Social media branding that maximizes your digital impact
Ready for social media branding that elevates your social media presence, is easy to replicate no matter who’s running your digital marketing and resonates with your ideal customer? Read on!
So, you’ve got your website up and running. Yay! You’re LLC’ed, you have a shiny business credit card in your wallet and the best part—you have a really great product or service that people are raving about. Woohoo! You even have social media accounts dedicated to your brand. Yeah, about that. Let me guess: You’re often unsure what to post that will engage your ideal clients, lead to sales and give you an actual return on your investment. You always feel like you could be doing more on social media, but you’re already swamped with, you know, running your business.
The struggle is real, and you’re not alone. Social media is a pain point for many entrepreneurs. But here’s the good news: there are ways to make social media more seamless and more effective for your business. And luckily, you are in the right place! Keep reading.
Social media branding starts with branding
Effective social media branding starts with effective branding, period. Having a brand strategy gives you a recipe for social media. It tells you what you need in order to get the results you want, whether you’re DIY-ing social media or hiring an agency to do it for you. A brand strategy helps you answer questions like:
What’s our brand voice?
Chipper? Sophisticated? Irreverent? Casual? Intelligent? Sarcastic? Compassionate? Writing captions gets so much easier when you know what your brand voice sounds like.
What is our visual aesthetic?
What fonts and colors do we use?
What’s our mission and vision?
When you have clear, pre-decided language that you use to describe what you do and who you do it for, you’ll know exactly what to put in your Instagram Bio and Facebook About section.
What's our brand message?
Your brand message is the unifying story you tell about your business—the problems you help your clients or customers overcome or how your brand can bring a positive result into their life. Having a clear message that runs like a thread throughout your brand marketing gives your audience a clear, memorable story to identify with your brand.
Who is our ideal client?
When you write a caption like it’s a personal note to one person, it will feel more genuine and resonate on a deeper level with your ideal client. (So you need to know who that ideal client is in the first place!)
Pssst. If you don’t have a brand strategy guide, that’s exactly what we do here at Author Brand Studio. We take on the heavy lifting of helping you make big branding decisions so that you have the perfect recipe for developing marketing content. Schedule a call with me here!
Branding your social media profiles
When you see a Reel or TikTok from a person or brand that seems really interesting, what’s the first thing you do? You tap on their profile! People are even starting to use Instagram and Facebook as search engines to learn more about a local restaurant or clothing brand, so rather than Googling and landing on your website, they’re landing on your social media profiles. Is your profile ready for that kind of traffic?
Maximizing your social media profile is easy when you think of it like your website: A landing page that tells potential clients and customers everything they need to know about you and your brand. For the sake of simplicity (and because Instagram has more brand account engagement than Facebook) we’re going to show you how to maximize your Instagram profile. But keep in mind that these tactics apply to Twitter, Facebook and TikTok, too.
What’s in an (Instagram) name?
Names are searchable on Instagram, so to capture the people who are searching for exactly what you offer, add a keyword for what you to do in your name. For example, my name on Instagram is Amy | Brand Strategy & Design. Yours might be Jake & Jack | Educational Gifts for Kids or Sarah | Florida Career Coach. If you have room (the limit is 30 characters!) and your business is location-based, add your city or state. If your username already contains your name, you can skip adding your name altogether and just use something like “Clarity and Confidence Coach.” Yup, it’s as easy as that!
Choosing a profile picture
If your business is a traditional brand, use your logo as your profile picture. Make sure any letters are readable within the little circle you’re given. If your business is a personal brand, it’s your time to shine, honey! Choose a picture of you that you love that shows your face. (If that’s you, read this blog all about branding yourself effectively!)
Maximizing your bio
Your bio is prime real estate for saying to your ideal client “I AM HERE TO HELP YOU”—but in a way that fits with your mission, vision and brand voice. The most effective bios include:
The result your business creates
Who your product or service is for
What qualifies you
A call to action
For one of our clients, Jake & Jack, here’s what the first line of their bio says: “Handcrafted wood educational gifts for kids.” It’s unmistakable what they do and who their products are for.
You get 150 characters for your Instagram bio and 160 for Twitter, so space is of the essence. Rather than writing a paragraph, think of your bio like bullet points. If you want to have fun (and it fits with your brand voice) you can add some on-brand emojis to your bio to make it easier to read and more visual.
I love how Nesha Woolery organizes her bio:
Nesha says who she helps (freedom seekers) and the result she offers them (make a full-time income without full-time hours.) She says what qualifies her, (ex-waitress to traveling entrepreneur.) Then, her call to action directs you to a lead magnet to her free class. Speaking of Nesha Woolery, I was on her podcast, Rewild! Check that episode out here.
Highlighting your business
Your Instagram story highlights aren’t just for archiving and categorizing your stories—they are a place to be proactive about introducing people to you, your story and what you have to offer. Think of your highlights like pages on your website. Good highlights to have are:
“Start here”
“Our work”
“Our products”
“About Us”
“Testimonials”
If you have a personal brand, you can use video of you talking about each of these topics for your highlights. If you have a traditional brand, you can use designed slides with text that have the same look and feel as your website.
Visual branding on social media
Speaking of look and feel, visual branding on social media matters. Sure, it’s easy to use Canva templates or reshare posts that you love on your feed—but you’ll want people to know that a post is yours without even seeing your username. People really do judge books by their cover, so make sure your feed matches how you want to be perceived.
Consistent fonts, colors, and filters
Pick one or two fonts that you use on every text post, and have a consistent color scheme for designed posts. (You can do this on Canva and plug in your colors and find fonts that are similar!) For photo posts, use a consistent filter. Even on Instagram stories and reels, it’s a good idea to pick one of Instagram’s fonts that you always use and to match the color of your text with your brand colors. Yes, you can create visual consistency even within constraints! And don’t forget to add your logo, name or username to each post so that it can be traced back to you.
Content creation, made easy
The Key to Great Feed Content
No matter what your brand's visual style is, the best social media content strategy is one that aligns with your brand by providing value. Rather than using a business account to say “Look at us! Look at our products!” or “Look at my cat! Look at our date night!” give someone a good reason to follow you because they know exactly what benefits they’ll get out of it. Even if you're a personal lifestyle brand, such as a blogger or an influencer, this still applies. Most likely, your audience is following you for inspiration, such as your style, your home-decor advice or your jet-setting adventures. Even when your content is focused on your lifestyle, it's important to identify why people are following you and to ensure your content supports that reason!
Providing value: creating content that teaches or helps the person reading it in some way.
Here’s why valuable content matters so much: It’s shareable. Creating posts that people will want to share to their Instagram stories or send to a friend is key to Instagram growth. Ask yourself these questions about the posts on your Instagram feed—whether you’re working on a single image post, a carousel post or a reel:
Does this post teach something?
Does this post encourage someone?
Would someone who doesn’t know me or my business resonate with this post?
If I didn’t know me, would I re-share this post?
Would this post make someone feel something? (Joy, amusement, conviction?)
Instagram stories, demystified
I know I just said to not post about your personal life, but that’s only true for your Instagram feed. Posting about your personal life on your Instagram stories can create human connection. Stories are also a great place to promote and sell—and if you can combine the two, posting about how you integrate your products into your personal life, you’ve found your sweet spot. After all, people still buy from people, not brands they feel no connection to. They’ll probably hang around your profile for ages before booking or purchasing. Give them a reason to stick around until they know, trust and like you enough to take that next step.
Sitting down and creating content
Here’s the final piece. Now that you know the criteria for creating valuable content, it’s time to figure out what to post about. Everything you post should fall within your niche, and your niche is defined by the outcome that you are helping your ideal client to achieve. Nesha Woolery helps freedom seekers make a full-time income, so all of her posts are about entrepreneurship. I help business owners build an unforgettable brand, so all of my Instagram posts are about branding.
Once you have your niche, you can establish a few categories of content—anywhere from three to five is great. These help you develop the HOW of the outcome you help people to achieve. Maybe you’re a career clarity coach, and your categories are decision-making, self-advocacy and pitching yourself. Maybe you’re a florist and your categories are floral design tips, flower care and wedding bouquet inspiration. These categories provide a framework for content planning when you’re staring at a blank content calendar, and they’ll ensure that your social media content resonates with your audience.
A note here: These strategies are for creating growth on an Instagram account. If you are a local coffee shop that is A-OK with having a local following, posting only gorgeous pictures of your lattes and pastries may be the perfect thing for drumming up business.
Overwhelmed? Start with this.
If any of this feels overwhelming, start with the first step: honing in on your brand strategy. Schedule your first call with us today! We’ll build a brand strategy that guides all of your marketing efforts, taking the load off of you and making social media branding easy for years to come.
