Like any tool, depending on how you use it, social media can either help nail down your marketing strategy, or strip it like a screw. If your strategy involves creating brand awareness (which it obviously should), then there are several objectives you need to consider when choosing your social media outlet.
Think of social media’s influence on your brand awareness as a cookie. Having no cookie at all certainly won’t satiate your audience’s voracious appetites. However, some cookies stand out while others crumble. Whether your marketing objective is SEO-driven (link to previous blog), or focused on increasing your brand’s appeal, social media can be a powerful component.
We’re going to look at the social media outlets, or cookies, that are more beneficial to raising your organization’s brand awareness, ranking from mediocre packaged treats to the scrumptious delights everyone craves.
The BOGO cookies in the brand awareness mix:
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Facebook: It may come as a shock to many companies that are trying to build an online presence that Facebook’s organic reach is limited. A recent survey indicated that its reach has fallen 49% since October 2013.
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YouTube: Getting buzz for your brand on YouTube takes time. It’s a channel capable of uniting your audience around targeted and relevant content, but pairing your videos with pre-roll advertisements can cost you viewers and limit your brand influence.
Grandma’s Homemade Magic On The Brand Awareness Plate:
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Google+ presents a higher overall exposure factor for your brand compared to the social media platforms above. It favors higher placement for branded web pages, as well as the authors of those pages.
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Instagram is highly visual, simple and clean. This social media platform is being used by more than 70% of the largest brands in the world. The opportunities for brand building on Instagram are limitless, considering how visually driven consumers are.
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LinkedIn business pages carry considerable influence. Strong optimized posts give brands many opportunities to increase brand awareness on the platform and across the web overall. New paid features added in February give organizations even more reach.
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Pinterest gives brands an opportunity to be creative when promoting their brand. They can even fully repackage their brand while users scroll through scores of other pins by adding content styled in different ways that will still all lead back to their main website through embedded links.
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Slideshare serves an advantage in being able to deliver slide presentations to a mass audience all in one place online. Companies can use Slideshare to further brand themselves by embedding links throughout their presentations that lead viewers back to their website or company blog.
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Twitter applications such as HootSuite and TweetCaster allow brands to consistently place their message at the most opportune moment to truly capture interest and engagement. Twitter also offers sponsored tweets, which can be used to highlight a company’s overall brand message to its followers and target market.
The bottom line is that you never want to put all your cookies in one jar when building brand awareness. It’s a best practice to utilize multiple social media platforms to gain new and existing customer interest. Create a persona in your audience’s mind of what your brand is all about.
To learn the best social media channels to increase customer communication, stay tuned for Part 3 of our “4 for All and All for Social Media” series.
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