The social media revolution happened in only a few short years, leaving most business owners in the dust when it comes to social marketing. Marketing and branding strategies remained unchanged for decades, but the advent of social platforms reinvented these important business tactics virtually overnight. Now, with more than a billion people on Facebook and half a billion on Twitter, catching up with trends in social branding is more important than ever before.
The Purpose of Social Branding
Just like traditional branding, the purpose of social branding is to inform and interest potential customers about your business and product. However, achieving that goal requires an entirely different marketing technique in the social media world. Customers no longer simply want to know information about your brand—instead, customers want to develop a relationship with your brand through deeper connections, relevant interactions, and community awareness.
Consumer Expectations in Social Media
Successful social branding requires you to meet your customer’s social expectations. This involves actively listening, engaging, responding, and participating on countless different platforms simultaneously. Your brand needs to tell its story by actively participating across social media, through content creation, and within thousands of communities and networks. Effective social branding requires constant, meaningful, and informative communication amongst you, your employees, your customers, people with impact and influence in your field, and outside community members.
Social Branding Strategy
While effective social branding is challenging for any business, the basic strategy behind it is simple. First, you need to spend time identifying, developing, and defining the purpose behind your business. Then, you need to create several strategies for communicating your company’s purpose in a way that relates to the individuals and community members surrounding you. Finally, you need to facilitate ongoing virtual and in-person conversations that relate to and convey your business’s purpose to as many customers and networks as possible.
Social branding is one of the most difficult tasks modern businesses face, but doing it well can have a huge impact on your company’s future. At Tucson’s leading web design and internet marketing company, Anchor Wave, we offer our clients effective solutions to today’s growing digital challenges. To learn more about what we can do for you, call us at (520) 622-3731.