5 Easy Ways to Grow Your Brand on Social Media

Part -1.

The role of social media in brand building is getting bigger & bigger every day simply because people are becoming more & more active on social media, as smartphones & computers are getting more affordable & accessible.

So if you have a brand, that you want to grow on social media, then here are my 5 easy ways (kind of) to do so. Read on.

5 Easy Ways to Grow Your Brand on Social Media?

Okay, so you've got a brand, and you have an internet connection. Great. Now what? Well now starts the fun part (depending on what you consider as fun). So let's begin.

1 - Respond to ALMOST EVERYONE

The reason I said 'almost' everyone, is because there are trolls on social media. Yes, the rumours are true. Trolls do indeed exist on social. They feed on attention and breathe in people's happiness.

So yeah, you don't need to respond to them. But yes you have to respond to your followers' queries and problems and compliments and complaints. Many brands use Twitter as a way to address customer issues.

As Twitter gives a chance to engage directly with the brands, customers use it to seek help, and brands can also track tweets quite easily.

Just responding to positive reviews won't cut it. You have to deal with negative reviews and diffuse problems as well. People like it when a brand actually gives a crap and responds to their questions and problems.

And this is important for you to do as according to Globalwebindex, 54% of users actually research products on social media before shopping. So that's quite a number of people.

2 - Invest in a post scheduling platform and connect your profiles

So there are tons of social media scheduling platforms out there. Use them. Look, you need to post frequently on all of your social media channels. And because you're a human being, you're going to forget to do that once in a while.

Hence, if you have decided to invest in social media then buy a subscription to a social media scheduling platform. Some are cheap, some are expensive, some have more features and some have less. So which one you select is up to you.

Mostly, they all offer the same or similar basic features, so you can't go that wrong. Posting frequently is crucial to building your brand on social media. Some examples of scheduling platforms would be Buffer, Hootsuite, Social Pilot, Sprout Social etc.

If you want a tool that's kind of limited but free then try Facebook Business Manager. You can't connect other social profiles besides Facebook & Instagram, but you can schedule posts for these two platforms.

3 - Growing your brand on social media by creating brand awareness

When you see a bird on a blue background, you know that it's the logo of Twitter. When you read the words 'Just Do It', you know that that's the tagline of Nike. That's called really good marketing.

They've successfully managed to create awareness for their brand and they're cashing in some pretty big checks. So how do you do that? By starting small and then scaling it slowly. Once you have at least 1000 likes/followers, you can run top of the funnel brand awareness campaigns on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn.

Keep your audience selection fairly broad to start with. Don't go with the highly targeted ads initially. Wait till you have more data, because data is everything.

In order to build up your brand name on social media, people should know that you exist. Running broad brand awareness campaigns will give you the initial audience data to start with and then you can think about increasing your sales by running targeted ads a bit further down the sales funnel.

Focus on building up your social clout and invest a limited amount of money on creating awareness. Link your profiles and share them on all social media platforms. You should be able to reach your audience anywhere.

4 - Create Content that connects and Find your niche. Do not try to please everyone!

When it comes to content, follow this golden rule. With your content, you should aim to add value, entertain and promote your products and services to your audience. You don't have to try and do all of these things in one single post.

You can create different posts that cater to one of these goals. But do not post irrelevant content, that does not relate to your brand or your audience. Posting irrelevant memes and re-shared content will kill your brand and destroy the trust factor.

Create posts that'll give people a reason to click. Solve their problems by providing a solution through your product or service, and then create a post explaining how you can do that and why should they care. Content such as contests, giveaways, polls, live broadcasts, Q & As work great for increasing audience engagement.

Videos work better than images, and images work better than text. Also, people are on social media to connect with friends and family. It's not a shop. Don't try the hardcore salesman/woman approach.

Try having conversations with your consumers. So promotions for your products and services should be run 10-20% of the time. Remaining 80%-90% of your posts should add value.

See my Content & Strategy blog, for additional details on social media content.

5 - Finding your brand voice, being consistent & collaborations

Brand Voice, might sound fancy but it's actually just the way you communicate with other people & businesses. Think about Nike for a sec. They sell sports apparel, equipment, shoes etc. So they usually come across as a very positive brand.

Their content and messaging is usually very inspiring, motivational, energizing, direct and sometimes fun. And they are consistent with this messaging on all the platforms, online and offline. They communicate in a certain way and their theme is consistent.

It also reflects in the way they interact online. That's their brand voice. Think of your brand as person. What is he/she like? Confident? Positive? Strong? Quirky? Excitable? Adventurous?

Figure out your brand voice and values, and then be consistent with it. Make sure everyone is on board and understands it very clearly. To read more about brand voice, check out my blog on How to Find Your Brand Voice & Why it Matters.

Moving on. Consistency.

Being consistent in terms of posts, messaging, branding, marketing, sales, will grow your brand on social media fairly quickly. Of course everything takes time, but sticking with it is the key here. If you can't post every single day, then start with 2-3 times a week.

Then gradually move up. You ideal goal should be between 4-6 times a week. Create separate content from different platforms as posts that are designed for Facebook might not work for LinkedIn or vice-versa. Every platform has it's own specific niche. So be creative with your posts and adapt it to different platforms.

And then we come to collaborations. Your brand cannot operate from a closed-off bunker. You need to spread the word.

And using someone else's audience could be a great way to create new fans. Collaborating on projects with like-minded people can be awesome. Then the final content can be posted on both of your channels to get the maximum reach and exposure.

So it's a win-win for all. So if you are a chef, you might want to collaborate with a food blogger or if you sell shoes then you can collaborate with an athlete.

Growing a brand takes a lot of time, money and effort. Along with constant monitoring, it requires a creative and open mind. So keep trying and be consistent.

In next Friday's post, we'll continue with this and look at 5 more ways to grow your brand on social media and dive into things like influencers, trends, SEO and more. Chao.

Abhishek Samant

Owner | Monochrome Social