5 Easy Tips to Elevate Your Brand on Social Media

You’re most likely already using social media, but are you using it as a strategic tool to target your dream client and elevate your brand?

Digital marketing strategies are key to growing your business. Why? Because social media helps brands connect with prospective customers on a deeper level, adding incomparable value, creating meaningful connections, and building long-lasting relationships.

Here are five ways you can use social media to elevate your brand:

1. Identify Your Ideal Client

First and foremost, identify your goal and determine who you want to attract. Rather than market to the masses, it’s important to narrow down your niche and keep your ideal client in mind when you craft your social media content. Once you identify your ideal client, you can create content that is directly targeted to that person and you are more likely to attract the people that you want to connect with to help you grow your business. If you’re feeling stuck and need help determining who is your ideal client, start by asking yourself the following questions:

• Who do I want to market my products or services to?
• Is my dream client male or female?
• What age range am I targeting?
• Where do my dream clients hang out on social?
• What are their hobbies/interests?
• What accounts do they follow on social media?
• What benefits can I offer them?

2. Plan Your Content in Advance

Rather than scramble at the last minute trying to figure out what content to post, it’s a good idea to plan your content in advance. You can create a spreadsheet and enter all your post ideas on there or search the internet for content calendar templates, if you prefer. While some people like to plan an entire month of content in advance, you can do it weekly if that’s more manageable. Think about any events, topics, business offerings, milestones, national holidays, etc. that you want to cover and look for corresponding images as well.

Your visuals should have a consistent style and tone, so they align with your brand. When in doubt, less is more. Instead of using photos with busy backgrounds and distractions, go with something clean and simple. For Instagram, you can use apps such as Planoly to view your grid, shift things around as needed, and plan your posts so they look aesthetically pleasing. Keep your logo and brand colors in mind and plan your visuals so they complement the overall feel and tone of your brand.

And don’t forget to add your hashtags! Hashtags work across multiple platforms, so it’s a really cool search feature. You can use a mix of industry-specific and general hashtags to reach a wider audience, change up your hashtags so they relate to your posts, and don’t use only hashtags that pertain to your business — add hashtags that your ideal clients would search for, too.

3. Use Brand Storytelling

Every brand has a story, but are you sharing yours? Using the art of storytelling is key to captivating your audience, providing value, and humanizing your brand. Your story can make your post memorable and will help you stand out in a sea of competition. It makes you relatable and infuses personality into your brand and builds human connections that are strong and long-lasting.

How can you introduce storytelling into your social media? Create content that highlights how you got started, the struggles you’ve faced, challenges you’ve overcome, milestones you’ve accomplished, hobbies or interests you have outside of work, your brand’s mission or purpose, introduce or shout out a team member, give followers a behind the scenes peek at your brand, share your vision for an upcoming product launch, and more. These stories helps you connect with others and it builds the “know, like, and trust factor.” This refers to the moment your ideal client KNOWS about you, then they begin to LIKE you and your brand, and finally, TRUST begins to develop. When followers get to know your story, they will begin aligning with your brand values and will come back for more.

Pro tip: Speak directly to your dream client. Instead of writing general posts, use words like “you” or “your” to show prospective customers that you’re crafting this message specifically for them. It’s a simple, personalized touch that can help you create a meaningful connection.

4. Post Consistently

Now that you have their attention, be sure to continue to post on a regular basis. While posting once a day is strongly recommended, sometimes things don’t always go as planned and that’s okay. Try to post at least a few times per week. Don’t disappear from social media for days, weeks, or months at a time. Consistency is key, so once you begin to establish your social media presence and grow your following, you want to keep that momentum going.

I have a client that recently contacted me for help in elevating their brand because business has been slow lately. Although there are quite a few things I noticed that we could improve, the one thing that immediately caught my attention was that they hadn’t posted on their social media platforms for several months. Unfortunately, that reflects negatively on your brand because prospective customers may unfollow you or even wonder if you’re still in business. You need to share valuable and/or inspiring content on a regular basis in order to maintain active conversations and interest in your brand.

5. Engage With Others

How do you continue those conversations and create meaningful connections? By liking, commenting, asking questions, sharing information, and inspiring others with your words and images. Commenting and interacting will help others get to know your brand and it establishes credibility. You can also tag other social media influencers that are relevant to your post to get more eyes on your content and build brand recognition.

In addition to posting to your feed, consider posting stories and live videos. Or host a live Q&A to interact with prospective clients and create a larger brand following. Other ways to boost engagement include collaborating with others, hosting a giveaway, participating in a Facebook or Instagram challenge, and joining a Facebook group where your ideal clients would hang out and interacting with other members.

You can automate your content to post on specific dates and times, which helps establish consistency, but you cannot automate engagement. In order to elevate your social media presence you need to be available to respond to every comment and provide insightful, knowledgeable responses to add that personal touch.

Just remember, engaged followers are the best followers. While having a lot of likes is great, the goal is to engage with others. Having a high number of likes or followers doesn’t mean much if they are not engaging with your posts.

These five steps will help you establish your voice, determine who you are speaking to, share your story, build a sense of community, and create lasting connections. Customers want attention, so you need to speak their language and let them know you’re listening to their needs. This will help you elevate your brand and establish a loyal following.

Now go share your magic with the world!

Vanessa