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Branding Business in a Social World

What does it means to be social for your brand?

It’s simple to explain: putting your brand out there to be found.
It can be harder to implement.

Consumers are out there socializing, sharing, and exploring information constantly. Companies that take advantage of this are the ones that will stay afloat. According to The Media Audit report, one third of US consumers spend greater or equal to three hours online every day. So knowing where your lead potential is, that is where you promote your brand. Let these stats speak for themselves:

•    Nearly 40% of US companies use blogs for marketing purposes (Emarketer)
•    More than 1/3 of marketers say Facebook is “critical” or “important” to their business (HubSpot, State of Inbound Marketing report)
•    79% of US Twitter users are more likely to recommend brands they follow

Business blogs, business Facebook pages, business Tweeting – They are all the same. They each put you in a position to be a brand journalist for your company. A brand journalist is successfully writing, promoting, and expressing from your brands prospective. Brand journalism is leaving the journalism work with a company’s representative. They will be the ones to create content that is keyword reach and intriguing as well as the ones to publish it in areas that consumers will find it.

Consumers rely on their social networks and search engines to provide them with the information they needs, that was once found in newspapers. If your information cannot be found within these searches, then your brand and communication is lost.

Contact Stellar Blue to discuss how to properly promote your brand or to have us service as your brand journalist. Call (920) 905-0250 or email info@stellarbluewebdesign.com for more information.

Stellar Blue Crew
Stellar Blue Web Design, LLC
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Customizing Options: Brand Consistency

The term ‘brand consistency’ is rarely explained in a ways that lends itself to practical implementation. So we’ll take a stab at it.

Whether you have a large budget or no budget, utilizing the web to create a consistent look is easier, more affordable than it’s ever been. Using your website as the hub of your marketing, focus on themes, colors, and of course, your logo. With these items at hand, lets discuss how to customize your look with Facebook and Twitter:

Facebook: As mentioned in a recent Stellar Solutions Blog post, Facebook has a set of dimensions for you to take advantage of. Granted, you can’t make a complete custom template for Facebook, but we can work with what it does provide.

•    Logo use: Facebook allows for the pages profile picture to be a max of 200 pixels wide by 600 pixels tall. As mentioned in the blog, this could be a real effective use of space to creatively splice product images together, include a logo or even your web address. So if your brand, your company, is heavily involved with imagery of your products take four photos found on your website, edit them to 200 pixel wide, place them on top of one of another to make then a sort of totem pole, and put your logo in the center. Voila! You have a custom Facebook profile picture that mirrors some of your marketing initiatives.

•    Custom Facebook Pages: So you can’t create a complete Facebook template, but we can create pages. These pages, also known as iFrame pages, are designed and built on your website’s server. You can make these pages look and feel consistent with your website, current print ads, or commercials. (Click here to see our example). The great thing about these iFrame pages is that you can make them look however you want. As long as you don’t exceed a 520 pixel width, the inside can include pictures, content, newsletter signups, links to external sources, integrate video and so much more. Overall, you are accomplishing a consistent look from your website to your Facebook page, your viewers will put two and two together.

Twitter: Unlike Facebook, Twitter does allow for more custom use. You might have already seen some examples but you can make a personalized background for your account. The backgrounds allows you to express your brand with your choice of colors, logo use, etc. And it allows you to put clear and upfront contact information.

•    Basic background requirements: To change any background image, go to ‘settings,’ then ‘design,’ and click “change background image.” Any image uploaded needs to be under 800k in size. As for dimensions (this is real important), the total image size should be approximately 1600 pixels wide by 1200 pixels tall. This size will ensure that the image doesn’t tile on the background. 

More commonly with Twitter backgrounds is the use of the left-hand column. You want to make sure this portion of the total image is small enough so it isn’t covered up by Twitter’s content/newsfeed. We suggest making this individual area 230 pixels wide. For more dimensions, click here.