Social media is now a well-established marketing channel for building brand value. Companies that have successfully established themselves as brands on social media can be found across various sectors and industries.
But what are the basic principles for increasing brand value on social media?
Storytelling
Building a story around your brand is fundamental to brand building. Story and brand run parallel and are very much the same in a lot of different contexts. In fact, when it comes to businesses, the story is the brand, and the brand is the story. So being able to tell the brand story is what is going to elevate your brand and its services. The better you tell your story, the better your brand will be valued and perceived.
There are 2 distinct stories to tell for any brand: the customer-to-business journey, and the business-to-customer journey. These two stories, told over and over again, will help create brand value for a brand.
Let’s look at some examples:
Coca-Cola
Often tells a story through their customer experience and use slogans to identify the story of the brand. Slogans such as ‘Taste the feeling’ are often interlinked with the overall brand story. In this case, the story is about the feeling that the user will experience when tasting Coca-Cola.
Apple
The story of Apple’s history, its products and the customer experience are often synonymous with its brand. And as I mentioned earlier, when we mention the brand, we are also talking about the story.
Airbnb
Another great example of story and brand value. Air BnB has a great way of communicating the story of the consumer as well as the service provider. It communicates the story of what the user will experience when using Airbnb, and it also tells a great story as to what the service provider (usually the person who is letting out the apartments) should expect when it comes to their journey with Airbnb.
Consistency Stands Out
Understanding not only your story but also telling it consistently is really key to creating a well-positioned and valuable brand.
A lot of businesses go wrong in that they want to build a brand quickly, so they will tell the story only for a short time, or they have multiple stories they want to tell, so they will often not be consistent enough with the same message over time, but rather tell multiple messages.
Try to keep your brand story consistent and the same over prolonged periods of time. With this, you’ll be creating brand touchpoints and recognition of the brand. If you change your brand story in a short time frame and consistently do this, you will lose the ability to push a similar message to an audience, which will create touchpoints and also front-of-mind marketing.
So when it comes to building brand value on social media, build it with unique stories, and keep telling them.
George Hawwa
Founder and Growth Director, Attention Experts
These done well over time, will create your brand voice and story, which in turn will heighten your brand value.