Social Media Branding

Nike comes to mind… visuals are consistent with bold type, great imagery, and the tone of voice is always one of empowerment. The “Just Do It” ethos has been around for decades!

Consistency provides reassurance, and helps build trust with an audience. And once you have that, revenue goes up because people engage with brands they recognize and trust.

​@lisa.rodrigo These are great points! Thank you!!

Consistent branding not only looks professional, it builds visual cues for your community. I’ll stop mid scroll to read a post from a brand or creator I like because I immediately recognize it’s them before seeing the handle.

Aurora Designed is a great example of this. She’s a graphic designer who builds brands for multiple clients, but her visual style is so strong that I always know it’s her work before I see the name. Ad Astra is another creator that I always stop to engage with. The branding is simple, but the colors, fonts, illustrations, and photography are so consistent that I always recognize her posts. 

Hope this helps 😊

Earlier this month in a discussion of trends, we talked at length about how the content people engage with is becoming increasingly informal and personal. 

I would keep this in mind as you consider brand consistency, because it’s so much more than graphics. Tone, themes, voice, sounds--those are also a big part of  your brand, in addition to the visuals.

In addition to Apple and Nike, who are well-known for their discipline in creating consistent visuals, tone, and messaging, I'd add Starbucks - which, from their mobile app, their loyalty program, their ads, and onward, strike a consistent note. I use Starbucks more than the other two iconic brands, so I can’t help but appreciate the nuances in their social media messaging.

Thank you so much! I’ll definitely take a look at both examples and share with my team 😊

Great advice! Thank you!! 😊

Starbucks is a great example!! Thank you for sharing!! 

Consistency is great because it helps keep the brand looking like the brand, and not the  whims of whatever person is tasked with creating the content being shared. Having a solid brand identity also helps set boundaries and manages expectations around what should and should not be shared, and how it should be shared. This is particularly helpful for very small teams (entire marketing team of 1 here!). 

That being said, you don’t want to be so rigid that you hide your greatest asset: your people! Creating a simple 1 pg. style guide and easy to use templates for your contributors is a great way to add the visual elements of the brand for consistency, without it getting in the way of their creativity. And provide the training! Show off your templates and guide, explain how to use them and why it is important to use them. Explain why things like colour and language and font choices matter - choices were made there, and not everyone understands that. Their experience with social, for example, has probably only ever been personal. But when you are posting as a brand, you are posting as something else that is the sum of its parts. 

I hate that I can’t find the brand now but a few years back there was a brand that used a yellow frame around all of their posts and colored filters on the content to indicate the type of content it was - e.g., yellow might be a product promo, blue was a pro tip, red was an event, etc. If I ever find it I will share. I just remember it being a really great strategy because the yellow frame would stand out and the filtered images made the job of identifying the type of content to expect so easy.

This is a great explanation! I will definitely be sharing it with our team 😊

That’s such a cool concept!