Integrating Social Media with Your Overall Brand Strategy – 7 Steps to Maintaining a Cohesive High-Level Brand

No brand strategy is complete without a robust social media component. It can’t be an afterthought. It needs to be fully baked into your overall campaign. And it requires a cohesive approach that ensures every piece of content, at every touchpoint, reinforces your brand’s identity and works to achieve your marketing goals.

 So, what do we mean by “cohesive”? Read on and find out.

1. Align Social Media Goals with Business Objectives
Why It Matters: Ensuring that your social media goals align with your business objectives helps in driving meaningful outcomes and measuring success effectively.
How to Do It:

• Set Clear Objectives: Define specific, measurable goals for your social media efforts that support your overall business strategy, such as increasing brand awareness or driving website traffic.

• Track Key Metrics: Monitor key performance indicators (KPIs) that align with your business goals, such as engagement rates, conversion rates, and ROI.

 Example: When Coca-Cola launched its “Share a Coke” campaign, the social media goal was to increase engagement by encouraging users to share photos with personalized Coke bottles. This directly aligned with their business objective of increasing brand awareness and boosting sales.

2. Create a Unified Brand Voice
Why It Matters: A consistent brand voice across all platforms ensures that your message is recognizable and resonates with your audience.
How to Do It:

• Define Your Voice: Clearly outline your brand’s tone, language, and personality. Ensure it reflects your brand values and appeals to your target audience.

• Train Your Team: Educate everyone involved in content creation about your brand voice guidelines to maintain consistency. Many social media managers have good intentions and even claim to understand a brand’s unique voice and personality. However, many have taken the easy path vs. taking the time to stay “on-brand.”

Example: Mailchimp has a quirky and friendly brand voice that is consistently reflected across its website, emails, and social media channels. This unified voice helps in creating a recognizable and relatable brand presence.

3. Develop Integrated Content Strategies
Why It Matters: Integrated content strategies ensure that all marketing efforts support each other and work towards common goals.
How to Do It:

• Content Calendar: Create a comprehensive content calendar that includes social media posts, blog articles, email campaigns, and other marketing activities. Ensure all content aligns with your brand message and business objectives.

• Cross-Promotion: Use social media to promote other content, such as blog posts, webinars, and product launches, creating a cohesive narrative across all platforms.

 Example: On a B2B front, HubSpot effectively integrates its blog content with social media by sharing insightful articles that drive traffic to its website. Their social media posts often include snippets from blog articles, encouraging users to read more on their site.

4. Leverage User-Generated Content
Why It Matters: User-generated content (UGC) builds trust and authenticity and helps create a community around your brand.
How to Do It:

• Encourage Sharing: Prompt your audience to share their experiences with your brand using branded hashtags or participating in contests.

• Feature UGC: Share user-generated content on your social media platforms, website, and other marketing channels to showcase real-life brand interactions.

• Tap Paid Influencers: When budgets are light, micro-influencers can be of great value economically and brand-wise. Additionally, if the budget warrants, more established influencers can be commissioned to market your product or service and reach your desired audience in a broader way.

Example: GoPro frequently features user-generated content on its social media channels. By showcasing videos and photos taken by their customers, GoPro not only promotes its products but also builds a community of engaged users.

5. Maintain Visual Consistency
Why It Matters: Consistent visual elements reinforce brand recognition and help in creating a cohesive brand image across all platforms.
How to Do It:

• Brand Guidelines: Develop detailed brand guidelines that include rules for logo usage, color schemes, typography, and imagery style.

• Template Use: Utilize design templates for social media posts, ensuring uniformity in visual presentation.

 Example: Apple maintains strict visual consistency across its social media channels, website, and advertising. Their minimalist design, use of white space and consistent color palette make their content instantly recognizable.

6. Integrate Social Media with Customer Support
Why It Matters: Integrating social media with customer support enhances the customer experience and provides timely assistance.

 How to Do It:

• Brand Reputation Management: Many take to social media to express their views. Some, unfortunately, are not positive. Creating a process involving a list of pre-set responses and, in some cases, offers/discounts can help with not only the brand’s reputation but also the overall customer experience.

• Quick Response Time: Ensure a quick response time to address customer questions and concerns promptly.

Example: Delta Airlines uses X, formerly Twitter, as a key platform for customer support. They have a dedicated account, @DeltaAssist, where customers can reach out for assistance, ensuring timely and efficient service.

7. Analyze and Optimize
Why It Matters: Regular analysis of your social media performance helps in understanding what works and what doesn’t, allowing for continuous improvement.
How to Do It:

• Regular Reporting: Create regular reports on social media performance, focusing on engagement metrics, audience growth, and conversion rates.

• A/B Testing: Although not as simple as an online search, conducting A/B testing for different types of content to see what resonates best with your audience can be a great way to test the waters. Also, be prepared to put some extra effort into the areas that get substantial lift; don’t just ride the wave.

 Example: Netflix constantly analyzes its social media performance to optimize content. By monitoring engagement metrics and conducting A/B tests, they tailor their social media strategy to better connect with their audience and promote their shows effectively.

No orphans. No one-offs. No rogue elements. Make sure it all sings from the same songbook.
Integrating social media with your overall brand strategy is essential for creating a cohesive and unified brand message. By aligning social media goals with business objectives, maintaining a consistent brand voice and visual identity, leveraging user-generated content, and regularly analyzing performance, you can ensure that your social media efforts effectively support and enhance your broader brand strategy.

About the Author:
Geared is a branding agency in Orange County, California, that has helped some of North America's fastest-growing, well-recognized food brands. From Restaurant Branding to the Material Handling industry, Geared has helped companies rebrand, scale, and achieve their marketing goals. Geared is passionate about developing a solid “brand personality,” and over the years, too many great brands have been going "off-brand" from subpar social media content creators. With Geared's branding expertise, the agency will work with clients to develop a real social media strategy and content tailored to resonate with its target audience while maintaining consistent branding and messaging.