Social media is one of the biggest marketing tools out there. That’s why it can seem daunting to figure out how to increase brand awareness on social media and be more than just another pretty feed.
As overwhelming as navigating through the platforms and finding your niche can be, pushing your company out there, focusing on your voice, and creating strategic content, you can be extremely successful in generating sales and profits.
Instead of looking at social media as a black hole, use it as an opportunity to increase exposure and give your brand a voice to attract your consumers. Let’s dive into how you can increase brand awareness on social media and why it’s so important.
What is brand awareness?
Whether you prefer checks over stripes or McDonald’s over Wendy’s, you have a go-to brand for everything related to your lifestyle. You are more than aware of this and are perhaps a loyal customer of them.
To help you understand, let’s ask the question – what is brand awareness? Investopedia defines it as, “a marketing term that describes the degree of consumer recognition of a product by its name.” For example, everyone knows what Nike is and associates a familiarity with its logo and branding.
As a new business, building awareness is a key stage in embedding your brand into consumers’ minds and giving them an understanding of how you are different from the competition. Ultimately, how you promote your products and services and increase exposure will be imperative to attracting and generating leads from your target audience. It will entice them to buy your products or services and ultimately become loyal to your company.
Why is brand awareness important?
As mentioned earlier, it’s one of the first and key steps when it comes to marketing your product or service. You need to have your audience be familiar with your brand so much so that when they see your company logo or store, they will instantly recognize you and want to buy. There are many reasons why this is important.
Increase sales and market share
This is a no-brainer. The more people are familiar with your brand – especially when they are your target audience, the more leads, and engagement you will have. Customers like to buy from a company that they know and one that they are comfortable with. By increasing your awareness online, you will only increase your exposure and allow your customers to have you in their minds over your competitors.
Improve brand perception
Not only is knowing about your company important but how you are perceived among your consumers is important as well. If your customers perceive you to be trustworthy and provide superior products and services, they will become loyal customers who will keep coming back to purchase from you. Additionally, they will also spread the word to their friends and peers because of the positive impression you have on them.
Growth opportunity
Of course, working on building your awareness is a great growth opportunity for your business. This is the time to truly let your consumers understand you and the value that you provide to the market. Leveraging your brand on different platforms exposes you to different audiences and opportunities.
Collect consumer data
Who doesn’t love collecting data? When you implement an awareness campaign, you can collect and analyze data from potential and current customers. You can understand consumer buying habits, patterns and even find out what can be improved as you grow.
How to increase brand awareness on social media
Don’t shy away from leveraging social media for your brand. Putting your company out there is extremely crucial for raising awareness and gaining exposure. Social media can help create buzz, engagement and allow for interaction between you and consumers. It’s a valuable tool to help grow your brand to its potential. So, let’s get down to the nitty-gritty of it all! Keep reading to learn how you can increase your awareness on social media.
Give your profile personality
You don’t want to be just any other company. Give your interactions and photos a unique personality. This allows the audience to connect with you on a deeper level beyond your product or service. When consumers come across a profile that has a personality, they’ll want to interact with them. This interaction may get a response that might make them closer to the brand.
Design carefully curated content
Your pictures and videos should be created to reflect your brand’s persona. They should be captivating and draw your audience in to learn more, browse, or shop your website. Make sure that your content is also created and posted in hi-res, good quality, and clear. Each social media platform is different. Make sure that each piece of content is resized and designed to be customized to the specific platform of choice.
Collaborations and partnerships
Consider collaborating with influencers or partnering with other companies! Joining forces with other creators is a great way to gain a following and put your brand out there. Influencer marketing has become increasingly popular because of the success it brings to your online reputation. When you find an influencer who fits your companies persona, they will be the face of your brand and influence their followers to buy from you. It’s a win-win on all fronts!
Focus on engagement
You want your audience to engage with you as much as possible. This includes clients and influencers mentioning you, tagging you, and sharing your content. If potential consumers have left comments or messages, make sure you get back to them in a timely manner. Also, take some time to give your followers some love! Always respond by liking and commenting on their posts, especially when they tag you. This will further entice people to continue mentioning your brand.
Invest in sponsored posts
When in doubt, put out an ad! Sponsored posts are extremely popular because they are targeted posts that go out to your target audience. They will require you to shell out a little bit of cash. But, you can always adjust the cost and size of the ad based on your budget and timeline.
Don’t forget to track your progress
As you work on designing your awareness campaign don’t forget to track your progress. Be sure to analyze the key performance indicators, engagement, reach, online traffic, and any other relevant metrics. This will help you understand what types of content are worth investing in and what needs to be improved.
How to measure brand awareness
Make sure you don’t skip out on analyzing and measuring your progress. This is crucial to pinpoint what’s working and where to invest most of your time and money. Finding ways to improve will be extremely beneficial. You’ll avoid making the same mistakes and focus on targeting the right space and audience.
Before we let you go, here are some important metrics to consider:
Social mentions, tags, and shares
One of the most important ways to measure your awareness is to see if you are part of the conversation. Take note of all the tags, mentions, and post shares you see in a timely manner. By setting up alerts, you’ll be able to see every comment and mention in real-time. This can also help you to see where you’re winning and what could be worked on. Additionally, it can show you how your audience uses your products and service and how they perceive your brand.
Impressions
Another simple way of measuring is through impressions. Impressions show how many times your brand was exposed to your content relative to your competition. While this is more surface level, impressions show exposure, and the more they increase, the more people are noticing you.
Website traffic
Tracking website traffic is also extremely important. It will show you whether or not your campaign has been successful in driving people to your website. It might not always be clear what type of content drives your audience to the website. But, you will have some sort of insight into which campaigns are more successful than others.
Conversions
The main goal of your brand awareness campaign is to make a sale! Therefore measuring conversions is the ultimate metric in measuring awareness. Additionally, looking at downloads and other actions will further show you what types of promotions attract your audience the most. Nowadays you can even shop directly from social media platforms like Pinterest and Instagram. If consumers increase their buying directly through social media because of your campaign, then you know that tactic is one for the books.
Earned media
Pretty close to the “congrats I made it” status, earned media is also known as third-party publicity. It is the organic mention of your brand through links and other tagging methods. When you build integrity and trust, publications, social media accounts, news outlets, and influencers will talk about you. These mentions drive more followers to your social media platforms as other outlets bring awareness about how great your company is.
Between achieving your business goals and increasing sales, focusing on brand awareness has many advantages for your business. It may take a bit of time to understand which content has its strengths and what needs to be improved on. However, working on your social media marketing strategy to increase awareness will certainly have its rewards in the long run.
