As organizations, we worry about our logos appearing on everything, the way our websites looks and what our collateral feels like. All of these things are important, but are you missing the most obvious, possibly the most visited, part of your brand?  Are you establishing a brand voice and identity on social media, or are you taking selfies and making random posts that don’t say something about your brand?

If you think about it, we put so much into our website, but it’s unlikely there are many reasons besides your blog for the same people to visit your site every day. I use this blog as a way to keep traffic going to our site, but even if you came and read a blog here each day, it’s not likely you’ll go look at our work or our services every day. So what are people visiting each day? The answer is your social media. Instagram is one of my favorite ways to establish a look and a voice. It’s no different than designing a stellar print piece for your company. What do you want people to feel when they see your feed? You can carry this over to Twitter without even using any images. What do your tweets say, and what tone are they setting?

 Here’s what you should include, at minimum, to create a consistent brand guideline for your social media.

• Fonts. This includes what fonts are acceptable and what type of formatting is to be used. This should fall in line with the brand standards you use for your website and print material. Don’t reinvent the wheel. If you have multiple people managing your brand, it’s always best to keep it simple to ensure consistency.

• Photo Style. Get inspiration from magazines or other social media feeds and decide what the photos should feel like on your feed. This can include color treatments, filters or no filters, textures and sample photos. It’s important to show what’s acceptable as well as what’s not to make it clear for anyone managing the brand.

• The tone. This is the personality of your brand. If you’re a light-hearted brand, then don’t spend time trying to be seen as the most insightful brand. Give your audience information, but make them smile. Find what fits you and own it.

• Logo placement. If you’re logo isn’t in the photo on products then include a small logo bug on your images. Keep the placement consistent, even if it means two options to place it. Limit the options and guarantee consistency. 

Here are a few examples of this in action: 

With one of our clients, (River Valley Church) @global_project_ we’ve chosen to use consistent fonts, colors and photos to rebrand their missions feed. Our amazing designer from Circle50, @amandesign_ uses her photos with her handwritten art to give her feed a feel. McDonalds, Lucky, Starbukcs and other brands choose to use photos only to create the tone on their feed. There’s many ways to skin this cat so choose what fits for your brand.

There are many different layers when building out your social media brand. If you know it matters but can’t tackle this on your own, we’d love to chat with you. Contact us if you need help creating a brand guideline for social media. We’d love to help you!