Are you struggling to create awareness for your brand? Social media is a great way to get the word out. No doubt, brand awareness is important for your business growth. To achieve this growth, all you need to do is to push your brand hard enough on social media.
Social media has been around for a while and isn’t going anywhere. In fact, 85% of businesses use social media primarily for brand awareness.
Sadly, despite all the goodies social media offers, about 50% of small businesses are not on social media, and an additional 25% do not plan to use social media at all.
If you belong to any of these two categories, you’re missing out on a lot. Read on to see why you should use social media to grow your brand. That’s not all. We will also show you 31 practical ways to get ahead in business by promoting your brand on social media.
If you’re already using social media, you’ll also learn how to increase user engagement on whichever social media platform you choose.
Here are the highlights of this article:
- Why should you use social media for brand awareness?
- Benefits of using social media to build brand awareness
- 31 practical ways to build brand awareness on social media
- Conclusion
Ready? Let’s dive right in.
Why You Should Use Social Media for Brand Awareness
Whether you’re selling a product, offering a service, or simply creating content, you need social media to grow your brand awareness.
This is why social media branding has become popular. Social media branding simply refers to the various actions brand owners take to increase their brand awareness on social media.
So, how does social media help build a brand and why should you care?
Consider this: Facebook alone has 2.74 billion monthly active users, an increase of 12% year-over-year. This is proof of the huge potential social media has to offer.
In addition to increasing sales, social media can also help grow your brand’s visibility.
Let’s explore some specific reasons why you should use social media for brand awareness.
Benefits of Using Social Media to Build Brand Awareness
If you’re wondering how social media can help in brand awareness and boost your conversions, here are 3 important ways it does so.
1. It’s Cost-Effective
Using social media to promote your brand will cost you almost nothing. Even if you decide to use sponsored advertising, you’ll find that it’s relatively inexpensive and very flexible.
Traditional methods of building brand awareness come with higher costs and lower ROI when compared with social media. This is why social media should be your first go-to strategy for building awareness for your brand.
2. Get Ideas for Your Content Strategy
Do you sometimes run out of content ideas? Social media is a good place to check out current trends, topics, and what your audience is interested in. These will in turn help you develop a content strategy and create a social media marketing plan that is relevant to your audience.
3. Lead Generation
Do you know that you can grow your leads just by promoting on social media? This explains why 68% of businesses are actively using it to win more customers. So, what are you waiting for?
Not only has social media allowed me to reach new audiences, but nbablast has also given me valuable insights into what people are looking for from brands like mine, allowing me to continuously improve the effectiveness of my marketing efforts
31 Practical Ways to Build Brand Awareness on Social Media
Now that you know the benefits of using social media for brand awareness, you want to make sure you do it right. To this end, we’ve compiled 31 practical tips you can implement right away.
1. Know Your Target Audience
Targeting the right audience is key to succeeding with social media marketing. So, start by defining your audience.
Your ideal audience is made up of people that need your products the most. Knowing who these people are will make it easy for you to connect with them on social media and interact with them effectively.
2. Do Your Research
After knowing your target audience, you need to do some research.
First, find out which social media platforms your target audience uses more frequently. The type of products you sell is also a good way to decipher this.
If you sell courses, for example, you’ll find the majority of your audience on LinkedIn. If yours is a cosmetic brand, Instagram would be a good place to start your brand awareness.
Next, you want to know what time they are usually online. To determine this, note what time of the day your posts receive the most engagement. Third-party tools like Sprout Social can provide you with the analytics you need to get this information. With this, you’ll know when to post your content and get maximum engagement.
Also, find out what industry-related topics users of each platform search for. This information will come in handy when you begin to develop content for your social media.
3. Create Engaging Content
If the content you post is not engaging enough, your target audience will happily scroll past them. You don’t want that, do you?
There are probably many other brands on social media that do the same thing you do. The surest way to stand out is by posting engaging content that will grab the attention of your audience,” says Peter Brook, head of content marketing at Ivory Research
There are many ways to make your posts engaging. You can use real photos (maybe a selfie) instead of stock photos, tell a short but interesting story, include customer testimonials, or add a graphic image like this one to your post:
4. Use Influencers
Did you know that 61% of consumers have at some point been swayed in their decision-making by digital influencers? Influencers typically have a huge following on social media. This is why it makes sense to employ their services for increasing your brand awareness on social media.
It’s smart to use relevant influencers in your industry or niche. They are more likely to have your ideal audience as their followers.
They’ll not only put your brand in front of a lot of people but also help you drive traffic to your social media account. Here’s an example of an influencer working with GymShark to promote the fitness brand.
5. Interact with Your Followers
It’s called social media for a reason. If you’re not being social, why are you there in the first place?
With that said, initiate conversations with your followers, post content that directly prompts them to leave comments.
By doing this, you’ll earn more followers and retain the ones you already have. It’ll also be easy to remember your brand when they have related needs.
6. Pay Attention and Respond to Feedback
According to The Manifest, hundreds of thousands of people are ready to hold businesses accountable for their shortcomings via a storm of tweets and hashtags.
In the same way, they also give positive feedback about brands they’ve had a good experience with. You could say that social media doubles as a customer service platform and you would be correct.
Thus, you need to have your ears to the ground and respond to feedback as soon as it’s possible. It shows that your brand is humane and that you care about the needs of your followers.
7. Use a Separate Content Strategy for Each Social Media Platform
Don’t restrict yourself to using just one social media platform. At the same time, don’t make the mistake of sharing the same posts across all platforms.
It’s true that social media platforms like Instagram, for example, gives you the option to syndicate your content to your other social media platforms. However, trust us when we say that it’s not a smart move.
Here’s why: users on one social media platform interact differently from users on another. Also, the structure of each social media platform differs from the other. For example, while Instagram is structured for highly visual posts and short captions, a long post with minimal visuals will do better on LinkedIn.
8. Optimize Your Social Media Profiles
So, you created social media accounts on every platform your audience is likely to be on. Great! But it doesn’t end there. You need your audience to recognize your brand as soon as they land on your profile pages.
You probably already know that the average person has a short attention span – and it’s getting shorter. So, you want to optimize your profile to make it recognizable at a glance. Nike does this by using its swoosh logo on their Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram social media profile pages respectively.
When your profiles, focus on your bios, display pictures, and other elements of your profile. Use clear pictures and few words. This is important for building your brand image and attracting your ideal audience.
To ensure your profile pictures and elements look professional, you can click here and use a free tool like Picsart to get high-quality results when editing any image.
Also, don’t forget to link your social media profiles to each other.
9. Leverage Your Email List
Who says you can’t promote your social media handles through emails? So, don’t hesitate to drive traffic to your social media accounts with your email list.
With the right content on your social media, you’ll easily convert your email subscribers to social media followers. Simply include buttons that link to your social media platforms at the end of each email like this:
10. Collaborate with Related Brands
The saying that no one is an island also holds when it comes to building your brand on social media. Apart from influencers, collaborate with other brands in your niche to create social media brand awareness campaigns.
Need we mention that these brands should not be your direct competitors? They can be brands that sell complementary products to what you offer, but not competitors.
11. Host Giveaways and Contests
Be generous. People love giveaways. Take advantage of this and watch your following swell.
Be strategic though. Don’t just give stuff away without a plan to increase your brand awareness. This is where a contest may come in handy. Simple, creative contests with a prize attached will win you followers on social media anytime.
12. Promote Your Social Media Channels
Promote your social media channels at every opportunity. Put links to your social media accounts in your marketing emails, on your website, and at the end of every blog post.
Also, you may put your social media handles on marketing materials such as flyers, banners, business cards, labels, and so on.
13. Always Stick to Your Brand Theme
Your brand theme communicates your brand’s message to your audience. It determines how your audience perceives your brand over time.
You don’t want your audience to get confused whenever they land on your brand’s social media page. That’s why your brand theme should always be consistent across all your content on social media platforms.
One of the reasons for brand awareness is to ensure that your audience can recognize your brand anywhere. Using brand elements like your logo, colors, and emblems across your social media platforms can play a huge role in building your brand awareness.
14. Set Short and Long Term Goals
Set SMART (Specific, Measureable, Achievable, Realistic, and Timely) goals for your social media branding efforts. This way you can map out defined strategies for building brand awareness.
Consider setting your goals around:
- Number of followers
- The number of likes
- Number of shares or retweets
- Level of engagement
A typical example of a short-term goal would be: “To have 3000 new Instagram followers in 3 months”.
15. Give Your Social Interactions Some Personality
Don’t sound like a bot. Or you won’t stand out from the crowd of brands that put up posts with the same links, a call-to-action, and a couple of hashtags.
Let your unique brand voice come through in every content you post. This is how to add personality to your brand. This in turn makes people more likely to interact with your brand.
No matter how boring or basic your products are, be assured that you can always connect to your audience on a personal level with your social media posts.
16. Use Hashtags
Did you know that posts with at least one hashtag generate about 12.6% more engagement than posts with no hashtags?
Instagram, for example, allows users to search for posts and accounts using hashtags. Therefore, if you’re wondering how to increase brand awareness on Instagram, start with using hashtags.
17. Have A Reservoir of Content Ideas For Your Social Media
Worried that you might run out of content to post? Create a reservoir of content ideas for your social media ahead of time.
You could schedule a brainstorming session once every month, for example, to gather content ideas for the next month. This way, you won’t have to always think on your feet to come up with content for your social media accounts.
18. Use Images and Videos
Posts with images and videos are visually appealing content and always draw attention. They get a lot of engagement and are a great way to boost brand awareness on social media.
The catch, however, is that you should ensure that whatever you post is relevant to your brand and useful to your audience.
19. Talk About Your Community-Centered Activities
Do you organize or sponsor community-centered events or projects at your business? Share posts containing pictures and videos of your activities on your social media platforms. People are naturally drawn to brands that give back to their communities. It shows that they care about people and are not all about making profits.
If your brand isn’t involved in such events, consider organizing or participating in one. It could be as simple as providing bottles of water to volunteers at a community clean-up.
20. Use Engaging Captions
When you post captions on social media, don’t just add the same call-to-action, a couple of hashtags, and call it a day.
Captions are another way to pass your brand message across to your audience. Let your creative juices flow into your captions. Infuse some humor and feel free to use emojis. Make a commentary on your posts and ask your audience to interact with them.
This increases your popularity among your audience and attracts more followers to your account.
21. Increase Your Reach with Sponsored Ads
Sponsored ads help you reach your target audience faster than with an organic social media strategy.
This aspect of using social media for brand building will cost you a bit of money. Thankfully, you can adjust your advertising costs to the size of your budget.
If you’re looking to reach a very specific audience and quickly too, combine paid social media ads with your regular organic strategy to get the best results.
22. Tag Brands and People Whenever Necessary
When you post content on social media that involve other brands or people- and you should- tag or mention them in your posts or comments.
This increases your reach beyond your followers as you’d be putting your brand in front of their audience too.
23. Post Consistently
Dropping random posts once in a while won’t cut it for brand awareness. If you do, your audience will easily shift their attention to your competitors.
To avoid this, create a content posting plan. Whether you decide to put up posts twice a day or once a week, make sure the frequency is consistent.
24. Use Social Media Management Tools
Managing multiple social media accounts and platforms can be difficult. Thankfully, there are tools you can leverage to make your work easy.
For the best third-party social media management tools, you can use, go here to read more.
25. Leverage Trends
In every industry, there’ll always be a trending topic per time. And people like to talk about trending topics.
So, if you’re looking to spark conversations with and among your audience, don’t hesitate to create social media content around these topics.
It’s a good way to get noticed on social media and establish yourself as a thought leader in your industry. And, if you haven’t already guessed, that’s a boost in your brand awareness.
26. Join Related Groups on Social Media
Social media platforms like Facebook and LinkedIn allow you to join groups. These groups are communities usually made up of industry experts, influencers, enthusiasts, and the regular audience.
Joining a related group and connecting with these people helps you build a reputation for your brand which in turn increases the popularity of your brand.
27. Use the Live Stream Feature
Live streams are the current rave. It’s a social media feature that allows you to record live videos. You’ll find it on platforms like Instagram and Facebook.
With live streams, you get to see how many people are watching your recording. Your audience can also leave comments in real-time. With these perks, you get even more engagement than images and videos. Therefore, don’t miss out on this trend.
With the least requirements being a smartphone, a good internet connection, a good source of lighting, and a social media app, a live stream doesn’t take a lot of effort.
Generate high levels of engagement with social media live streams and watch your brand awareness get a significant boost.
28. Respond Quickly to Social Media Mentions
Word spreads fast, and negative news even faster. Responding quickly whenever you’re mentioned on social media is an effective way to keep your audience engaged. You’ll also be able to quell the damaging effects of a negative comment before it leads to a crisis.
29. Use GIFs
A whopping 70% of people living in the United States use emojis, GIFs, and stickers in their daily communications. A part of this statistic are big brands that use GIFs in their social media brand awareness campaigns.
GIFs are no longer just for jokes. They are a good way to make your content go viral on social media. You can use branded GIFs featuring your logo or products for even better results.
30. Infuse Humor into Your Content
People love humor- whether it’s satire, sarcasm, or outright funny content. It endears people to your brand, makes you unforgettable, and gives your content a personal touch.
So, quit posting boring content and use some humor on your social media pages. As long as you maintain your brand voice, you’ll gradually get good traction for your brand.
31. Track Your Performance
Building your brand on social media does take time. While at it, it’s smart to track your progress by measuring your engagement, mentions, shares, and other relevant metrics.
Thankfully, most social media platforms have analytic features that give you insights into your performance. With these insights, you’ll know what’s working and what to tweak per time.
Conclusion
With social media, you get to increase your brand awareness at a relatively low cost. Your brand awareness won’t grow overnight though. But with some patience, consistency, and the tips we’ve given you above, you’ll be well on your way to building a brand that is easily recognized by your audience.
Sign up on Adoric to leverage tools that can speed up your brand awareness on social media. Also, don’t hesitate to share these tips with your network if you found them helpful.
