Most brands are now on social media. Your competitors also post content, upload stories, and market their products. So, what makes you memorable to your audience?
You must create an experience that leaves a lasting impact. The audience should see your campaigns and recognize your brand instantly.
How? With social media strategies that:
- Reinforce your brand identity and messaging
- Tell your unique story to strengthen emotional connections with the audience
- Keep your campaigns consistent and authentic across all platforms
In fact, a research paper cited that social media offers “unprecedented opportunities for engagement, outreach, and brand building.”
However, you need a data-driven and adaptable approach so your efforts translate into meaningful connections and long-term brand awareness and growth.
Let’s see how.
10 Tips to Run Social Media Campaigns for Brand Building
Here are 10 tips on running social media campaigns to build a memorable brand:
Craft compelling and consistent storytelling
Customers may find products out there that are similar to yours. But what element is inherently yours? Your story.
You must craft a storytelling style that tugs at your audience’s heart and communicates your brand image clearly and consistently. It should answer questions like:
- What is your purpose, vision, and mission for your brand?
- What problems do you want to solve?
- What inspired you to start your business?
- How are you making a difference in your customers’ lives?
The bottom line is, you must follow:
- It must stay true to your business’s journey and mission, and
- It must resonate with your audience.
Think of your ideal customer as the hero of your story. What appeals to them? What challenges do they face? Tap into buyer personas to list the most important elements of your target audience’s demographics and behavioral traits.
Then, you need to clarify your purpose. Every content piece should communicate a specific goal. For instance, if you are a sustainable skincare brand, you can start a series showing how you use recycled materials for your packaging and how it benefits the environment.
Remember, a good story has relatable characters, a suitable setting, a conflict, and a resolution. No matter the length of the content, these four elements are a must. Only then will the audience connect with your story.
Airbnb has built a strong brand through beautiful story-driven social media campaigns, like their stop-motion videos on YouTube. These videos have relatable characters and engaging storylines. Although they last only a few seconds, the stories communicate the specific benefits hosts can drive by renting their houses on Airbnb.
For example, look at the Airbnb It series. It talks about a host who is skeptical about putting their home on Airbnb because they don’t want to do it alone. It has a conflict, a protagonist, and a relevant setting. Then you see a cowboy galloping towards the property, ready to be the primary character’s co-host.
Your storytelling should also reflect your responsibility to society. They evoke strong emotions, strengthening the audience’s bond with your brand. Statista notes that 54% of U.S. consumers are more loyal to brands vocal about social issues.
For example, Airbnb posts stories of hosts making positive changes in society. The above reel shows how Airbnb hosts Susan and Steve offered emergency housing to Jay and Ali’s family and improved their lives.
Incorporate user-generated content for authenticity
Let’s face it, those same old commercials with big stars aren’t convincing enough for modern customers. Traditional ads do kind of sound like you are blowing your own trumpet.
While there is nothing fundamentally wrong with that, back up your claims with social proof, like user-generated content. Let your existing customers tell the audience how your brand has helped them to appear more authentic and convincing.
You can run UGC contests where customers post content using your branded hashtag. Consider offering a small reward to maximize submissions.
For example, GoPro runs a “Photo of the Day” campaign, where they feature the best UGC daily. The winner gets $100 as a prize too.
Search your branded hashtag on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn to find UGC like GoPro. Also, see the tagged section on your Instagram profile for customer-generated content.
Choose the best ones and repost them on all social media handles and stories. You can even compile similar UGC, like customers wearing your best-seller or a new launch, into reels.
One way to maximize the impact of your social media campaigns is by efficiently repurposing content. Content clipping is a great strategy to help you get more mileage from your existing content. You can boost engagement without creating new content from scratch by resharing and adapting your top-performing posts across various platforms.
For example, Aerie posted the above reel where different customers are wearing the Leopard Print Trouser, one of their bestselling products.
Collaborate with influencers and brand advocates
Influencers are a trusted voice on social media platforms — and you want the right ones on your side.
Who are the right influencers for your brand? Those with a substantial following among your audience, have a similar image, and a track record of authentic and successful collaborations.
Have a small budget? You don’t always have to go after the big names. In fact, partnering with micro and macro influencers works amazingly for building a credible brand. While their following may be smaller, these creators often showcase high engagement rates and authentic connections within specific niches.
Daniel Wellington partnered with micro fashion influencer Johanna. The post is creative and authentic. It also drove positive comments from her fans.
You want influencer partnerships to reflect your brand’s authority in the industry. Simply put, it must show that your influencers know what they are discussing. Otherwise, why would the audience believe your campaigns?
So, find creators that have expertise in your niche. For example, if you are a skincare brand, you should collaborate with a dermatologist or an aesthetician with a substantial digital presence.
That’s exactly what La Roche-Posay did with this influencer post. The skincare brand partnered with Dr. Wallace Nozile, a dermatologist and Instagram influencer.
B2B brands should use LinkedIn to collect and post relevant UGC. Start using LinkedIn carousel maker to publish multiple UGCs in a single post.
You can also create paid partnerships with long-term UGC creators and vocal brand advocates. It boosts their satisfaction, maximizes referrals and word-of-mouth, and betters your brand reputation.
Use interactive content to boost engagement
Make social media engagement a two-way street with interactive content like quizzes, polls, and live sessions. Another idea is short video interviews with brand ambassadors or team members, giving your followers a personal, behind-the-scenes perspective. They give the audience something more entertaining than regular posts they just lazily scroll through.
Add polls on your Instagram stories and post captions to drive quick interactions. It creates a sense of belonging as well.
Suppose you are planning a giveaway for your electronic gadgets. You can create a poll where the audience votes between your smartwatch and earphones.
You can also post fun quizzes as BuzzFeed does.
BuzzFeed’s Instagram also has fun little games on story highlights.
You should also host weekly or monthly live sessions. Let the audience engage with you with their questions in real-time. Such interactive efforts make your brand look more approachable.
Optimize posting times for maximum reach
Your campaigns must reach the target audience at the right time. That means you must post content when your audience is the most active on social platforms.
To give you an idea, you should avoid posting during typical work hours, like the 9 am to 1 pm window, especially for B2B audiences. People scroll social media on lunch breaks, so the 1 pm to 2 pm window may work. You can target the after-work hours because most people seek entertainment on social media after a long day.
However, it depends on your audience demographics and channel preferences. The most convenient way here is to invest in a social media management tool that suggests optimal times for your posting on each platform.
Monitor trends and adapt your strategy
To build a recognizable brand, you must be at the top of your audience’s feed and their minds. Social media likes content ideas that talks about current trends. The algorithm pushes content that follows the most recent audience preferences, pop culture topics, and other popular conversations.
So, keep a constant lookout for changing trends and hop on the ones that fit your brand to gain more traction. Plus, you may get more engagement and visibility. However, the content must align with the trend’s spirit.
Suppose you run a print-on-demand business on Etsy. To market your brand, you can print out some merch based on the “very mindful, very demure” trend and post them on social media with relevant hashtags. It will show a fun brand and relevant brand image.
Just Eat always nails every trend with its social media marketing. For example, the brand promoted their Squid Game-inspired game “Eliminate” with the above video.
You must also monitor the changing preferences of your audience. What content formats do they like at the moment? Pivot your strategies accordingly to maintain an edge and appeal.
Invest in paid promotions strategically
Mixing organic campaigns with paid promotions can help you boost and maintain visibility. However, these ads must be strategic. Otherwise, you will keep draining funds without seeing the desired ROI.
Segment your audience based on demographics and psychographics. Then create relevant ads to target each. Ensure a strong and clear CTA. You must also be careful about which platforms you are targeting.
For B2C brands, Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok work well. If you run a B2B brand, place ads on Linkedin, Reddit, and YouTube for better results.
Apple prefers Instagram and Facebook for their ad campaigns.
You will come across ads from brands like Semrush on YouTube. However, B2C brands also run ads on YouTube.
Analyze campaign performance and refine tactics
Conversations, trends, and audience preferences change often on social media. What’s working for you today may not drive good results tomorrow. So, it’s very important to stay on top of your performance metrics and refine strategies accordingly.
Some crucial social media listening metrics you must track are:
- Engagement rate
- Impressions
- Reach
- Number of shares
- Click-through rates
- UGC volume
- Brand mentions
- Traffic sources
Analyze your competitors to create a standard benchmark. Then measure each metric against that number. You must adjust the benchmark regularly to align with the industry standards.
You can also use a social media automation tool like Bulk.ly. Its advanced analytics tracks campaign metrics and generates insightful reports. You get visibility into exactly what’s working and what isn’t and make strategic tweaks accordingly.
Engage with your audience consistently
Beyond quick entertainment, social media is also a channel for people to find connections. They want to see their favorite brands taking the time to interact with customers. It improves their perception of your business, ultimately contributing to a strong brand image.
Use your social media monitoring tool to track brand mentions and engage in conversations with on-brand replies. Start online conversations with engaging posts.
For example, Duolingo recently received a lot of attention with their “Duo is dead” posts. As expected, the brand’s fans started contributing to the banter with witty tweets.
Apart from its signature odd humor-laden tweets, Duolingo also monitors user requests and resolves them quickly.
Such constant engagement coupled with their consistent on-brand campaigning has transcended Duo from a mere brand mascot to everyone’s favorite owl on social media.
Shopify also engages with audience tweets and comments with funny replies.
Maintain a cohesive brand aesthetic across platforms
Doesn’t the Red/Yellow color combination instantly remind you of McDonalds? Because the brand uses those two colors in everything, from its packaging to marketing campaigns. Their consistency with this aesthetic has made McDonald’s synonymous with this color palette.
The audience will recognize your brand easily only when you put forward a unified brand image in all campaigns. For that, create a style guide detailing logo variations, color schemes, typography, tone, and voice. Ask your marketing team and influencers to follow it to the T.
For example, Starbucks’ style guide has detailed descriptions of its logo, colors, typography, brand voice, illustrations, and visuals.
Plus, they also describe their branded font in the guide.
Now, when you skim through Starbucks’ social media channels, you won’t see any brand element that doesn’t adhere to these guidelines. Every handle has green as its predominant color. The bios are consistent with the brand voice as well.
Final Thoughts on Social Media Campaigns for Brand Building
95% of marketers prefer social media for brand campaigning. Why? Because you have amazing opportunities to become more than just a business.
With fun and relatable content, consistent aesthetics and storytelling, and regular engagement, you can become a friend to your target audience.
Keep your approach authentic, whether showcasing UGC or running influencer marketing. Find and use relevant trends on time. Invest in paid ads, but place them strategically. And of course, measure social media KPIs, and track audience sentiments to adjust your strategies and stay relevant.
