What Is Social Media Branding? [+Tips to Improve]

Social media has changed the world of marketing. More than ever, the way people interact with brands has become largely through social media.

Brands like Mercedes-Benz, Dove, and Nutella have used social media to generate engaging content. They’ve managed to instill a positive brand identity in their target audience.

It is important to give a good impression of the brand. This makes the company more attractive to consumers.

Customer attention increases, market size expands, and the brand’s personality improves, as well. Get started on a social media branding strategy by following our tips.

Don’t have design skills? You don’t need any. With Venngage’s graphic design for marketing solutions, you can create a visual social media plan that everyone can follow.

Click to jump ahead:

What is social branding?
What is the aim of social media brand reputation management?
What should you include in a social media brand kit?
How can you improve your social media branding?

What is social branding?

Social branding is when an individual, company or organization creates a unique brand persona that is shared with the public. This helps to build a stronger connection with consumers using social media platforms.

Your brand persona can be created through a variety of means, including social media, marketing campaigns, and even a person in your company, such as an employee or publicly-active CEO.

In a general marketing scenario, your brand is defined by the values of the company and its product or service and is often communicated through a series of storytelling techniques.

Misleading Data Instagram Carousel Post Template

If your brand identity is all about fact-checking and sharing accurate news, you’ll likely strengthen your brand awareness among your audiences with this Instagram carousel template.

Customize this template using Venngage’s My Brand Kit feature. Add your website and the editor will import your logo, brand colors, and fonts. Then you can add your branding to all designs with a single click.

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What is the aim of social media brand reputation management?

The aim of social media brand reputation management is to improve the reputation of a brand or company by increasing its online presence and interactions.

Successful brands usually use simple strategies to increase brand awareness and create a sustainable following.

They do this by creating content that is relevant to their target audience, as well as by engaging with users on social media and measuring their results.

Virtual Meeting Etiquette Instagram Carousel Post Template

A webcam and digital goods manufacturer can share this infographic with their audience as part of their social media branding campaigns. It creates brand recognition while delivering valuable content.

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What should you include in a social media brand kit?

A social media brand kit is a box of tools that can elevate your presence on social media platforms as well as your brand image.

Below are the essential elements of a social media branding kit:

An overview of the company
Brand guidelines – including logos, color schemes, font options, and brand tone
Your social media pages
Company’s social media guidelines
Brand hashtags and hashtags relevant to the brand’s products and services
The company’s top ten most engaged posts in the last month by the number of mentions

Many organizations are now engaging social media as an important part of their brand-building efforts, including your competitors.

Don’t lose heart if your competitors run successful campaigns, because you can reverse-engineer their social media branding efforts and use them to your advantage.

Data has become part and parcel of marketing in the last couple of years. A great way to capitalize on graphic design trends are to create high-quality image-oriented social media posts like the template above.

With Venngage, you can add charts and graphs to templates easily. Import your data from Google sheets or from CSV files and the editor will populate the graph with the information.

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How can you improve your social media branding?

Once you’ve chosen your social media platform and, you need to start focusing on the following to improve your social media branding game.

Identify your main competitor and their brand image

Your main competitor is an excellent example of a company doing its social media branding right. Or wrong!

Learning from their mistakes is a great way to build your own social media reputation and improve your marketing efforts.

Here’s how you can identify your main competitor:

Search the top company in your area based on your keywords and content you’re targeting
Examine their search marketing strategies and social media presence
Check their social media accounts and study their content, comments and impressions
Audit the competitor’s activities and brainstorm ideas with your marketing team

You can choose to follow the trends or improve on the various aspects of your competitor’s brand-building efforts.

One thing that can make your social media posts stand out is the use of minimal text.

Social media has become increasingly image-centric. Create visually-appealing posts that social media users will immediately want to engage with.

Prepare your press kit

In the early days of your business, your social media brand voice will be unknown, since you’re a new and relatively unknown company.

However, news channels and bloggers are open to learning more about your brand. A press kit is the best way to build your social media brand identity.

Press kits are a package of information that includes details about your brand, your product, and your USP.

Companies use it alongside their marketing campaigns by making sure that all press kit recipients have had all the information they need before they publish their coverage.

In doing so, press kits help make marketing campaigns successful.

Emergency Preparedness Month Instagram Carousel Post

Companies can use templates like these as examples of their audience output in their press kits.

Regularly update your social media accounts

Social media posts help build brand authority and improve brand reputation. Regular social media updates improve your credibility. This instills trust in followers because you’re providing helpful information. Always take the help of social media schedulers for automating your posting process to reach your audience at the right time.

Value-added content will always gain traction in social media because they address your audience’s pain points.

Engagement data analysis is a great way to know if your social media updates have been successful. Data you might find here include impressions, shares, positive reactions, and comments.

Keep track of your social media content calendar and create relevant content that can convince customers of your brand’s authenticity.

Photo Nonprofit Quote Instagram Post Template

Spotlight your brand advocates with testimonials and reviews. Create engaging and attractive visual content like the above template to highlight loyal customers. You can also share users’ video testimonials, adding another layer of trust to your social media presence.

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Share your business’ inspiring story

A business’ founding story, struggles, and accomplishments make for great branding material.

For example, Starbucks shares its story of growing from a small regular business into a global brand. Audiences perceive the three college students who found Starbucks as ordinary people like them who had a business idea and built a brand from scratch.

People empathize with narratives that contain struggles, challenges, and accomplishments because they believe it’s a direct reflection of their life.

Audiences and advocates that see a brand experience it in the same way during their starting years feel like they seem to understand the former’s struggles, which helps elevate a brand’s personality to new heights.

In addition to your brand’s narrative, you can create genuine connections by highlighting a customer who wants to advocate for your brand.

Use images along with your own captions

Visuals are the best way to get attention on social media. It’s easier for you to convey your message to your target audience. It also makes it easier for people to share your content.

Videos and images are engaging and people are more likely to click on them. These marketing methods are instantly recognizable and require little effort from users who encounter them.

Safe Family Activities Instagram Carousel Template

Infographics and image-centric content, like the example above, are easy to read and shareable.

Use high-quality images, either from your brand or from free stock photo sites. Venngage offers over 3 million stock photos as well as the ability to upload your own images with a business account.

Make it feel personal

In the early days of social media, brands fell into the trap of using corporate-speak in their posts. This wasn’t the most effective way to impress users.

Brands have since learned to engage followers and brand advocates by shifting their tone to sound more normal and personal.

Identifying the ‘sweet spot’ between expressing emotion as a brand and retaining professionalism is a challenge. But it’s essential for keeping users engaged.

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Use relevant hashtags

Everyone’s fond of using hashtags. It’s an effective and simple way to find a relevant post in the almost-eternal sea of information on the Internet.

Users can find businesses through the use of hashtags. They’re also a great way to generate conversations around a topic and improve brand visibility. Plus, hashtags make it easier to track campaigns.

Track social media mentions (and other relevant data)

Measuring your engagement data helps you create effective future social media updates and content for your followers to build your brand.

You can find so many platforms online to help you record and analyze this data.

Some even have advanced features, such as multi-channel data collection and analysis features, which are perfect for those using multiple social platforms for their campaigns.

Take your social media branding to the next level

With these tips and templates, you can improve your social media branding and improve your reach online.

If you’re looking for social media-ready infographics, charts, posters, and more, you can choose from the thousands of templates available at Venngage and build your brand presence online.