Take a moment to think about your brand. What comes to mind first when you think about the most important aspect of your company?
It’s likely the product, service, or benefit you offer to your customers, right? But how do these customers find you and why do they decide to invest money or time? It’s because at some point down the sales funnel, your company’s offer has been effectively communicated to them. Communicated in a way that was easy for them to understand, persuasive in reasoning, and toned correctly for your industry.
There are numerous points of interface with brand communication and messaging, but one digital touchpoint has risen in the last two decades to become one of the best places for brands to communicate with current and potential customers. Social media. Let’s discuss the reasons to make social media a focus of your marketing strategy and the important aspects of a well-branded presence.
Why is it important to have an active brand presence on social media?
The world was introduced to the first generation of social media networks in the early-2000s through MySpace, LinkedIn, and Facebook. The hallmark of these sites was a new form of digital communication, one that was collaborative and user-generated. In the twenty years that followed the introduction of these platforms, many more would rise, many would fall, but one thing would become clear: social media is here to stay, and no brand should ignore its usefulness.
Social media now has a worldwide user base of over 5 billion, projected to surpass 6 billion by the year 2028. These 5 billion-plus users spend an estimated 143 minutes a day on social media with Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram being the most used platforms (Facebook alone has more than 3 billion monthly active users). In a 2020 survey in the United States, 36% of Instagram users and 35% of X/Twitter users followed brands and companies. Leveraging social media for your brand to reach these users should become a pillar of your marketing strategy if it isn’t already.
What are the hallmarks of a well-branded social media presence?
Now that you have the numbers on how important using social media as a marketing tool is, let’s move on to aesthetic and content strategy. The following are the areas we feel are the most important for a well-branded social media presence.
1. Cohesive Visual Identity
The most important aspect of a well branded social media presence is a cohesive visual identity. As with your branding and website, the visual identity of your social media is imperative to its success. It’s important to create graphics that are designed within your brand’s visual identity or, if they are a limited promotion or something similar, compliment your brand’s visual identity. You will also likely have established a photography style within your brand’s visual identity, when posting non-design, full photograph content you’ll want to make sure these use that style. This might mean adjusting color tones, applying stylized filters, or images with a certain decorative set-up.
If you’re wondering if your current social media presence shows a cohesive visual identity, a great way to do this is to view your full feed. When you scroll through do all your posts feel as though they are of one “family” or do they feel disjointed?
Social Media Posts We've Created
2. Well-Thought Content Strategy
Hand-in-hand with your social media’s visual identity, a well-thought content strategy is a must. The easiest way to determine the type of content you want to post is to set goals for your social media. Goals might be: reaching a new audience, improving brand awareness, generating leads, or introducing a new product. A content plan based on these goals will help determine the types of posts, the content of those posts (in both the visuals and the caption content), and a posting schedule.
3. Cross-Platform Profile Consistency and Post Sizing
Your brand will look its best and your social media will be an effective representation if your profiles on the different platforms are correctly set up. This means sizing profile and cover/background images specific to each platform, ensuring no important imagery or content gets cut off. Resizing posts for different platforms is important too, size your posts based on the platform and where within those platforms it’s posting to (main feed, stories, etc.).
4. Use of Video and Motion Graphics
Social media is a digital space and offers a lot of customization options for how you present content to your audience. One of the fastest-growing content types for social media is video and motion graphic posts. There is statistical evidence that video and motion graphic posts are more effective at grabbing attention, keeping it, and encouraging the retention of information.
The Case for Video and Motion Graphics
of marketers report a direct increase in sales through video
of a message is retained in video as opposed to 10% read in text
businesses are using video for marketing in 2024
of consumers spend 25% or more of their time on social media watching videos
of people said they visited a brand’s website after watching a video ad
Social Media Motion Graphics We've Created
Featured Motion Graphics
Video production is the most common service social media marketers outsource, given the expertise needed to create. At TCS, we have a vast amount of experience in the creation of motion graphics and live-action video editing.
Additionally, outside of visual identity, it’s important to establish a consistent tone of voice within your written content. Determine what type of voice your current and potential customers will most want from your brand (professional, playful, humorous, etc.) and strive to make all your communication feel as if it was communicated from one person even if multiple team members prepare your content. You will also want a point-person who deals with all direct communication, whether in messaging or replies to comments, consistent and quick engagement with your audience can make or break a brand’s social media presence.
Do you need a social media style guide?
If you intend to present a cohesive visual identity on social media, a style guide is the best way to ensure its success. A social media style guide is very similar to a brand identity guide in that it establishes the visual aesthetic and provides guidelines for new work. Often a brand’s presence on social media is different from its presence in traditional advertising, in-house materials, packaging, and other design materials and establishing how those differences look visually is necessary. These differences for usage only in your social media could be a more playful persona, a specific illustration style, or a selected portion of your overall brand color palette.
When we create a social media style guide, we work with our clients to establish what these differences might be and make suggestions on what our professional experience tells us works best. We then create a selection of templates that can be used to quickly produce new posts, which is often necessary because of how often brands post to social media, but also serve as a style guide for new designs. It’s also important to keep in mind that these should only be used for a few years at most, social media moves quickly and paying attention to which posts are successful and which aren’t will determine when it’s time for a new aesthetic strategy.
Social Media Style Guides We've Created
What about advertising on social media?
Paid advertising on social media can be great for a brand. Social media platforms have access to user information and data that allow for the creation of specified segments of potential customers and there is a low monetary threshold for entry which allows a brand to test the waters on if it’s a worthy investment.
If your brand is looking to reach a larger audience or a new audience segment, making use of the advertising tools social media platforms have available is a great place to start. Most platforms also provide potential advertisers with case studies that outline successes, we find these to be incredibly useful when determining which platforms or advertising types to pursue.
The Case for Social Media Advertising
Average Cost-per-Click
Average Cost-per-Mille
of users purchase a product online at least once a week
of users purchase a product using their mobile devices at least once a week
of people research brands online before making a purchase
There’s no time like the present!
As established above, social media is here to stay and ignoring it or giving it minimal effort will only serve to hurt your brand’s reach and digital reputation. If your brand is ready to take the next step, to prioritize your social media presence, and open up a world of new marketing opportunities then it’s time to establish your social media visual identity.
