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Use Social Media Marketing To Improve Your Brand Identity

Social Media Marketing also known as SMM is a form of online marketing that makes use of the various Social Media networks like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Google+, LinkedIn and more. The goal is to meet the pre-defined marketing objectives or to simply create and manage your brand Identity. How you communicate across these platforms and how well your target audience receives this communication is the key to success for any marketing campaign across Social Media.

You may be a beginner wanting to create a brand identity via Social Media Marketing or you may be an established brand looking at improving your brand identity. In either case, you need to be clear about your objective of Social Media marketing. Whether you are seeking better engagement with your target audience or you want to spread word about your products or services; you have to define and create a balanced mix across the various social platforms to achieve these goals.

Once your objectives have been clearly laid out, you begin with identifying the right social networks where your target audience is most likely to spend time or hang out online. These networks would serve as your platform to engage your audience and improve your brand identity. However, the approach you follow would be crucial. After all, you would not want to be the recipient of irate customers on public platforms.

Remember, that each social network has a unique characteristic and functionality. Though most of us have our profiles across major social platforms, the type of interactions happening on each of them differ a lot. Let’s begin with understanding the popular Social Media platforms where your target audience is most likely to be found:

Facebook
Facebook is the world’s largest form of social networking that exists today with more than 1 billion users across the globe. . Facebook has a casual, friendly environment where text, pictures, links and videos work as a form of communication. It gives you the options of creating a user profile, a fan page or a group. You can begin with creating your corporate fan page and start inviting your friends to like the page and hence become the initial word-of-mouth agents for you. Make sure your fan page reflects your brand not just visually but also in the content that you post. Keep the tone casual and the content relevant to your business and industry. Make it a point to reply to the comments & messages promptly and in a friendly manner.

Twitter:
Followers are to twitter what fans are to Facebook. You can post about the latest deals and offers and broadcast them to a wider audience by adding some generic hashtags (#sale #specialoffer #discounts etc.). The only restriction being – 140 characters limit. Retweet whenever someone says anything good about you and answer a question for example. Make sure you reply quickly since the communication on this platform is far more quick and short-lived. Twitter has more than 250 million active users across the world, more than 500 million tweets are sent per day, and Twitter supports more than 35 languages currently.

Google+:
This is the aptly called Google’s Facebook. The format is also very much similar to Facebook when it comes to sharing information or content. The advantage of Google+ is that whatever content you post here can give you SEO benefits as per some SEO experts. Also, you can further segregate your followers into smaller groups called circles and hence create more focused marketing messages. For instance, you can create a circle of privileged members and share special discount offers with them. The tone again needs to be casual and light. Today, Google+ has more than 550 million users across the globe, is the 2nd largest social networking site and it’s growing rapidly every day.

LinkedIn
LinkedIn is one of the most professional social networking websites. You can begin with creating your company page which your audience and business associates can follow. The best form of Social Media marketing on LinkedIn would be to engage in conversation and discussion with professionals from a similar industry. This would eventually help you establish your brand as a thought leader in your field. You can also invite your customers to write recommendations for your products & services thus building credibility and adding to your brand identity. LinkedIn has a professional and business environment which needs to be taken on a more corporate feel versus your other social networking sites. LinkedIn has more than 300 million professionals across the globe today that are using this powerful form of business networking.

YouTube:
This is certainly one of the most powerful Social Media marketing tools for creating as well as improving your brand identity. Create useful ‘how to’ videos of your product for your YouTube channel that you can create. You can embed these videos across your digital interfaces like your website, blog, Facebook, LinkedIn profiles etc. Your customers can subscribe to your channel and get the incredibly effective video form of brand communication directly. YouTube has more than 1 billion unique visitor’s visiting YouTube every month and more than 6 billion hours is watched across YouTube every month.

Conclusion:
Once you have a clear understanding of the social networks and the probability of finding your target audience on each, you can begin with defining a brand identity across all the social networking platforms. Next, focus on the content keeping in mind the nature of each Social Media platform and follow a consistent tone to resonate your brand message. Make sure you cover the most crucial aspect of every Social Media marketing strategy – reply to each consumer query or complaint quickly and smartly. Your promptness/ignorance can make or break your brand identity. The impact is almost irrevocable. Social Media is a very powerful tool that when used effectively can have a huge impact on your business, your bottom line, and your brand. It is something that can no longer be ignored and needs to be taken very seriously.

We have tried to list the properties of different Social Media marketing across various social networks. By creating the right mix of content and active participation, you can very effectively use Social Media marketing to take your business to the next level. If you need any help with your Social Media marketing or anything digital marketing related, please feel free to reach out to the team at Mind Digital Group.