5 Steps to a Successful Social Media Branding Strategy

Editor's Note: This post was originally published in January 2023 and has been updated with new content in July 2023.

At its most basic level, your brand is what sets you apart from your competitors. It's the collection of people's thoughts, emotions, and associations about your business. A strong social media branding strategy makes sure those impressions are consistent and positive.

As a result, today, we no longer ask ourselves, "What is social media good for?" but rather, "How can my business make the best use of social media?" Social media and social networks are essential to implementing an effective marketing strategy: worldwide, there are over 5.24 billion active users on various social networks.

But despite this, many businesses are doing social wrong because they don't have a well-founded strategy, which can make it challenging to stand out from the crowd. That's why in this article, we'll share all the key steps to build your social media communication strategy and get better results!

What is Social Media Branding?

At its most basic level, your brand is what sets you apart from competitors. It’s the collection of perceptions, emotions, and associations people form about your business. And when it comes to social media, your brand is an essential part of your identity across platforms.

Your social pages are an extension of your brand personality. The way you write, the images you share, and the content choices you make all affect how your audience perceives you. Whether you’re relaxed and playful or serious and refined, your identity across channels should feel unified.

A strong social media brand helps build recognition, trust, and connection. It shows potential customers what you stand for and why they should care. People begin to recognize your style and voice.

The 5 Goals of Social Media Marketing

Social media marketing (SMM) is a strategy based on distributing content optimized for social media and building a community through that content.

Nowadays, social networks have considerably influenced marketing and have become essential tools for business communication. Therefore, you must implement actions on these platforms to promote your business and contribute to its growth. We have identified the five main objectives:

• Develop the visibility and notoriety of your company.
• Promote your brand, your products, and your business online. Create engaging content to improve the image and perception of your brand to develop its customer base.
• Create a community of brand ambassadors and loyal followers by creating content and activities that promote engagement and interaction.
• Convert your social media contacts into leads and prospects. Influence and guide audience purchase decisions.
• Reinforce customer satisfaction and control your online reputation.

But be careful not to lose sight of your main objective, which is to generate more qualified traffic on your website. By managing multiple social media platforms, all at the same time, it's easy to get lost. So always be strategic when selecting the social networks you work with. Favor those networks that focus on the demographic of your target audience.

The Benefits of Social Media Marketing

Target-Specific Demographics for Effective Audience Reach

Social media marketing lets you identify specific user demographics and advertise your business to attract your target audience. Social is also a great way to get critical information about your buyer personas (i.e., their mindset, likes, and dislikes)—an opportunity not to be missed.

To effectively target specific demographics and reach your desired audience through social media marketing, follow these steps:

• Identify Your Target Audience: Conduct thorough market research to understand your ideal customer profile. Determine their demographics, interests, and online behaviors.
• Select Relevant Social Media Platforms: Choose the social media platforms that align with your target audience's preferences and behaviors. Consider factors such as age group, geographic location, and interests.
• Tailor Your Content: Create compelling content that resonates with your target audience. Craft messages, visuals, and offers that address their needs, desires, and pain points.
• Utilize Targeted Advertising: Leverage the targeting capabilities of social media advertising platforms to reach your specific demographics. Use audience segmentation based on criteria such as age, location, interests, and behaviors.
• Engage and Interact: Actively engage with your audience by responding to comments, messages, and mentions. Foster conversations, address inquiries, and provide valuable insights to build relationships with your target audience.

Improve Customer Service with Real-Time Feedback

You will be able to improve your company's customer service KPIs with the help of real-time customer feedback from social media. This will allow you to enhance customer service and achieve better customer satisfaction objectives.

To enhance your company's customer service KPIs through real-time feedback obtained from social media, follow these steps:

• Monitor Social Media Channels: Regularly monitor your social media channels for customer comments, mentions, and direct messages. Utilize social media management tools to streamline the monitoring process.
• Respond Promptly: Prioritize timely responses to customer inquiries, feedback, and complaints. Aim to provide personalized and helpful solutions to their concerns.
• Offer Proactive Support: Anticipate customer needs by proactively reaching out to them before they even voice their concerns. Use social listening tools to identify potential issues and address them promptly.
• Implement Customer Feedback: Use the feedback received through social media to improve your products, services, and overall customer experience. Take suggestions into consideration and implement changes accordingly.
• Train Your Team: Provide social media customer service training to your team members. Equip them with the necessary skills to handle customer inquiries, resolve issues, and maintain a professional and empathetic tone.

Learn from Competitors to Optimize Your Branding Campaign

You can also gather information about your competitors. This will benefit you later on in adjusting your branding campaign and marketing strategy.

To learn from your competitors and optimize your branding campaign through social media marketing, follow these steps:

• Identify Your Competitors: Identify the key competitors in your industry or niche who are active on social media. Look for those with a strong online presence and high engagement.
• Monitor Their Social Media Activities: Keep a close eye on their social media profiles, posts, and campaigns. Analyze their content strategies, messaging, visuals, and audience engagement techniques.
• Analyze Their Successes and Failures: Identify the social media posts or campaigns that have been successful for your competitors. Determine the factors that contributed to their success and adapt those strategies to your own campaigns.
• Identify Gaps and Opportunities: Look for areas where your competitors may be falling short or gaps in their social media strategy. Identify opportunities to differentiate yourself and provide unique value to your target audience.
• Stay Updated with Industry Trends: Stay informed about the latest social media trends and best practices in your industry. This will help you identify new opportunities and innovative approaches to stay ahead of the competition.

Building a Successful Branding Strategy on Social Media

Before getting started, it's essential to define a real strategy based on consistency, coherence, and organization. Need help getting started with a social media marketing plan and with creating content? Here are the essential steps to build an effective social media marketing strategy:

Step 1: Set goals

Each of your goals should be SMART:

• Specific
• Measurable
• Attainable
• Relevant
• Time-bound

By following this method, you'll be able to ensure that you obtain concrete results. These SMART goals can be the same for various social platforms or unique for each, depending on the business's specific needs.

Step 2: Learn everything from your audience

First, define your ideal customer, otherwise known as your buyer persona.

Knowing everything about your ideal customers is essential to helping you create your content. This step in the process is crucial to know what to say and where to say it. As a business owner and marketer, you are expected to develop content perfectly aligned with your audience's expectations. Your objective should be to reach your audience at the right place and time, so be responsive.

Step 3: Conduct a competitive analysis

Before producing relevant content, you must first identify your competitors and learn from their own strategies. This social listening is a good way for you to identify potential opportunities to exploit. Research your competitor's company name and keywords on various social platforms; then, find out what kind of content they share and what their community is saying about them.

Step 4: Create your social media content calendar

Of course, while sharing content is essential, knowing how often you need to share content to generate maximum results is equally important. This is where a social media calendar can be a huge help. It helps you organize all your social media content, plus announce the objective assigned to each of your social networks, so that everything you publish in this calendar contributes to supporting your goals.

Step 5: Test, verify, evaluate, and adjust your strategy

After your social media efforts, performing an audit is crucial in optimizing your future strategy. You'll need to ask yourself the following questions:

• What worked and what didn't?
• Who is interacting with your company on social media?
• Which social network(s) achieved the best results?
• How does your business compare to the competition?

Metrics to Track and Monitor

1. Reach

• Impressions: How often your content is displayed.
• Unique Reach: Number of unique users who saw your content.

2. Engagement

• Likes, Comments, Shares: Measure how much users interact with your content.
• Engagement Rate: (Total Engagement / Total Impressions) × 100. Shows how compelling your content is.

3. Brand Awareness

• Mentions: How often your brand is tagged or mentioned.
• Share of Voice: Your brand's visibility compared to competitors.

4. Audience Growth

• Follower Count: Track gains and losses over time.
• Follower Demographics: Understand location, age, and interests to tailor content.

5. Content Performance

• Top Performing Posts: Identify what content type or theme resonates most.
• Post Frequency vs. Engagement: Find the optimal posting schedule.

6. Sentiment Analysis

• Positive vs. Negative Mentions: Understand how people feel about your brand.
• Comments Sentiment: Qualitative feedback to inform brand perception.

7. Click-Through Rate (CTR)

• CTR on Social Posts: Measures how many users clicked on your links.
• Landing Page Performance: Track what happens after users click through.

8. Conversion Metrics

• Leads or Sales from Social: If tracked with UTM parameters or pixels.
• Cost per Conversion (for paid campaigns): Efficiency of ad spend.

What to Avoid When Building Your Social Media Brand

Building a strong social media brand takes more than picking a color palette and posting once in a while. If you want your audience to take your business seriously, there are a few common mistakes you’ll want to avoid.

Inconsistency

Changing your tone, visuals, or message from platform to platform confuses your audience. Keep your voice, branding, and content style consistent everywhere you show up.

Posting Without a Strategy

If you’re sharing content just to stay active, you’re missing the point. Every post should serve a purpose, whether it’s building awareness, starting a conversation, or supporting your sales goals.

Ignoring Your Audience

Social media is a two-way street. If you’re not responding to comments or messages, or if you’re posting content that doesn’t speak to your audience’s needs, you’re wasting valuable opportunities to connect.

Chasing Trends for the Wrong Reasons

Not every trending sound or meme is right for your brand. If it doesn’t align with your values or feel natural to your voice, skip it. Forced trends can make your business look out of touch.

Focusing Only on Selling

If every post is a pitch, people will tune out. Social media branding is about building relationships. Mix in helpful content, behind-the-scenes moments, and stories that show the people behind your brand.

Overlooking Visual Identity

Low-quality visuals, off-brand colors, or cluttered designs can hurt your credibility. Invest in clean, consistent branding across your graphics, videos, and photos.

Avoiding these mistakes can help you build a social media brand that people remember, trust, and want to follow.

The Role of AI in Social Media Branding

Artificial intelligence is changing how businesses build and manage their social media brands. AI tools can analyze audience behavior, track sentiment, and suggest the best times to post for maximum engagement. They help you understand what content your audience values most and predict which topics will perform well. With AI handling data analysis and automation, you can focus more on creating meaningful, consistent messages that strengthen your brand across every platform.

We Can Help Create an Effective Social Media Branding Strategy

Social media can significantly contribute to the achievement of your business goals. By developing a well-defined social media branding strategy and setting measurable goals, you can leverage social media networks to effectively reach your target audience. Regular posts and a consistent posting schedule will keep your social media activity active and engaging.

Social media serves as a powerful tool to showcase your company culture and engage with your audience on a deeper level. It allows you to create a strong online presence and establish meaningful connections with your followers. By leveraging different social media networks and optimizing your social profiles, you can maximize your brand's visibility and impact.

Social networks evolve rapidly, and new social platforms emerge as new audiences grow. As a result, it's difficult to predict the evolution of social media when this sector is so dynamic.

Regardless, it's essential to stay informed on the latest branding strategies. Follow news and trends on all your key social platforms. Stay informed on all the latest by following industry blogs (like ours!) or working with a digital marketer whose job it is to stay on top of everything social media. 

Need help getting started with your social media branding efforts? Then speak to an expert at WSI.