Projecting a consistent brand image across social media is vital to the success of your business venture. Platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter are home to millions of users, and each of them provides a variety of tools and mechanisms for increasing brand awareness. Each is an effective platform to implement great social media branding.
It is up to you to use these tools to present your brand in a positive light, and acquire additional followers, customers, and brand advocates as a result.
This all sounds simple in theory, but in practice, there is a lot of nuances involved in managing a brand on social media.
Even massive brands such as McDonald’s and Uber have been known to make blunders on social media, and rebuilding consumer goodwill takes a lot of work.
If you’re still a novice social media in social media branding, the best thing you can do is to try and mimic what other successful brands are doing.
So in order to facilitate this, we have assembled a list of social media branding success stories which you can use as a model when coming up with your own ideas.
General Electric is a powerhouse.
General Electric
If we examine General Electrics’ most recent social media stunt, we will find a good example of how companies can utilize the work they do for creating share-worthy content on topics such as science, engineering, and technology.
General Electric has teamed up with Sam Cossman, a filmmaker whose latest project involved descending into the mouth of the Masaya volcano in Nicaragua.
The whole ordeal was streamed live on Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat, and the diver was equipped with a whole range of sensors for collecting data about the volcano.
The takeaway: publishing relevant content on your social media profile is an excellent way to build brand authority online.
Domino’s
Domino’s Pizza is leading the pack when it comes to social media branding in the fast food industry. Domino’s has given its customers on social media the option to order items by tweeting, a novelty to be sure, but one that portrays Domino’s as an innovator when it comes to using modern technology.
Another recent addition to their social media branding portfolio is Dom The Pizza Bot, a chatbot that allows customers to order their favorite pizzas through a messenger app.
The Takeaway: experimenting with social media is not necessarily practical, but it will portray your brand as always willing to try new things, which is what quality consumers expect from a forward-looking brand.
Nike
Follow Nike.
Nike is a company that has always been at the forefront of branding, and their recent social media marketing campaigns are a great example of why this is the case.
Since Nike is already an acknowledged industry leader when it comes to the quality of their apparel, their branding efforts are focused more on the impact their products have on people’s lives.
Nike’s Instagram profile is always delivering content that involves people talking about their passion to succeed, which is line with their famous motto “Just do it”.
The Takeaway: to create a successful brand on social media, the tone of your content should match the values and ideas your brand represents.
Airbnb
If there is one company that deserves a mention on our list for its Instagram profile, it is Airbnb. Aside selfies, cat pictures, and food porn travel photography are one of the main things people use Instagram, making it a natural fit for Airbnb.
Airbnb regularly posts content that is in line with their philosophy which focuses on living, rather than visiting. This gives their posts an authentic quality that is hard to match by other players in the hospitality industry, such as hotel chains.
The Takeaway: your branding on social efforts on social media should highlight your commitment to a particular ideal.
Coca-Cola
Coca-Cola has demonstrated its competence in social media branding by launching a YouTube channel called Coke TV. The channel features a variety of YouTube influencers, each of them with a sizeable following of their own.
This allows Coca-Cola to attract new followers without having to explicitly promote themselves on social media – they can simply hire people that will do the work for them.
The best part about this approach is that influencers don’t have to talk about Coca-Cola products to have people tune in to the channel.
The Takeaway: branding is not just about telling the world about your brand, it is also allowing others to speak in your stead, which can be even more effective.
Dove
In an age of ostentatious social media marketing, Dove’s commitment to meaningful narratives and social justice is portraying the company in a positive light.
Dove’s Self Esteem Project was created for the purpose of using social media to draw attention to prevailing social attitudes towards appearance, beauty, and identity. The latest campaign launched under this banner, dubbed #mybeautymysay, consists of screen captured comments which contain mean-spirited, sexist remarks about female athletes.
As the comments start to appear, the images will start to vanish, and those watching are then invited to take a stand on the issue.
The Takeaway: championing a cause through branding is one of the more direct ways to inspire loyalty in consumers.
L’Oreal
Branding is a means by which companies present themselves to consumers. Some brands choose to do this by talking about their products and services, others by creating content related to their industry niche.
Brands like L’Oreal take a slightly different approach – their branding efforts are focused on showing the day-to-day life at their company, in an effort to showcase the people behind the brand.
This kind of organizational transparency is crucial for building consumer trust, as well as employee recruitment and retention. This is accomplished by encouraging employees to use the #lifeatloreal hashtag when posting on social media.
The Takeaway: consumers are more likely to trust a brand that has a human face, so it is always advisable to provide one.
KLM
KLM is a brand with a keen understanding of what its customers want. For starters, they know that each of their customers has their own preferred communication channel, which means don’t like getting redirected to other ones in order to get what they want from the company.
As a result, KLM is spreading their branding efforts across all available channels, while maintaining a consistent visual design, in accordance with what logo and branding agencies have been recommending for ages.
The Takeaway: online branding is all about going where the people are, and by targeting multiple social networks, companies can be certain that they are reaching the widest possible audience.
The Guardian
The publisher is in a unique position when it comes to social media branding because their business model depends on distributing content on these networks. Among publishers, The Guardian stands out thanks to their commitment to branding through Twitter.
The Guardian has a separate Twitter account for each of its sections (from sports to weather, to film, etc.), which totals to more than 30 active accounts.
Each account has its own content calendar, and all of them are busy posting updates throughout the day, allowing readers to pick and choose the kind of news they want to follow.
The Takeaway: by using a social media platform to its full extent, brands can ensure their dominance in a particular niche on said platform.
The bottom line
There are many approaches to branding on social media, each with its own set of advantages and downsides. When deciding on which approach is right for your own brand, it would be wise to learn from the success of others and then try to adapt their strategies for your own purposes.
Angelina is a content creator with a background in digital marketing. She could also be tagged as someone who enjoys reading, vending machines and camping. She is positive and hard-working, but can also be very geeky.
