Brands in the social space

Lately I’ve been spending a lot of my brain space on social content creative development. As a designer with deep roots in branding, I’ve been noticing a significant amount of crossover between the disciplines, in ways you might not expect. Branding is your reputation, your interactions, the emotions your logo and identity evoke, the messages you clearly convey. Traditionally, everything about branding evokes permanent, fixed messages.

Social media can give the impression that all communication is fleeting, fragmented and inconsequential. Without thoughtful consideration, they can seem small-minded, mundane and frankly not very interesting. Or worse yet, content can whip-saw across disparate topics and tonalities, losing all credibility in the process.

Those little posts can carry a lot of unnecessary baggage. I would argue they actually have the potential to forge stronger bonds than ever before with your audience, because they have the potential to cut through the clutter. When conceived with a clear purpose, they can deliver rich layered stories that entice consumers to make lasting connections with your brand.

Here are a few questions I have come up with to help forge stronger bonds with your audience by delivering your brand promise in the social space.

1.     How well does your brand travel? To travel well, you need to know where you want to go. Branding is strategy in action, as is social. It’s important to take a hard look at your brand’s mission and clarify and correct any competing messages before you take your show on the road.

2.     Who wants to travel with you? Develop personas, engage in qualitative testing, interviews. Hone and refine. Start a dialogue with your desired audience. It can be surprising and inciteful.

3.     Have you clearly marked the path? The strongest brands offer a journey with clear mile markers and scenic overlooks. Good journey mapping can help with this.

4.     What do you want to talk about on this journey? Social engagement rests upon a foundation of shared enthusiasm for a particular life path. Don’t fake it. Get to know them. Let them get to know you.

5.     Are you offering your target audience the chance to travel with you or are you only offering up sporadic postcards with cryptic indications of where and who you are? Make sure you offer them a seat. Commit to behave like a person in words and deeds, they’ll gladly go along for the ride.

6.     What does the end of the journey look like? Everyone in the world has an end goal they want to achieve, including your potential customers. So, take your people on a journey of the mind and watch what happens.