Human beings are social creatures by nature. But, despite having social media readily at our fingertips, it’s easy to feel less social than ever. Why? A digital network struggles to mimic the personable connection people crave. 

If you’re looking to improve your brand awareness, social media can be an incredibly powerful tool — when used optimally. However, your social media shouldn’t look just like your competitors. While that might sound obvious, posting without intentionality can far too easily become robotic and lack brand personality. 

To help you make your business stand out in front of potential customers among a sea of monotonous, over-saturated social posts, we’ve put together 5 of our favorite tips below.

1. Make Your Profile You

Of course, no one likes being “catfished” online, and the same is true for brands. People want to know that what they see is what they will get. 

Cheerios Social Media
 
 
Coca Cola Social Media

When crafting your social media profiles, your brand should radiate from each detail. From your brand style to your personality, your social media is an extension of you. Your profile picture should quickly establish your brand, which is why it’s recommended that it be your logo. However, make sure this is sized correctly for the placement because blurred, stretched, or off-centered logos send a quick signal of unprofessionalism. 

2. Be Social

Being social as a business rather than an individual may seem like uncharted territory, but, in reality, you’re much more well-equipped than you may think. When it comes to social media, this is a prime opportunity to speak to your potential customers more colloquially and individually. Don’t disregard proper grammar and clarity in your writing, but letting your audience hear the people behind your brand helps form deeper connections and promote engagement. 

 
 
Warby Parker Social Media
 
Chipotle Social Media

Your tone and messaging should flow seamlessly across all of your communications, including your captioning, bios, and commentary with followers. Your content should always align with your brand voice. However, just like with people, you can leverage your brand’s different aspects on different platforms to better serve your audience.

3. Build Community Online

One of the best ways to grow your brand awareness online is to tap into your community’s digital network in new places rather than relying upon your users to spread the word of your brand for you. 

#TipsThatWork

When you use the right hashtags, you can get your brand organically in front of people eager to engage with your content and share mutual interests. You can either include hashtags within your caption direction for a more #organic feel, or you can add them at the end of your post for more seamless writing. However, if you do add them at the end, avoid crafting a long stream of repetitive hashtags that bog down your content. Instead, select a key few hashtags that directly relate to your post. 

Share More

On social media, you can reshare content from other industry leaders to create a seamless user experience that harnesses the entirety of your industry’s expertise. Think of your key industry partners, reputable sources that aren’t direct competitors, or businesses you follow yourself to keep engaged with the industry online. When you come across a post that you think your followers would enjoy, share it to keep the conversation going. 

This practice develops brand awareness as you begin to engage your community more heavily, improve the social media algorithm’s regulation of your posts, and encourage your followers to also share the content themselves. 

Engage With Other Companies

By tagging others in your posts and comments, you can engage your industry authentically while establishing brand authority and encouraging more users to look into your business. Rather than simplifying replying to comments or writing standard post captions, tag other individuals or companies that could benefit from and lean into the conversation. 

Join Groups

A great way to capture social media’s power is to join relevant groups to share your insights in more direct interactions with potential customers. For example, Facebook groups offer a unique medium for having conversations with potential customers. These aren’t places to push the sale of your products and services but allow you to help your target audience in meaningful ways that position your brand positively in their minds. 

Peloton Facebook Group

You can also create your own Facebook group to engage users, like Peloton, for example. This allows you to have a controllable forum to interact with your audience on their terms, letting them have the opportunity to lead the conversation rather than respond to you. 

4. Teach With Your Expertise

Life’s full of teachable moments, and social media is too! Sharing insight as experts in your industry allows you to quickly establish brand authority while giving users a reason to stay connected and a reason to spread the wealth of your insights. 

Don’t simply push sales on social media but rather give users a reason to follow your page or profile. One customer won’t want to see two or more posts a week promoting your business’s offerings. However, they are likely to be interested in the unique tips, tricks, and news that your expertise allows you to share. 

 
 
Publix Social Media
 
Sprout Social Social Media

5. Use Social Listening

Social listening is an incredibly powerful tool on social media that allows you to keep an eye on any mentions of your brand, competitors, products, services, and more. Staying engaged with your community will enable you to engage with parts of the social network you haven’t been a part of yet. When a user references your brand online, you can actively speak into the conversation and put your business in front of that user’s friends and followers who likely share the same interests. For seamless social listening, you can look to social media tools that manage your digital accounts, like Hootsuite

Where Do You See Your Brand?

When you envision your brand, how do you see it through the eyes of your customers? Social media works best for your business when you focus on engaging users with content they want to see and balance your business’s direct sales initiatives with your audience’s interests. 

As you work your way through the ranks of empowered brand awareness, monitor your brand for consistency across your communications channels, measure the growth from your efforts, and seek strategic help when needed. Here at PHOS, we serve to grow your business authentically and put your brand in front of customers where expected, along with a user experience that will optimize your buyer’s journey. Our marketing team is here to empower your business to reach new leads on social media.

Whitney Snyder

With faith in fostering empowerment through imagination and building community through connection, Whitney’s excited to spark meaningful relationships with clients. During her time as an Inbound Marketing Intern, she aspires to help clients integrate their voice and purpose into creative marketing strategies that continue to share their narratives with the communities they serve.

While away from PHOS, you can find Whitney studying for her degrees in Biology and Business Administration at the University of Florida. Her free time is usually swept up in testing out a new recipe in the kitchen, cultivating an indoor jungle in her apartment, and belting out to her favorite showtune classics.