How to Brand Your Business on Facebook

What is branding? Why is it important? Your brand is your identity. It is the face you are showing your customers and leads. It can be beautiful or it can be flat out fugly. Yes, your brand is of supreme importance. Here are some tips to help you make sure you show the netizens of the world a pretty face (and this information can apply across your social networks as well as your website and blog).

Share your information.

When someone checks you out on Facebook they are looking for information about you. If you won’t share yourself how can you expect visitors to trust you. Unless you can build that trust it is doubtful that you will ever get to the point of converting leads into customers. 

Questions to ask yourself right away:

Do I have a (good) profile picture?

Is my profile completely filled out?

Have I included keywords in my profile where I can to help myself be found on search?

Have I included links to my websites and other social profiles?

Have I included contact information?

These basic issues need to be resolved ASAP. Your ROI just may thank you.

Set up your logo.

You can think of your logo as your social yearbook picture that will either attract a date with your target market or will send them running for the hills. The worst thing you can do? Have no picture at all. Lets face it, not many are very motivated to follow a blank Facebook profile or a Twitter egg. If you are your brand (in a way you always are) then a great headshot is your ticket. 

 If it is a business logo that is more your flavor then here are some attributes it should possess if you want it to have a great impact:

It should look interesting.

It should represent a message or call to action relevant to what you do or how you want your visitors to respond.

It should be an attention grabber.

The colors shouldn’t scream “Blind me!”

It should represent the genuine you.

Now you have shared the real you with your fans everywhere and given them a rocktastic picture to look at. Now lets look a little closer at that color scheme.

Choose a color scheme.

What are your colors? What colors represent the message you want to get across on the Web? 

Here are a couple links that I think just might help you out:

Psychology of Color in Marketing http://www.slideshare.net/ghostfrogmedia/psychology-of-color-in-marketing

Kuler - Color themes. https://kuler.adobe.com/

ColorCodeHex http://www.colorcodehex.com/

Ok, now that we have our colors straight we are really starting to set a mood. Now lets set a tone.

Set your tone.

Your Facebook marketing efforts can either be a bullseye or complete scattershot miss. 

Here is your wisdom young padawans:

Keep your logo and color schemes uniform across your sites and social profiles.

Speak to your visitors rather than just about yourself or your product/service.

Keep it interesting across all channels.

Brand to the point that if a visitor from your Google+ profile checks you out on Facebook they will feel that they are in familiar territory.

Always be consistent without ever being boring.

Now you have something to say and people will listen (if its good content). Now lets leverage what we’ve got shall we?

Leverage your channels.

What are your channels? Social such as Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn, and Pinterest. Search and your website/blog are also your channels. And lest we forget the granddaddy of channels: email. 

Here are some tips:

Set up an email list. With an email list in hand you can send out targeted messages, stay in contact with potentially valuable contacts and leads, and offer promotions and special offers.

Post to your social media streams regularly (I will go more into this below). To really benefit you really need to do so daily.

Update your blog and website regularly. To really rock the content marketing your blog should be updated at least 3 to 5 times a week with fresh content.

Cross promote between Facebook and your other social profiles.

Now to one of the keys that if forgotten will limit the effectiveness of your both your social media strategy and your content marketing.

Post consistently.

I have often heard and read the question: How often should you post to social media such as Facebook? The answer can largely depend on your business and target market.

To simplify let me give you some basic rules of thumb (I am going to include tips on more than one channel here):

Facebook = Post 1 to 2 per day. I wouldn’t advise going over 2 times. If you post too much engagement can drop.

Twitter = I would say post between 5 and 10 times a day. I know it seems some are publishing tweets every few minutes but there s no benefit to just creating more noise and annoying your followers by completely filling their streams.

Google+ = Post 3 – 5 times a day.

LinkedIn = Once a day.

Blog  = At least twice a week but I would recommend 3 – 5 times a week.

There you have it. By following the tips I shared above you will be taking some strong and positive steps in Facebook branding and social marketing.

Get wired in!

Harvey Suddarth

Wired-In Marketing Solutions

http://getwiredin.wordpress.com

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