Brand Building Through Social Media

MarketingMatthew MarchandProvidence College 2018

Brand Image

- How your consumers view your products and services

- The use of social media marketing can be an effective way to “build your brand”

- Maintaining a consistent voice and mission allows a company to build a sense of trust amongst consumers

- Ex: When you think of Apple products the first thing that comes to mind is innovation

Niche/Target Markets

- Knowing your niche market (profitable subsegment of a target market) helps narrow down the marketing efforts to the best fit individuals

- In order to properly take advantage of a niche market you need to identify it and find the proper way to grasp their attention.

- Different social media platforms are used to market to separate niches

What Platform Should I Use?- Facebook and Twitter are used by companies who focus on direct contact with their

customers (more personable and interactive)

- Instagram is better for companies with a focus on the beauty of their products, it is more picture based compared to content based

- Pinterest is more geared towards women, so companies selling women’s products/services should create these accounts

- YouTube is a good platform for companies who rely heavily on a video marketing strategy or sell video-capturing products (ex: Gopro)

- LinkedIn is a stronger choice for promoting business-related content and connecting with other corporate influencers if you operate a business-to-business company

Provide valuable and shareable content.Strong brand reputation is dependant on creating useful content that viewers will want to share, instead of posting content to meet arbitrary publishing calendars or that covers subjects only you’d want to read

Keep in mind:

- Every single piece of content you share should support your brand image

- Research and look at your data to see which content is most likely to gain visibility on your social networks. Images may resonate better with your audience than blog posts

- See what others have done to create successful posts, then go create your own better version

Influencers can be Key- Influencers are individuals who are seen as leaders in their communities who are hired by

marketers to drive their brand's message to the larger market. Rather than marketing directly to a large group of consumers, you instead inspire / hire / pay influencers to get out the word for you.

- These people have large followings on their social media accounts and if you can get them to wear, use or talk about your product or service in a positive light then their followers will most likely adopt your product as well in hopes of being more like that individual.

- Marketers should use these influencers because they have the potential to have the same reach as a prime time advertisement but do not need to be paid nearly as much (currently)

- These peoples content is sought after and is not forced upon people like other advertisements, that makes this the most efficient marketing tactic in my mind.

Promotion: The Biggest Struggle The biggest struggle of social media marketing is the process of promoting your accounts. It is hard to gain an initial following but some ways to go about doing it include:,

- Word of mouth which is efficient on a small scale, but it has a very limited reach

- If you have other social media accounts or websites, it is a good idea to promote your new pages there. It will help get the word out to current customers

- Leveraging influencers to promote your pages can be the most effective. They have the largest reach and most “influence” on their followers

- You can also pay for advertising on other “big name sites” that have a lot of foot traffic. You just need to make sure the ad resonates with consumers so they do not pass right over it

What I learned from GenM (Highlights)Brands create a set of perceptions that represent a company

Finding the proper niche market is essential because it allows companies to narrow down marketing efforts in order to save money and attract the most consumers

You need to present your trademark consistently so you can maintain trust amongst consumers

There are six things you need to take into account when creating a name for your brand: syllables, phonetics, imagery, negative associations, searchability and story.

Your brand voice should speak directly to your audience in a way that is relatable and identifiable

When selecting brand colors, you need to pick colors that will represent the theme of your brand, also keep in mind that some colors are universally associated with certain feelings

When creating a brand logo you need to make sure the image is representative of the theme of the brand. Also avoid creating logos that are similar to other brands (be original)

For more help with your social media marketing, visit GenM.co