If you’re not familiar with marketing, you’ve probably heard the words content, branding and social media used interchangeably. It’s important to know the distinction between these various functions that all serve a purpose and require complete attention to execute successfully.
Branding helps to distinguish a company. Branding is much more than the logo of a company, it is responsible for setting a company’s positioning, perception and personality. This is all done so that the company can differentiate itself and attract the audience it’s intended to appeal to.
Content is any form of communication – Content transforms your brand message into consumable information. Content marketing follows the brand guidelines, tone of voice, personality and uses these parameters to identify the main themes your business will discuss and set content styles for various formats e.g. podcast, youtube video or article. Content doesn’t necessarily need to be distributed on social media for it to be successful e.g. a podcast does not have to be distributed on social media in order to be successful.
Social media is a content-sharing platform and a brand touchpoint: the goal of social media is to reach and nurture your audience, build brand advocacy and yes, ultimately to encourage sales. But for all of this to happen, the first two steps are crucial.
Can companies start their social media efforts without any brand or content foundations in place? Possibly, depending on the stage and the nature of the business. A small business may not initially have the resources to invest in an extensive marketing framework, understandably so. In this case, they might decide to test the waters and adjust their strategy as they go. But as the business evolves, those social media efforts will ultimately hit a wall.
This is a situation that social media professionals are all too familiar with. Many of us have unknowingly taken on the roles of brand strategists and content managers to fill these gaps. This makes social media time-consuming and labor-intensive. Fortunately, this also means that many SMMs have the necessary set of t-shaped skills to execute a successful social media brand presence.
Let’s discuss a scenario of how these two functions are crucial to social media efforts:
*You’re a product-based brand in a saturated market and you want to create a high-impact instagram feed full of eye-catching product photos and reels that encourage sales.
What are the visual guidelines for creating content in the absence of a cohesive brand framework? What reel audios can be found that reflect the brand’s personality? What is the brand message, and how will it be translated into social media campaign creatives so that the company can differentiate itself and carve out its niche?
Every detail, from caption copywriting, to sourcing reel audios to producing campaign creatives depend upon brand foundations.
Here’s another example:
*You’re a service-based brand that sells something intangible. Without a wider content framework, what normally happens is adhoc posting. Your social media manager is stumped for ideas, so they post ‘filler content’ that garners little to no engagement. The business sees little return from social media and the pressure falls onto the SMM.
Ideally, the social media managers should look at the overall content strategy, find ways to repurpose that material into platform-native assets, and share community insights with the content team to help them brainstorm.
Every company understands that social media is crucial to stay competitive but for it to be a business priority, these functions need to be integrated effectively. The social media advantages to a business extend far and wide beyond simply having a presence on the platform. It is one piece of the strategy in the larger marketing and business plan. You want your social media to be effective across the board, positively impacting other business and marketing functions.
Written by Natalya Kamal
Image credit: Social Squares
