Personal Brand Development
Social media has been an essential form of marketing for quite a while now. People all over the world are using social media for their personal and professional use, and advertising on different platforms has proven to be an inexpensive way to get the word out about your business. Not to mention, it’s easier than ever to reach the people near you as well as people you can specifically target, who fit your company’s demographics.
With that said, there’s a right way and a wrong way to use social media. If done wrong, there’s a pretty big chance your accounts will not reach anyone. Yes, creating a strategy made for a well-researched demographic is essential, and the overall aesthetic of your platforms also plays a massive role in the ultimate success of your social media marketing.
In this article, we’ll be taking a look at some primary components of your social media profiles to optimize them best.
Without a profile photo, who even are you? This is the first photo your audience sees when they go to your page, and it’s how they are going to identify you.
For most businesses, a standardized logo is recommended as a profile pic that stays within the brand’s color scheme so the account is easily recognizable as the company’s “official” account.
Let’s look at Apple’s Facebook page. Their profile pic is their famous apple logo with a bite taken out of it. One look at that simple yet memorable logo, and you know exactly who they are. Then, there’s the color scheme. While Apple’s logo history has gone through many phases, its current design in black is quite recognizable.
It’s also important to take into account the size and resolution. Your profile photo should not at all be blurry. Be sure you upload the full-resolution version of the file that doesn’t have any JPEG compression.
Lastly, don’t forget to consider the size requirements for each platform. Facebook has no size minimum; however, Twitter is 400x400, Instagram is 110x110, and LinkedIn is 300x300. A good rule of thumb is to have one 400x400 to use for every site. This is big enough for a clear photo and will work across all platforms.
Your business platforms should always have a cover photo. Unlike your profile photo, the cover photo is located at the very top of your social profile and generally should have a beautiful display of your brand’s color palette.
First, let’s get into the size requirements:
Your image must match these sizes, or the website may crop out some vital information you wish to be seen by your audience.
As previously stated, your cover photo should have a good color scheme that matches your company’s brand. In other instances, a cover photo can have an aesthetically pleasing feel that invokes a specific type of “vibe” the company is trying to achieve.
The bio and description section of your social media accounts is where many new viewers will be looking. This section should provide information about your business but also not be a wall of text. Achieving a short and concise bio can help you draw in customers, enticing them to want to know more about what your business has to offer.
Having a strategy dedicated to social graphics will determine how you create your brand aesthetic across your platforms. You can decide to create and publish graphics consistently, or you can also choose to keep the imagery of your social platforms to a more lifestyle-type aesthetic.
When creating social graphics, keep in mind your brand’s color palette to stay consistent with your brand. If you choose to make your graphics, many different free platforms offer templates. Canva, Adobe Spark, Pablo, and Desygner are free or low-cost options you can use to create templates easily and effectively.
Why do we keep mentioning aesthetics? Your aesthetic is your entire vibe. It tells your audience who you are and what your business is about. It also plays a huge role in brand authenticity. With one glance, your audience will choose whether or not they feel they can trust your brand. Ensuring your social media presence has a suitable aesthetic will give off a trustworthy feeling to your audience.
Like any good art, you should not copy another brand, but you can take inspiration. A great way to find your own aesthetic is to visit several similar businesses’ platforms and take a look at what they’re doing. Is there anything you can pull as inspiration while maintaining your own identity?
Chances are, you’re using multiple social media channels. In most cases, you want to make sure you have the same profile photo, cover photo, general bio, and aesthetic across all platforms. However, there may be some cases where having slight differences for one site may work better.
For example, if your audience on Instagram is slightly different from your Twitter audience, tweaking those elements to be appropriate for each account may be a wise move.
Mastering social media management for your business isn’t too difficult, but there’s definitely a lot more that goes into it than you may think.
Between optimizing your platforms, creating interesting content, schedule posts, and constantly making sure you are keeping up with the flow of your brand aesthetic, it can get to be a little overwhelming at times, not to mention the data collection and analytics.
While you are busy building the other aspects of your business, it can be easy to throw social media management on the back burner. That’s why hiring professionals can benefit you.
At Bell+Ivy, we can help with your social media management as well as the aesthetic. We offer personal branding services that can help make your brand look great and let its personality shine through.
We have a team of pros that can get your social media accounts noticed while maintaining the brand identity you're looking for. With so many people on social media these days, you don’t want yours buried underneath the competition, so contact us today.
