This is a guest contribution from Miranda Burford of Swiftly.
Social media marketing is one of the best ways to attract visitors to your blog. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube are among the hottest components in the modern marketer’s toolkit. But how do you make sure the branding you’ve built on your blog translates to all these other platforms? Here are five tips you can action right now to ensure you’re consistent across the board.
1. Develop a unique look and feel
You always want to ensure that your social profiles are instantly recognizable as your own. Bring the logo, fonts, styles and imagery that define your brand (and your blog) to all of your communication outlets. Your profile pics and background images should be eye-catching and refreshed regularly — there’s really no option for staying stale on social media! If you’re not a designer, seek out some help. At Swiftly, for example, bloggers can quickly get a custom profile pic or background image for just $15.
2. Post fresh content regularly
Keep cranking out unique, engaging content on all of your social media channels by creating a varied publishing schedule and sticking to it. Posting regularly at peak times is extremely important (there are apps that can help pinpoint your audience’s best times), especially on Facebook and Twitter. Along with sharing your latest blog posts, try posting relevant news, photos, links and interviews you see around the web.
3. Be human to connect with your audience
Blogs and social media outlets are not always the place for a hard sell. Be natural and have some fun. Create a consistent and well-defined voice that accurately reflects the tone on your blog. Don’t be afraid to poke fun at yourself! You’ll build a network by continually showing your personality to the world.
4. Engage with your community
Always focus on ways to develop an active online community. Encourage participation by fueling discussions, showcasing stories, sharing thoughts and running competitions. Remember to invite comments, questions, and suggestions from your audience, and be sure to reply to criticism right away. Being transparent will win over your audience.
5. Embrace your pro status
Be a top influencer in your industry by continuously sharing awesome content. It doesn’t all have to be original. Repurpose content whenever you can. Create partnerships with relevant businesses or other bloggers and work on a content sharing strategy together. Keep blogging and curating content to establish yourself as a thought leader in your industry.
Miranda Burford is the Marketing Manager for Swiftly. Swiftly, a new service by 99designs, can get your small design jobs done in under an hour for just $19.
Thanks for the awesome tips, I really need to focus on social media branding.
And always have some type of home base, like a blog – where you can tie all of your social channels together, and have control of how you’re represented on all of them.
Being transparent will win over your audience
“You always want to ensure that your social profiles are instantly recognizable as your own.” I’m really happy you said this! I feel like I put so much time and effort into little things that make me unique and sometimes I wonder if it’s worth it, but I know it is. The look of your page describes who you are. It is your brand. I’m currently creating a prezi for my Sports Journalism class and I love messing around with the fonts and images. While my grade doesn’t depend on the creativity of my presentation I think it’s important to take those extra steps to stand out.
“Post fresh content regularly!” My number pet peeve is when a beauty gurus I follow don’t post at least one new video a week. This is their job! They should be posting videos at least once a week to keep their fans attention in tact. Of course like you said, the information posted needs to be relevant.
Also, I know at times it may seem like there’s nothing new to talk about, but it’s important to keep fresh eyes, read the news to know the newest trends so you know what to post and can keep coming up with ideas.
Great post,
It is also worthwhile to mention that including images, infographics, memes in Facebook,Google+ posts helps increasing CTRs. It also increases the engagement of users with your brand.
Darren, at the same time I also wonder that why you do not include Guest Blogger name in the “About Guest Blogger” section? Is there a logical reason behind it?
Cheers,
Akshay Hallur.
I am trying to promote posts through social media these days, thanx for these tips.
Now a day Social Media play a major role for all types of business. Am doing social media work daily and these tips are new and very useful for me. Thanks for sharing this useful post.
Glad to hear that there are services which help develop custom background pics. Haven’t thought much about branding but I feel this should be helpful for Google plus covers and Twitter backgrounds
Hi nice one, social media is indeed a nice place to promot your products just that facebook banned my account today, all thesamethanks for the info.
Excellent post. People should feel so connected to you that they are compelled to endorse you as a reflection of their own thoughts.
Thank fo the tips, , ,, you really nailed it! Hope to impement it later
If you don’t know how to go about blogging, you will soon get tired if there are no results.
Great list of tips, Miranda…
I am currently working on a new project and this article is really helpful…
These are great tips. I am working on a project for my marketing class and there is big emphasis on using social media to attract people. I am finding people are more influenced by word of mouth and social media is the perfect outlet and tool to use ‘word of mouth’ marketing. I am certainly looking for some good social media ideas to bring attention to the client’s webpage including their blog.
social media even made some bloggers override backlinks. all because of their link wheel in social media has been very strong. Some of the things I took away from this post: 1. Consistent, 2.strong caracter, 3. hard work and 4.have fun
Yes social media marketing is very powerful tool for every marketing.its the best way to promote our business.We have to be active in order to increase our social presence.The Above Social Media Strategies which you told are really awesome.Will try to follow the above tips.thanks for sharing
this post really good to understand “how to use social networking sites effectively”. i am a blogger and this post is very helpful for me to share my post link in social networking sites.
Nice article..above Five points are important bt i think Embrace your pro status is very usefull in Social Media marketing
When I first read the The headline “embrace your pro status” I thought that the snippet might advise to claim a title that you are an expert. I have heard quite a few complaints that people are claiming they are experts in a field, particularly in social media, when not so. But, the snippet really simply advised to continuously become an expert and network with other related experts. Nice post.
If we need to market anything on Internet then Social media presence is essential and there should be Social media marketing strategy to promote online.Focusing oin building social relationship will surely help to build the brand on social networks.
These are great tips on how to create name or brand recognition. I’m still struggling trying to get Facebook likes on my business page without cheating. Any suggestions?
Great article,
want to brand my blog on social sites and was looking for good ideas and process through which I can brand it, now a days social site are the best way to market our products and reach millions of people.
Thanks for sharing this with us.
Excellent post. Nice tips have been provided in this blog thanks for the tips.
Thanks for such nice tips,all five of them are truly helpful.social media is indeed powerful now than it was.
Is there a peak time to post on social media based on the platform or the type of audience?
Wow This is such great post. Very useful points, Specially point #2 for me, It is the most commomn thing that we shoul post fresh contents regularly, but i did not follow this point before, i Post just 3 to 4 articles on my every blog, now i should concern on one or two blogs and follow your point no #2 :). well thanks for sharing.
Thank you for these great tips! I am currently working on my personal social media plan in my PR writing class. We are required to choose three social media tools plus create a PR focused blog in order to develop our personal brand. I am happy I came across this blog because I will use these tips to guide me as I make my social media plan. Something I would add to this article that would help others with social media branding, is to identify what it is that you hope to accomplish. Do you hope to build relationships? Show off your creative works to others? Expand your personal network? etc. Thanks again for sharing these tips and I will use them for the future!
hi………….problogger great post.
Create partnerships with relevant businesses or other bloggers and work on a content sharing strategy together. Keep blogging and curating content to establish yourself as a thought leader in your industry.
Finally I learnt how to brand my social media profiles . Thank you for sharing
i too agree with your article… i’m also trying to promote my blog in social media. but few bloggers suggested me social media is not the good idea to expose your blog, better to focus on other SEOs. Suggest me other better ideas to promote my blog.
I have been in the hunt also to create a brand it’s very time consuming but in the end it will pay off I have been using the tools above plus some of my own if you are at the point where you are ready to give up keep pushing give it at least 2 months and I’m sure you will start seeming some changes
Learning how to make the most out of your brand when it comes to social media really is an uphill struggle which very few overcome. It’s great to have resources such as this that we can all bookmark and use as a guide.
Thank you for sharing. It is the most commomn thing that we shoul post fresh contents regularly, but i did not follow this point before, i Post just 3 to 4 articles on my every blog, now i should concern on one or two blogs and follow your point no #2 :). well thanks again for sharing.
Excellent post. now a days social media becomes a most powerful tool for every online business.