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During the initial days of social media, companies were unsure if promoting on these platforms would create any buzz for their products. Since then, social media has been a powerful resource for companies, as long as they stay consistent. For brands to remain successful on multiple websites, they must follow these rules or risk alienating their customers.
Establish Your Brand Voice
Every brand has a reputation based on how they converse over written text, commercials, or trade shows. The best companies show a little personality and don’t feel like a carbon copy of their competition. Fast-food giant Wendy’s is well known for its sarcastic and hilarious brand voice and its insistence on replying to negative criticism in a blistering yet funny manner.
Wendy’s likely decided to come across this way because their competition acted like generic brands at the time. To cash in on this trend, McDonald’s tried to imitate Wendy’s with little success because the Golden Arches were supposed to be family-friendly. If McDonald’s had used a social media monitoring platform to maintain a consistent voice, they would have won the day.
Have a Persona and a Brand Purpose
For the most part, it’s okay to have the same or similar persona across all social media platforms, but other specialty websites may need more attention. For example, TikTok has a young audience that won’t respond well to corporate speech or stuffy brand messages. You need to know which demographic you’re selling to so you can effectively market your items.
Some platforms serve a certain purpose. Working professionals primarily use LinkedIn, so it would be inappropriate to post memes on a more serious, career-heavy website. Chipotle does this effectively by only posting meme images on their Instagram because they’re targeting customers that appreciate that side of them. On Twitter, they are more text-heavy.
Keep Branding Basics Similar
Branding consistency isn’t all about voice; it also includes the color palette, logo, boilerplate, bio, and handle. Your company may want to change the logo styling depending on the website because some profile picture dimensions are smaller, bigger, or of a different shape. However, they should be similar enough that they’re instantly recognizable to your customers.
Many people skim social media platforms and don’t pay that much attention to the text but will first recognize the colors, icons, and font choice. Google’s multicolored logo isn’t just noticeable because they use the brand’s name as their logo, but because its bright, multicolored font establishes them as a fun company. Even their headers are bright, dynamic, and colorful.
Expand Forward to Visual Branding
Your brand’s logo isn’t the only thing that your customers search for when they browse your virtual storefront. As mentioned, the same colors and fonts have to be present in all of your images, fonts, and colors, and that includes your social media posts. When someone visits your Twitter or Instagram page, what colors immediately stand out to them? What is featured?
As a brand, Versace is known for its rock n’ roll stylistic choices: heavy amounts of blacks, revealing clothing, leather, gold, and belt buckles. Those features are already prominent enough that they don’t have to fill their product photography with busy backgrounds. In fact, they’re often white or muted. Versace lets their products speak for themselves and simply shows them.
One Account May Not be Enough
Branding can become complicated if you have more than one message you’re trying to send or have more than one department. Sportswear giant Nike has different accounts for every sport they work with, so their customer support team can quickly answer inquiries specific to a sport. For example, if a customer needs shows appropriate for tennis instead of basketball.
Facebook is set up so that every location can have a different page, which can get chaotic if you have ten or more stores. However, if you have multiple locations, you can likely hire the staff to account for more sales. Sometimes it’s against your best interest to divide focus if your niche is particular. It’s best to listen to your customers’ needs on this matter.
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