Examples of consistent branding across platforms
CONSISTENCY
In my experience, social media is driven by consistency at its core. This means expert branding that blends into the background of the messaging, and thoughtful messaging that speaks to the values and needs of clients, but also predictable scheduling of posts and a planned content calendar.
Just as on web, a user's experience with your content should be effectively the same no matter what device or social platform they're viewing your content from.
BRAND AS STYLE AND LANGUAGE
Branding in social media goes beyond logos and color usage and includes more subtle things like your brand's "voice" when posting copy or responding to comments, or even the style and saturation of photography used in your posts. Understanding you own brand's voice and style will let you tailor your posts to the clients you want to reach and make sure your brand is exuding the presence you are aiming for.
Examples of consistent visual style
Examples of keeping visual interest while maintaining hierarchy of information
INFORMATIONAL HIERARCHY
As in all design work, your piece can be as visually striking as possible, but without clear hierarchy of information, your message simply will not be heard or worse, will be misunderstood. We know that users, especially on smaller screens, will scan information very quickly, so the design of small items like social media posts must be focused, clear, and uncluttered to maximize your message.
The Interaction Design Foundation suggests the following for minimizing content in mobile use cases:
"Smaller screens mean essential elements need to be legible on a smaller resolution. You must make a clean, legible layout to cater to mobile users.
- Make an effort to reduce cognitive load for your users.
- Keep images small and to a minimum.
- Keep a clear visual hierarchy.
- Use color and contrast to maximize visibility.
- Make text 11 points or larger.
- Reduce clutter. Compress information into icons where appropriate.
- Complement or frame content with whitespace."
ANALYTICS
Analytics start with understanding your target audience. Research will help to make sure your understanding of your audience is correct and allow you to correctly position your brand to speak to their needs. This process can look like conducting user interviews, creating user personas by evaluating existing clients, analyzing your competition and their client base, and speaking to sales and customer support roles internally.
Once a strong understanding of your audience is established, you can then move to collecting and absorbing data. This comes in the form of site analytics for web projects, social listening tools like Sprout or Hootsuite, and email campaign tools like Owletter or MailCharts. SEO is essential for web applications, while tools like BuzzSumo can provide similar keyword research and comparison for social media.
Success in social media is measured in engagement. For a business, this can be broken down into posts published, inbound user engagement, and outbound user engagement. Inbound engagement should be measured both by day and by post, while outbound engagement should be more focused on a timely, on-brand response to comments or questions.
An example of a simple user persona