First things first, to create a branding strategy, it’s essential to set goals first. Whether you’re an individual or a brand, you already have an online brand given you have a digital footprint. Statistics suggest most people do search online before trusting any brand. You need to take control of your brand by ensuring that people see what you want to show them when they google about you or check your social media profiles.
In this way, you establish your influence and prove yourself to be an authority in your niche. But the main question here is: What do you want your brand to be known for? Without a clear goal in mind, you won’t be able to create an audience for yourself who can later be converted into customers. For instance, if you want to become a senior content marketing professional, you should share content related to content marketing.
1. Define your audience
Whether you’re a brand or an individual, you need to clearly define your target audience. Unless you know who should be targeted, you can’t say what platform you should use, what content should you be creating and who should you be networking with. These are the specific segment of people you want to reach and convey your marketing message. They are the people who are most likely to buy from you and can be defined using some parameters such as age, gender, profession or location, among others.
The better you define your audience, the more you understand how to reach them. There’s no harm in having a highly targeted audience. If you’ve got a highly targeted audience segment, you’re just marketing yourself or product effectively and not stopping other people from buying from you. It’s all about targeting specifically those who need your product or service the most.
2. Choosing the right platform
Yes, you can use all the social media channels to promote yourself or your business, but if you’re starting, you should be using only two to three social media channels. Why? Because using more than three channels can divide your focus and make it longer for you to become an authority. Furthermore, you should strategically choose your first two to three social media channels to reach the right audience.
3. Strategically choose the channels
In the previous step, you defined your audience and now you need to know where do they spend their time the most. And then in accordance with it, you should be choosing your social media channels. For example, if you work in the fashion industry and your target audience is women in the age group of 16-30, you should know where you can find them. This will help you to reach your audience effectively and promote your marketing message to them. Also, with time, you can try out other social media platforms, as well.
4. Study influencers
No matter what niche you choose, there must be a few influencers already acing the niche. By studying and spying influencers, you will get to know what kind of content your audience prefers the most. Moreover, collaborating with influencers is the most potent way of creating an influence in your industry. However, this may take some time because to collaborate with influencers; you need to develop a relationship with them first.
To start with, you first need to identify the influencers in your niche. Find them on various social media platforms and then start developing a relationship by keeping up with their posts and messaging them personally. However, don’t annoy them with always stalking. Also, study how they work and what strategy do they use and then implement it for your branding.
5. Create a content calendar
Content calendars can solely make or break your brand’s content and social media marketing strategy. Content calendars allow you to keep your work on the track, avoid the last-minute panic to create content and also helps you to share useful and entertaining content. 92% of the content marketers leverage social media to promote their content. But few of them succeed. So how do they succeed? The ones who succeed: have a content calendar; create and share various types of content such as text-based, images and videos, and don’t stick to just one format; and not just post but also engage with their audience. Once you have a content calendar, you also need to stay consistent, which brings me to the last point.
6. Consistency is the key
Social media never sleeps and you need to know that. To stay ahead of your competition and reach your target audience as much as possible, you need to remain consistent. Your audience wants to stay in contact with you and social media is probably the best way for this. Moreover, for building a brand through social media, you need to stay authentic. None likes to engage with a brand that doesn’t reflect a human side. Stay connected with your audience, add value and keep engaging with them. The more you do it, the more they will prefer your brand over the others.
To wrap up
It’s no more a secret that social media is a prodigious way of building a brand and establishing yourself as an expert. With millions of users, social media provides you with an array of opportunities, not just in terms of building a brand name but also generating leads and making sales. However, to build a brand using social media is not a cakewalk; you need to put a lot of effort, keep adding value to your audience and, more importantly, stay consistent. If you rightly follow the steps, you will start to reap benefits.
