How to Build a Powerful Brand Using Social Media

Building an online brand can seem challenging and frustrating. How do you begin? Should you make a logo, get a website and see what happens?

Obviously not.

Branding is crucial for both your business and your personal image. You cannot just "wing it".

Branding is …

• What drives you to purchase online
• Who you present to the public
• Helping people remember you and your name
• Fostering purpose and trust in a community

Additionally, because of your goodwill, a brand may present new opportunities.

If you are deliberate, your brand will develop more quickly and effectively. I wrote this guide on developing an online brand for that reason. I'll outline the various actions you can take to build your brand and provide some examples along the way.

Create Your Brand

Whether you are aware of it or not, every company and individual (that includes you!) has a brand. Every time someone thinks of you, memories and perceptions are triggered, which determine how they feel about you.

These opinions may have been formed as a result of direct communication they've had with you—in person or over the phone—or they may have come from comments made by others, such as recommendations from others or internet posts and reviews.

If someone has never seen you or heard of you, they will form an opinion of you based on your appearance, how you act, and the things you talk about.

Additionally, you have some influence over what others believe of you. Show others your compassion by performing kind deeds if you want them to know you are kind. Speak deliberately if you want them to take you serious.

People's perceptions of you will affect how they feel about you and whether they can stand to be around you or not.

So why should your business be any different?

Establish the personality of your brand

Why is it important to develop a "brand" personality?

Human personalities are intricate and comprise a variety of components. You will have aspects of your personality that you want to stand out and define you, as well as aspects that you do not.

This does not imply lying about who you are.

You're creating a new version of yourself while already existing in many forms. There is the you that you are alone, as well as the you that you are with relatives, coworkers, neighbors, and your partner. You already alter who you are for these various audiences, and online is no exception.

How?

Pick three words that best capture the essence of your brand.

It's a challenging task to complete alone, so enlist a friend and brainstorm ideas. Make a list of words that you think best describe you.

These might include...

• Easy-going
• Brave
• Clever
• Generous
• Hard-working
• Honest
• Wise
• Kind
• Serious

After you've written down every word that comes to mind, start to prioritize those that you believe are most crucial to your brand.

Once you have your three, write them out and post them where you'll see them often to keep your online brand in mind.

Write some content ideas down that reflects your brand's personality. Check your words against your writing each time you produce new content, whether it's a blog post or a TikTok video; eventually, it will become second nature to you.

Pick your color palette

The colors that you consistently use throughout all of your content become a component of your online brand. The colors you use will help people recognize your content amongst the hundreds of thousands of other brands.

How do you pick your colors?

Start by picking a color you like. This brand is all about you, so it’s okay to be indulgent. If blue is your thing, pick a shade that you love as your base color.

Can you guess which color Coca-Cola prefers?

When branding themselves, Coca-Cola mainly uses two colors, red and white.

Their Twitter page is just one example of their love of red. Coca-Cola covers their bottles and cans with red and will always use red.

Now that you’ve picked your base color, look for a color that will complement it.

I love Design Titles' simple color pairing tool for this.

The page randomly cycles through different color pairs based on color theory, as well as satirical designer titles.

Pick out your base color and it will give you colors you can use based on different theories.

Alternatively, you can use Adobe's Color Wheel to discover intricate color palettes like analogous, monochromatic, and complimentary.

How to Build Your Brand on Social Media

Each business faces a challenge in maintaining brand consistency across all communication touchpoints, including each social media network.

How can you ensure that the voice of your business in podcast advertisements is reflected in the tone of your email marketing? If at all, how do you distinguish between the two audiences when speaking? How do you make sure that even if it's their first time seeing you on social media, people can still know your brand?

A brand is so much more than a cover photo, a logo, or a set of colors. A brand is created by adopting a consistent attitude in all of your interactions with customers. A brand is how you want to make them feel when they see you.

Profile picture

On all of your social media platforms, your headshot serves as your profile picture. I'd advise hiring a pro photographer who can encapsulate your personal profile in their photographs.

Create a brief that contains all the information the photographer will need, such as the image sizes you'll need for your social media channels, your brand's personality, and color scheme. This should entail that you receive a collection of pictures to use as cover photos, profile pictures, and website images.

But if hiring a photographer is not an option, remember, your profile picture should be relevant to your brand’s visual identity.

This can be a brand logo, a headshot or even a product photo. Avoid images with heavy lettering. If you do choose an image of yourself, remember to smile and use lighting.

Social media bio and description

Look at the bio section of your social media profiles now that you've established your visual brand on those platforms.

Social media bios are limited in character count. Your personal brand may only have 150 characters to be used, depending on the social networks you choose.

Humphrey Yang talks about personal finance, money, and investing. Wherever you see him, no matter if it's TikTok, Twitter or YouTube, these are the content topics he speaks about.

Expand your brand with video

The majority of social media platforms increasingly prioritize video content. Therefore, brands who take advantage of video content have a greater chance of enhancing their social media success.

Video has a way of putting people at ease and making them feel closer to you. You are speaking to your audience directly when you share TikTok videos and YouTube Shorts.

TikTok Videos

The best course of action right now is probably to create a TikTok account if your target demographic are teenagers.

Many companies still view TikTok as being too experimental and are unable to pinpoint a content niche that will both match the voice of their brand and communicate with their audience.

Creativity is essential. However, internal teams are rarely prepared to generate brilliant ideas on a large scale.

The main hurdle in this situation is being willing to engage in the experiment and most traditional business owners are difficult to convince.

At the same time, everyone wants to be on TikTok, so if you can figure out how to break through that barrier, you may have just opened up a new market for your business.

YouTube Shorts

With billions of searches per month, YouTube ranks as the second-largest search engine. So , your brand might be interested in leveraging the platform's reach.

It's a terrific idea to launch your own channel if you've used YouTube in the past or are eager to learn more about its capabilities.

You would need to perform in-depth keyword research utilizing Ahrefs, VidIQ, or Tubebuddy to identify the topics you can cover through videos and determine the possible traffic impact from any YouTube videos in order to determine a potential fit.

Pick your topics

Make a list of topics you can discuss that are related to your business and the clients you serve. These are the subjects you ought to write about in your social media posts the most. You'll stay true to your brand.

After completing that, make a list of the subjects you won't bring up.

Politics, religion, or perhaps aspects of your personal life, could be topics you choose to stay away from. Each person will have a different list. Just make sure that you choose these topics on purpose and not by accident later on.

Be consistent 

You need to be visible if you want to be seen, remembered, and trusted. You don't have to tweet 20 times a day or even post a story on Instagram every day, but you do need to be found when people are looking for you.

Final Words

Building your brand on social media is a great way to stand out, stick in people's minds, and find opportunities. If you take the advice in this post to heart, you'll be well on your way to creating a powerful personal brand that gets results.

If you think your brand has been heading in the wrong direction, now is the time to stop and regroup! Checkout our Branding Kit & Course Corrector to uncover what makes your business unique and how to market yourself to the right people.

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