3 Ways Consistent Branding Could Be Doing More Harm Than Good For Your Social Media Engagement
Is your social media feed filled with images that all look alike, whether you use the same color/filter or the same type of graphic? I know how time consuming it is to maintain a branded look. But did you know it could be hindering your engagement?
Being in the Social Media Management business, I know how important "branding" is and it's been taken to an entirely new level with patterned feeds, filters to match your brand, and being limited to only using a specific type of graphic (selfie, color coordinating, same three image types to create a pattern). All of these do create a beautiful, coordinated layout, but are they really catching the attention of your ideal client?
There are 3 ways consistent branding could be doing more harm than good for your Social Media Engagement.
1. Too Predictable The whole purpose of social media is to grab the attention of your ideal client; to make them stop scrolling and read your post. If your graphics are not visually stimulating, they become predictable. When you do the same thing over and over, it becomes predictable and your audience will think they've already seen the post and scroll right on by!
2. Looks Too Familiar To catch your ideal clients attention, you need to break the pattern! You need to think outside of the box and create graphics that grab their attention and make them stop scrolling and read your post. If your graphics either look like everyone else's or have that familiar branded look, your ideal clients will likely just scroll right by because your graphic looks too familiar! You could have the best, most informative post, but if your graphics look too familiar, they will not stop scrolling to read it.
Don't get me wrong, you don't have to completely step away from your branding! Sometimes your logo is enough when it comes to branding. Other situations where you'll want to consider stick to branding: a new product/service launch or a weekly feature. Other than that, it's time to think outside of the box (any maybe outside of your comfort zone) and start creating attention grabbing graphics!
3. Not Encouraging Engagement To satisfy social media algorithms and to increase your organic reach, you NEED engagement on your posts! If you're missing the first two components on this list, you're not getting the engagement you need to further your reach. When your posts encourage interaction, you not only boost the algorithms, but you also start building relationships and those relationships are needed to build your business. It's a win/win situation! One way you can encourage engagement is to ask questions on your graphics or end each post with a question!
By incorporating all three of these components, you will have a social media feed that is out of the ordinary, attention grabbing, and encourages engagement!
Don't believe that this system will increase engagement? Try it for a month! Write down your engagement numbers now and track them over the next month to see if there is any difference.
Do you need help creating engagement building posts? I will be launching a new Social Media Content Calendar in April that will provide you with engagement building topic prompts each week. Not sure how a Social Media Content Calendar can help you? Feel free to email me at stacey@staceysvaservices.com to schedule your FREE 30 minute Consultation!
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