gets consumers excited about following and engaging with your company.
Consider this: Are you more likely to follow a business or brand that has an unorganized, sloppy, and confusing branding and social media presence, or a brand that takes the time to be cohesive and coordinated across all platforms?
I think we both know the answer.
Deciding on a color scheme, using a certain logo, having a consistent aesthetic, and even the tone of the content all work together under the umbrella of branding. They are the elements that identify your business and what sets it apart from your competitors. They’re also the things that give your brand meaning, keep people talking about it, and so much more that I’m going to talk about here today.
You know the drill—get your pen and paper ready! I’m about to break down how you can create a cohesive branding and social media presence for your business.
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First, Some Examples of Strong Branding
If I asked you to come up with a list of brands off the top of your head, what comes to mind? I’m sure there are a few.
Companies like Apple, Nike, Coca-Cola, Starbucks, McDonald’s, SKIMS, Pepsi, Disney, Louis Vuitton, Amazon, Visa, and Samsung are just some of the most influential brands in the world. Their global brand recognition is a direct result of their branding and marketing strategies. Their websites, advertisements, and social media—everything is united and cohesive. That my friends, is the magic of strong branding.
But what if I told you that you don’t have to be a billion or trillion-dollar company or a professional graphic designer to have the same kind of influence? It’s true friends—all it takes is time, effort, and the right tools!
Next, Set Some Branding and Social Media Guidelines
Before you begin building an eye-catching online presence, you need to first come up with an explicit set of branding guidelines that you want to stick to throughout every medium. This includes your website, social media, emails, marketing materials, and advertisements.
Here are several things you want to keep in mind:
- Choose a color scheme (typically a color palette of three to five colors) for all graphics and your company logo.
- Decide on an aesthetic for your imagery: black and white, moody and dark, light and airy, bold and vibrant, subtle and clean—whatever works best for your brand.
- Choose a couple of fonts you want to use throughout the different areas of your website, social media posts, and marketing campaigns.
- Your logo design in multiple formats.
- Identifying your brand’s voice and keeping it united across all platforms.
Once you’ve defined all these points, you can start messing around with various combinations to see what you like, what you don’t, and what gels best for your business and brand.
Pro Tip: Stay Organized
When it comes to your marketing strategy, it’s smart to keep track of your branding guidelines to make sure you and any employees are all on the same page.
A brilliant way to do this is to display your brand guidelines in the workplace and create a PDF handbook that includes examples of what your branding expectations are. This way there’s never any confusion when it comes to generating posts and content.
Five Ways To Unite Your Branding and Social Media Efforts
For the record, I’m not trying to turn you into the next Apple or Nike, but I am trying to help you stand out so you can have a seat at the table with the big dogs. More specifically, it’s about generating an online presence on every platform that doesn’t leave people confused.
Not sure where to start? Fear not! Here are some valuable resources that can help you build a strong branding and social media presence for your business.
1: Use Canva For Graphic Design
Canva is quite literally the holy grail of design tools for entrepreneurs, small business owners, social media marketers, and content creators—the list just keeps going…
But the best part about Canva? They offer a free subscription version that includes tons of fonts, customizable templates, colors, and graphics to help you create visually ravishing content with minimal design effort.
Just some of the content you can make with Canva includes, but is not limited to:
- Instagram and Facebook posts
- Graphic social media posts like fun facts, how-to listicles, tips, and quotes
- Video reel templates for more appealing videos
- Blog article headers
- Infographics
- Instagram highlight covers
- Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn banners
- Pinterest graphics
- Social media advertisement templates
- Marketing materials
- Presentations and pitch decks
- Business cards, flyers, and posters
- Google post images
Another great benefit of using Canva is that they are always up to date with the latest dimensions and trends, so you never have to worry about social media platform changes—they take care of it for you.
2: Use Unsplash and Pixabay For Rights-Free Stock Images and Graphics
Sure, Canva is a great tool and gives users access to countless images, but the free version only gets you so far. That’s why it’s a good idea to have other places where you can find, download, and use right-free stock images.
You can then use these images in your Canva design to make different variations of graphics and neaten up your social media feeds.
In terms of Pixabay and Unsplash, they allow users to use images for free, for non-commercial and commercial use, and with no permission required. This makes both platforms a splendid option for entrepreneurs and business owners that can’t necessarily afford to buy expensive licenses or graphic design help.
And, if you’re looking for videos? Pixabay has those too! You can also check out Pexels.
3: Use Plann or Planoly To Organize Your Instagram Feed
After you’ve generated some graphics and picked the photos you want, the next thing you need to do is unite them all together in one spot, so you can actually visualize what it’s going to look like on your business’s Instagram feed.
Great resources for this? Plann and Planoly.
Both these platforms help you design your Instagram feed in whatever layout is cohesive and you think works best. This is important because your feed consists of images that people see as soon as they visit your page. It’s what creates the first impression, and you want it to be a good one.
4: Use Linktree To Keep All Your Links In One Spot
Having a Linktree is a great way for business owners, content marketers, and influencers to have all their website links in one convenient place. It lets your audience know where they can find and contact you.
Most social mediums like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn have one place where you can input a link that sends users to either your website, blog, another social media platform, email, or your store link.
But, if you’re like most businesses and people, you have multiple platforms where you engage with the public, so you need more than one link. Cue Linktree. A tool designed to direct traffic and keep all your websites and social media platforms in one place. Even better is that they are totally easy to change and customize in the event of any time-sensitive links like challenges and events.
If that weren’t enough, Linktree also gives you access to your analytic data which helps with search engine optimization (SEO)—a wildly important part of a successful digital marketing strategy.
5: Use A Content Planner
Now this last one is kind of a big deal.
Part of having a cohesive branding and social media presence isn’t just about having the trendiest Instagram feed or a Facebook page that stays current on your business ventures. It’s also about creating a connection with users on every social media platform you utilize.
You don’t want someone to visit your Facebook page only to be confused when they reach your Instagram because it doesn’t feel the same.
This is where a content planner shines. Platforms like Loomly give users a single place where you or your employees can monitor where, how, and when certain pieces of copy will be published. It also helps you keep track of what needs to go out, whether it’s emails, social media posts, blog posts, stories, challenges, events, or status updates.
Additionally, content calendars are effective tools for making sure that all your branded content aligns.
Something to remember though, all social media platforms are not the same. That means that copying and pasting content from one medium to another won’t always work. Of course, you want to keep your brand’s tone consistent, but just keep in mind that the language you use on Twitter, for example, is different from what you may post on Instagram.
Ask A Branding and Social Media Expert
These are just some of the ways you can make building a cohesive branding and social media presence, but there’s so much more to learn!
Let’s build something big together.
Start by taking my exclusive online training: The New Rules to Marketing and Dominating on Social Media and learn everything you need to build a successful brand.
…And while you’re here, don’t forget to take advantage of my FREE + EXCLUSIVE online training, ‘Teach Me The Tax Game’ and learn everything you need to build a successful career as a tax professional!
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