Know Your Social Platforms

When it comes to using social media for brand building, we find the  two biggest mistakes brands make are using platforms that don't align with their brand and posting the same content across all platforms. Brands are only as strong as the reach their messages get, so knowing what platforms your audience uses will help accomplish this goal more efficiently. 

Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn are the most popular social platforms; however, each of them consists of a different type of audience and is useful for portraying different types of messages. Knowing who your brand's audience is will help you decide which platforms to use. Twitter does not hold a lot of older users, so if your brand is not aimed at that older generation, putting effort into gaining a Twitter following may not be the most useful strategy. Knowing the platforms and their audiences and knowing your brand's audience will help you determine which platforms are best to use for your brand.

Once you have determined which platforms are best for your brand, it is important to create different content for each platform. If you post the same content to your Facebook as your do Instagram, it won't make sense for your audience to follow you on both platforms. Each platform has a different aesthetic for posting content, and your content should align with the feeling of each platform. This is not to say you cannot talk about the same things on your platforms, but the content itself should never be word for word on multiple platforms. 

Additionally, shaping the voice of your message to match the tone of the platform will also attract a stronger following. For example, Twitter is often used as a humorous medium, so posting content with a serious or business tone may not read as well as adding humor to the content. There a million different ways to say the same thing, so shifting the tone of your message for different platforms is an easy way to use the medium effectively. 

Social media is a great way to build brand awareness and create a space for your audience to engage with your brand. In order to do this effectively, however, you must know which platforms work best with your brand's image and message. Building a strong brand involves putting out content daily, so spending your time efficiently on the platforms that attract your audience will be more useful than trying to have a voice on all platforms.