Council Post: 10 Tips For Ensuring Your Social Media Content Stays On-Brand


Marketing on social media can be a challenge. Between engaging different audiences across platforms and staying true to your brand message, there are several factors to manage. Even though it can be difficult, companies shouldn’t throw in the towel. Connecting with customers and clients on social networks is too valuable an opportunity to ignore.

If you’d like help ensuring your company’s social media stays on-brand, read the following advice from agency professionals from Forbes Agency Council. They’ve worked closely with businesses to help them establish strong social profiles and have insights that can help you create a consistent brand identity across platforms.

It’s all about the value proposition. You want them to think about who you are: For example, are you the premier provider or the low-cost provider? You want them to think about the value you bring to their business: What is the problem you solve? And you want them to think about your differentiators: What is it that only your company provides? This is what you want the consumer to think of when they think of your brand. - Lori Paikin, NaviStone®

Beyond visual branding, it’s critical that you define your brand stack, which would include your company’s core values, brand personality, positioning, differentiation, customer promise, mission and more. Coming out of this, document a messaging platform that articulates the DNA of your brand. Your social media profiles should reflect both the brand strategy and the messaging platform. - Tom Shapiro, Stratabeat

Start with a review of customer personas. If they don’t exist, go through that exercise thoughtfully, but quickly. If the Nike brand didn’t have a clear understanding of its personas, how would research and development know what products would resonate? Its social voice and profiles would never have evolved from being a runners-only brand. Today, Nike’s voice must meet a combined sport, wellness and social equality barometer. - Dean Trevelino, Trevelino/Keller


Branding defines culture. Companies need to consider more than just aesthetics and style; they need to develop a cohesive voice. From a company website and social platforms to how the team talks about its work, there must be consistency across the board. This will establish the company’s personality and how it will be perceived by the world. - Buffy McCoy Kelly, Tattoo Projects

Social media outreach is all about having the right tone and message—these are the foundation of a compelling verbal identity. Across categories, verbal is the most underutilized tool in the brand toolbox. Start with a clear voice role that outlines your character in the lives of your audiences. Build tone-of-voice principles with writing tactics. Tighten up that messaging matrix by the audience. This ensures an on-brand social media presence. - Justin Wartell, Monigle

6. Immerse Employees In The Company’s Voice And Brand

A critical factor in keeping a company’s social media content on-brand is to immerse the owners of those social media accounts in the brand culture. It must be second nature to them to speak the voice of the company as if it were their own. For this to happen, a company must work hard to include employees in experiences that give them a sense of the company’s voice and brand. - A. Lee Judge, Content Monsta

7. Connect Through Your Brand’s Look, Feel And Language

Create a style guide, and consistently use language and images that connect with your target audiences. Create a bio of your ideal customer avatar. Find a stock photo that represents that persona that you can look at while creating content to be sure it makes a connection. People expect consistency from brands—consistency in look, feel and language is critical. - Nancy Marshall, Marshall Communications

8. Publish Content That Has Value For Your Audience

Branding for a company comes down to ensuring that the look and feel accurately reflect the company’s purpose and mission. It’s not about signing on to these channels and publishing content just to say you did it; it’s about the value that it provides and the exchange of value with the person on the receiving end. If your content is valuable, authentic and honest, you can’t go wrong. - Larry Fisher, Rise Interactive

Cross-channel consistency is the key. Beyond basics such as logos and cover images, you should also maintain the same brand voice, tone and visuals in your social communication that you use in other marketing materials so that your company’s core branding is recognizable to customers, regardless of where they choose to engage. - Donna Robinson, Collective Measures

A brand is more than a color and style system—it is consistently creating an emotional connection. Messaging, imagery and style can accomplish this, and social media should carry this through as well. Your message can be showcased on social media through various stories, contests and imagery. Your content should be genuine to further the emotional connection with your audience. - Peter Boyd, PaperStreet Web Design