Brand consistency is integral to every avenue that a business can be a part of from print to digital. In today’s world, social media is the prominent market, so wouldn’t you want to merge your business with it in a way that complements it? Each company should start with its own consistent, brand guidelines.
Brand Guidelines
Brand guidelines are important to detail how your logo, brandmark and colors should be used across all platforms. The guidelines are meant to be shared with your team and others who may have to have contact with your business. Within the guidelines, there should be a section on how your colors and logo should be presented on all social media content and also how they shouldn’t.
Be Consistent
Keep the logo consistent – meaning the same colors and size every time you post it online. You don’t want to confuse your audience with multiple variations of your mark that they don’t even know when it’s your content. Consistency is key here.
Having the same colors represented throughout will help with familiarizing others with your presence. If you go down the path of changing the look every time you post on a platform, then your business will come off as unorganized and messy. The goal is to get people drawn to your company. You can do that by having your social platform connect in their look as well.
Social Platforms
The four big platforms in social media today are Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram. Having consistent images on your social accounts will help in solidifying your brand online. If you create a post on one platform, create the same, or very similar, post on the others.
Not everyone in your audience will have an Instagram account or even a Facebook account. Many people over the age of 30 have a Facebook account but do not dabble on Twitter, Instagram or Snapchat. Some young people have gotten rid of their Facebook and rely solely on Twitter and Instagram. By posting your content to every platform, you ensure that the message of your brand will reach more than one specific audience. You can alter the image a little from platform to platform, but keep the colors the same. If you’re interested in other top social platforms, you can find more here.
Your Message
Next is your message. Your message and tone of voice have to be consistent as well. Make a list of what words resonate with your brand. By doing that, you are giving another guide to how you want your business to come across on social media. You can’t come off as serious on Facebook and then goofy on Twitter. You need to implement both feelings in all. That also means you need to have specific captions. Obviously that will change based on what you are posting, but keep the tone of voice the same even if the captions are different in words.
Being consistent can be hard, especially when you are a start-up company. However, there are things that you can implement, such as having a social media coordinator, a social media team and well-known sites (like Hootsuite) that can help manage all your accounts. Having them all in one place allows you to see if your brand is matching across every digital platform.
Burkhart is a master at social media content management. Follow us on social media today and visit us anytime you have questions about how to maintain great influence in your brand’s marketing.
