by Ben Laube

Representing your brand effectively on social media is one of the most important tasks to consider when jumping into this type of marketing. By doing so, you bring brand awareness and cohesiveness to your audience, which in turn builds familiarity and trust. Representing your brand on social media is fairly simple as long as your business has its ideals and image secured. On multiple platforms you’re able to upload cover photos. It’s important to use the same design concept in each cover photo for visual brand clarity. Though some dimension variations of the photos have to be taken into consideration due to the sizing limitations of each network, a similar graphic will help people remember your brand. Make sure your logos are consistent across the profiles, as well. The next step is ensuring your brand’s voice is heard throughout the text of the page, as well as in posts. Establish a voice that clearly defines your company’s culture. Remember, social media is your online persona; let it represent you well. Having a cohesive social content strategy is another facet to consider. What are you posting? How often are you posting? Are you posting the same content to specific profiles? Take a step back and decide how and what you want to post. You never want to bombardfollowers with promotion after promotion after promotion. Ask them questions; get their opinions. Engagement is key. Talking at, rather than to, your followers is the quickest way to lose them. With the vast array of social networks out there, it can be difficult to determine where to focus. Think strategically about the best fit—not every platform is right for every business. Here’s a quick rundown of a few that can help expand your company’s outreach.

Do's and Don'ts of social media
  • Facebook: Basically the home base of all social media. No matter the industry, your business needs a Facebook page to interact with customers.
  • Twitter: A popular microblogging outlet that allows users to easily find people with the same interests. It’s also a fantastic news outlet to syndicate your brand’s press, ideas and thoughts.
  • Google+: Essentially the Google version of Facebook, with collaborative abilities such as Google Hangouts, a messaging, video, chat and file-sharing platform. All Google+ posts are indexed by Google and show up in their search results.
  • LinkedIn: The professional social media hotspot. Here, you can represent your business by hosting discussions and building connections.