Digital Marketing: Where Does Your Brand Fit?
By Raven Wheeler, Marketing Coordinator
As the world has shifted to become more digital, so has the central focus of marketing efforts. While relying on traditional media is no longer enough to maintain a brand’s presence, a strategic combination of traditional and digital media can significantly enhance a brand’s reach and impact. In this evolving and fast-paced world of digital media, maintaining an online presence for your brand is vital for success. However, succeeding in the digital and social world isn’t just about establishing an online presence on every platform. Finding where your brand fits into the social media universe means choosing the right social platforms that resonate with your target audience, fit your brand’s identity and align with your business objectives.
Target Audience
A fundamental starting point when selecting social platforms is having a deep understanding of your brand’s target audience. Knowing your audiences’ demographics, interests and online behaviour will serve as a guide to what social platforms they spend their time on and what kind of content they engage with. GWI recommends not focusing on where your customers are at, but why they use each platform. (https://blog.gwi.com/marketing/best-social-media-for-business/) In recent findings by Google, almost 40% of Gen Z’s are using social platforms such as Instagram and TikTok as alternative search engines. (https://techcrunch.com/2022/07/12/google-exec-suggests-instagram-and-tiktok-are-eating-into-googles-core-products-search-and-maps/ )
In short, you want to align your platform choices with the preferences and behaviours of your audience. By identifying and understanding that, you can leverage data analytics and market research to help tailor your content, tone and approach. If you’re wondering what platforms your audience demographics are using, this article by SproutSocial contains a breakdown of must-know social media demographics for 2023 (and beyond), https://sproutsocial.com/insights/new-social-media-demographics/
Brand Identity
While diversifying across multiple platforms can expand your brand’s reach, maintaining a consistent brand identity is essential for establishing trust and maintaining connections with your audience. After investing considerable effort into shaping your brand, it’s crucial that the social platforms you select are reflective of your brand’s values and messaging. Not every platform that your audiences use is going to be suitable for your brand image—and that’s okay.
Platforms that worked for you before may not work in the future, either. Recently, we’ve seen an overall rise in brands withdrawing from X (formerly Twitter) since Elon Musk took ownership of the platform. NPR is among the many brands opting to depart from X due to several platform changes that have been met with resistance from users, leading to a consistent decline in audiences leaving the platform. This NeimanReport article detailing NPR’s decision to exit the platform (https://niemanreports.org/articles/npr-twitter-musk/) mentions that NPR’s quality of engagement on the platform had been deteriorating and they were seeing less meaningful engagement from users. NPR noted that effects of leaving X has been negligible and that transitioning over to Meta Thread’s has been a positive move for them in replacement of X. This serves as a prime example of how businesses have adapted their digital strategies when a social platform no longer aligns with their brand and target audience.
At lmno, we regularly engage in strategic conversations with our clients. Recently, these discussions have involved weighing the benefits and implications of continuing to use X from a paid and social perspective. These types of conversations are not only necessary, but key to ensuring our clients have a well-informed and comprehensive digital strategy that is tailored to meet their specific needs.
Balance Is Crucial
While expanding your brand visibility by diversifying your social platforms, it’s crucial to have balance and avoid stretching your resources too thin across each available social channel. Implementing a thoughtful digital brand strategy entails carefully selecting channels that complement your brand’s values and resonate with your target audience. Being selective in what platforms you use will enable better communication with your audiences, rather than spreading your resources too thin trying to maintain a presence on all platforms. Avoiding overextension is key to ensure that your resources aren’t stretched thin, preventing effective utilization of any of your social channels.
By strategically limiting your social platforms, you can cultivate a cohesive brand experience that fosters meaningful interactions and connections with your audiences.
The Big Takeaway
In the rapidly evolving landscape of digital marketing, the strategic selection of social platforms plays a critical role in shaping your brand’s online presence and fostering meaningful connections with your followers. By staying up to date with your target audiences’ online preferences and behaviours and aligning your platform choices with your brands identity, you can cultivate cohesive and engaging online brand experience. Leveraging market research and data analytics will lead to a better understanding of your audience needs and interests, and ultimately guiding you on where your brand fits into the social media mix.