In part 1 of our blog we gave an insight into branding and Social Media. We ended by looking at a Framework for building your brand on Social Media, the 3 E’s:
1) Emotion, 2) Expertise and 3) Engage.
This week were are going to take a look at the 3 E’s more in depth and how they can be applied to your brand.
Emotion
For any brand to be successful on Social Media it’s necessary to inject emotion into your Brand. Emotion also helps to humanise your brand on Social Media. People can relate to your brand on a more personal level through a humanised brand.
You have to convey what your brand stands for and how it differentiates itself from your competitors. Most importantly your brand must emphasise its ‘Core Values’.
Sometimes in a crowded market place you need to stand out from the crowd and deliver emotional impact that people can relate to. Find your brand position and build that position on Social Media. Social Media is the perfect platform to amplify the emotion behind your brand as it allows real time interactions and measurable results.
Building emotion within a brand on Social Media is the key generator of brand equity. This builds brand loyalty and is a main decision maker in consumer buying behaviour.
Expertise
The jack of all trades and the expert at nothing! Heard of that phrase? If yes you get where I am coming from. Most businesses think they know Social Media and how to apply it to marketing their brand. More often than not businesses forget that people want to be entertained and educated on Social Media.
Business who focus too much on selling on Social Media forget one thing and I am going to repeat myself…Social Media is Social! Yes that’s right people don’t want to be constantly promoted to.
To differentiate yourself from your competitors and build consumer confidence, demonstrate that you are the expert in your field on Social Media. This helps add value to the customer decision process and most importantly build your brand reputation.
Focus on providing helpful FAQ’s, how to do videos, involve customers in demonstrations etc. Also educate people on the History of your business and how far you have come. The education process in brand marketing is often overlooked but believe me prospective customers on Social Media gravitate towards experts.
Engage
No Star Trek references here please!!! If you want to build brand awareness on Social Media, engagement with your Social Media community is fundamental. The more you interact, the more your content gets shared and your brand gets talked about. Therefore your brand becomes more visible and establishes a stronger position themselves in people’s minds.
Engagement can be a powerful tool. In a traditional marketing environment, brands tend to be corporate focused and broadcast messages directly at people. Social Media enables a brand to be more customer focused and the customer has control over what content is published. In effect brands on Social Media must talk with people and create those conversations that will build brand awareness.
I cannot stress this point enough to businesses, on Social Media are not an extension of your brand but part of it. Try create content that excites, entertains and adds value to your Social Media community. Let your community take control and provide user generated content. User generated content provides high quality information can shape the success of your brand marketing on Social Media and increase brand loyalty.
To conclude (I feel like a university professor!), if you want to your business and brand to be successful on Social Media follow our 3 E’s framework. It’s absolutely vital to approach Social Media differently from other traditional marketing platform. Be different, be creative and stay relevant. Make your brand stand out from the noisy crowd and remember ‘He who shouts the loudest gets the most rewards’.
