Brand building is a key ingredient to your business’ success. One way to do that is through utilizing social media to portray the kind of image that you want your potential clients to see.

Having your own website is indeed important to establish authority, but social media platforms are the best avenues at the moment to coherently build your personal brand. This will be the reference of your audience on what kind of voice you have when marketing products or services.

Try this: Go on incognito mode in Google and look for your brand name. There is a high probability that the top five results you’ll get include 2 to 3 social media accounts that your social media or marketing teams regularly update. These are the digital assets that you should be taking care of.

Here are some actionable tips on how you can start crafting your business’ brand through social media engagement.

1) Identify your target audience

The beauty of digital marketing is that we can easily target specific audiences who we want to reach with our content. Since posting on your social media channels will be targeted to your connections as well as people who look for you online, you’d want to make a connection between you and the audience.

Building personas or archetypes of the people in your audience that will consume your content is a great way to get started. Identify the demographic of those who interact with your posts. You can also set a new persona that you are not currently connecting with and find people who fit in that persona by asking them their preferences.

2) Write your brand’s mission statement

In an article by Americus Reed II Ph.D. in “Think With Google,” he emphasized that having an Identity Loyalty framework through social media is integral to a brand’s success since this positioning statement will set it apart from its competitors.

The two questions that your brand’s mission statement should answer are:

• What value do you offer to your target audience?; and
• How will they benefit from it?

 A way to narrow down what side of your brand will be seen by your audience is through word mapping. Just get a pen and paper or use online tools. Write down all the things that your brand is associated with. This will give you a visual cue that will help determine which facets of your business you want to highlight.

3) Find the social media platforms that hook your audience

Parking your brand name on popular social media accounts gives you control over which platform you will maximize. After that, observe which of your accounts get the highest engagement. Facebook is good for brand recognition since it already has more than 1.94 billion users according to CNN Money. If you stay tapped into the best times to post on Facebook, you can take your reach even further. LinkedIn is great for brands looking to sell services to other businesses. Instagram and Pinterest are platforms where you can showcase fashion and retail through striking images.

4) Set a content style guide to build consistency with your posts

The fourth tip is for the core action step. Setting your brand’s tone will set you apart from other brands with the same target market. Your brand’s tone comprises two factors: aesthetic and messaging.

The aesthetic will include your logo and the color palette you’ll use across your social media accounts. Make branding guidelines that can include a logo, color schemes, and even filters you can use when editing your photos.

The messaging will determine how you will say what you know to your audience. Draft a style guide and social media content strategy to determine what operative words to use, and what not to post on your accounts.

You can see these four tips in action with these individuals who have business empires under them so you can get social media branding ideas.

Richard Branson and the Virgin Group of Companies

Looking at what Richard Branson posts on his social media accounts, from sleeping employees to company parties, he has put the core of his messaging in entrepreneurship with a heart. Donned with predominantly white and red hues of the Virgin Group of Companies, Richard’s social media accounts share anecdotes and nuggets of wisdom from his everyday life. He has taken ownership of a narration style that many entrepreneurs do not use on social media.

Oreo

Most of us won’t forget dunking in the dark with Oreo during the blackout in the Super Bowl last 2013. Oreo’s playful tone injected into their timely social media content has gotten most of us hooked.

Some of their most notable campaigns include re-designing their cookies based on memorable events and their response to the Tic Tac Toe challenge by Kitkat.

Paris Hilton

When you see images that are predominantly pink and have a lot of sparkle on them, you think of Hollywood starlets, including Paris Hilton.

From being a reality TV show superstar to a business empire owner, Paris Hilton has a unique online presence. She curates it through girly glitz and glamor that seem natural to her. Behind this is her success in making her audience get into her world and access her lifestyle through her self-named line of products that are featured in her social media accounts.

Joe Pulizzi

He is one of the most recognized content marketing professionals worldwide, and that didn’t happen by accident. Content marketing evangelist Joe Pulizzi established his brand by wearing orange accent pieces at work. He chose this color because it’s striking and people would easily remember him for that.

Today, he runs JoePulizzi.com and Content Marketing Institute, one of the most successful to-go learning hubs of content marketers worldwide. He may not have millions of followers on Twitter or Instagram, but targets content marketing professionals and business owners to read the content tips he shares.

Marie Forleo TV

After watching a Marie Forleo video on YouTube, you will close the laptop feeling motivated to conquer the world. She derived her appeal from carefully-chosen encouraging words and her feminine aesthetics.

She is also a great example of finding your personal brand identity. At first, she was a fitness instructor, and now a motivational speaker. Those are complete opposites of the spectrum but she has found a way to harmonize all of these into one empowering brand.

Bringing It All Together

Branding in social media is a great way to showcase your brand’s values and products. This can open a lot of opportunities. Some include increased engagement and sales for your company while sharing values with your audience.