Visual Cues For Social Media Marketers on Smaller Teams To Build Brand Recognition

Often small businesses and non-profits site lack of marketing team strength as a reason for ineffective social media marketing outcomes. It’s interesting to note that even larger teams often make same type of social media marketing mistakes.

I was browsing through the social media profile of a company where a fellow brand marketer works.

The company is a reputed 60 year old wealth management advisory and a national level brand. They have a full fledged in-house marketing team, which includes three digital marketers.

So let’s say they have a fairly resourceful team.

Yet, their social media feed lacks visual consistency. Clearly, they do not have a social media branding strategy in place.

If you’re wondering, why visual consistency matters, then here’s the short answer.

For the starters, you don’t want to confuse or alienate your existing fans. They’ll not be able to quickly differentiate your brand from the competition or the general clutter of the feed. And new followers will not be able to build recognition in the first place.

I’ll give an example.

In my social media feed, when I come across any news post, I have a tendency to not believe it unless it is from a trustworthy news publisher. I generally check the account name to decide whether to click ‘see more’ link in the text caption of the post or skip it.

But when I see the posts which look like the following, I know where it’s coming from. I recognize the brand just by looking at the visual presentation of the content- their fonts, logo placement, yellow highlights.

If you’re looking for a more relatable example, then here’s one from Cadbury.

Did you notice the account names? These sample posts are from different accounts of Cadbury, and yet you can see the visual branding elements being consistently and coherently used by the globally distributed teams.

So if team size has no impact on maintaining brand aesthetics consistently, then what is it?

The answer is social media style guide. This document has a wider scope, but a part of it includes visual design guidelines for social media content. It helps in keeping in-house, outsourced and distributed or even a one-member team consistent in the visual presentation of the brand on social media.

The writer works as a social media marketing strategist at OH! Design Studio. OH! Design Studio is an integrated branding and digital agency based in Mumbai, India.

Looking for a social media marketing agency? letstalk@ohdesignstudio.com

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