College is hard. Like, really hard. So, to blow off a little steam during the semester, my roommates and I decided to start a weekly game night. Because of its competitive and — let’s be real — slightly addictive nature, our preferred game of choice was UNO. We must’ve played UNO over 30 times that year alone, so we knew the rules inside and out, obviously. Or at least… we thought we did. I recently stumbled across UNO’s Twitter and let me tell you, they made sure to let me know just how wrong I’ve been playing UNO.
I discovered UNO’s Twitter, and a week later, I was still wanting to play a game. Why couldn’t I stop thinking about this silly card game? Because UNO got my attention. UNO used digital storytelling on their social media to get your attention and keep it. When you look at UNO’s social, it doesn’t sound like it’s coming from someone in a blue suit sitting in an executive suite. It sounds like it’s coming from your friend who really does love you, but also wants to let you know that you’re doing everything wrong.
Getting noticed online is the name of the game when it comes to social media marketing. But getting people’s attention isn’t the hard part — keeping their attention is. In order to keep people’s attention on social media, you need social that stands out, social that tells your brand story. Stop with the corporate gobbledygook. Consumers see right through it.
Stop the Corporate Nonsense
Social media is an essential piece of your marketing strategy that helps you connect and build relationships with customers, increase overall brand awareness, and generate sales. You don’t have to be a social media expert to create a strong social media presence; you just have to be authentic. You don’t want to have social media that looks just like everyone else’s bland, boring, corporate gobbledygook. Actually, you can’t have social media that looks just like everyone else’s. Every month more than 3 billion people use social media, and your content needs to be able to stand out against your competitors to capture and hold the attention of these users.
Your Brand Needs Personality
So, how the hell do you actually capture the attention of 3 billion social media users? You need to develop a brand personality that helps accurately and effectively tell your brand story. Think of UNO’s social media as a person. How would UNO talk, dress, shop, etc.? What is it about UNO that makes them who they are? That is brand personality. One of the most important things to keep in mind when developing a brand personality is to be authentic. You need to decide on the tone and voice you will use online — which should represent who you really are, not who you want to be. When you’re developing your brand personality, it’s important to think about what it is that your consumers really want. Brand personality helps consumers relate to your company, and it builds an emotional bond with customers when they see similarities between their personalities and your brand personality.
Customers these days are educated, so they aren’t looking for tons of — let’s be honest — boring information to be thrown at them. Focus on creating social media content that lets customers get to know you, your brand, and your brand story, rather than trying to sell something to them. Consumers these days love, and I mean looove, behind the scenes content. Content that gives customers the opportunity to connect with real people. Behind the scenes content or content that gets customers involved in the conversation can help make your social media stand out compared to your competitors.
You don’t have to have the funniest or sassiest tweets to get noticed online. In fact, all you have to do is be authentically you. Use your brand’s personality to help you stand out against all the corporate gobbledygook.
