Building Brand Awareness on Social Media

June, 2022

Who do you know who manages their own social media accounts, occasionally boosts posts or runs paid ads and literally doesn’t know what they’re doing? Sit them down. Ask them how their social media is working for them. If you find yourself saying, I’m so sorry you’re dealing with that buy them a glass of wine and start talking about building brand awareness.

Brand Awareness on Social Media
When people know your company/products/service exists and they know your business name, they have brand awareness. It means you’ve done a good job speaking to them on social media. It doesn’t mean, however, that your job is done.

The social proof of brand awareness is that your target audience continues to stay engaged with your accounts. They’re commenting, sharing, and the ultimate of brand awareness - they’re creating their own content about your business and tagging you in those posts.

Social media marketing for brand awareness is where it’s at, with 93% of marketers using social media for this exact purpose. Building brand awareness is like feeding a pet, it’s constantly hungry and you just can’t skip the tending.

Practical Ways to Build Brand Awareness on Social Media

1. Know Your Target Audience
Create easy-to-access profiles of the main segments of your audience. At Yancey Red Social Media Agency in Vermont, we work with businesses across the country. We’ve found that the most accessible profiles for most businesses and industries happen when we break target audiences down into generations.

Each generation that falls into a target audience we assign a profile photo that best captures the vibe of the generation for that business. Then we highlight traits, purchasing decisions, goals, constraints, etc. For example, here’s a generational profile of Boomer drivers for a car dealership:

Current age:
55-75 

Motivation:
Brand loyal, action-oriented

Platforms:
Facebook, Twitter

Strategy:
Old school / New school. They drove cars before computers, now they’re driving computers on wheels. 

Shop Culture:
Appreciate the technology and the greasy hands.

Visual:
Content heavy, slower more informative video.

Peak times:
5am - 12pm

2. Invite Your Audience Into Your Quirks
Create content that is interesting and engaging. While you want to keep the look and feel of your brand, you also want to show folks that you are you. One rule Yancey Red Social Media Agency lives by is to always keep it interesting. Your content has got to be easily recognizable and inviting for your audience to participate in the conversation. Ask questions, invite people to the table, open your windows, and make some pie. And, remember to tag others in your posts.

3. Optimize All Your Social Media Profiles
Your business is always changing, so is the world, and so are your followers. Keep your profiles fresh for the SEO machine and for readability. LinkedIn is a great example of a profile that should always be updated with any changes in jobs, location, skills, etc. Google My Business, now called Google Business Profile, requires near-constant update verifications and profile optimizations. Keeping your social media profiles fresh keeps your audience interested.

4. Use Hashtags
It’s 2022 and we’re still reminding people to use hashtags on the appropriate platforms. Create a branded hashtag to help elevate and amplify your business. Do your research to ensure it’s not too popular and it’s pulling in safe content, then start using it on every post.

5. Engage With Your Audience
Ethical engagement is what a social media agency like Yancey Red does best. Respond to every comment and review with authentic creativity. We know it’s challenging to come up with 5+ word replies that are creative and meaningful, but when you do this, the algorithm rewards you and broadcasts your content to more users. Taking the time to reply is the social part of social media and it will take you far when it comes to building brand awareness.

So, now you have these 5 easy-peasy brand awareness tips to help you get started on social media marketing. If you’re looking for more help, contact Yancey Red Social Media Agency to see what we can do for you.