Social Media Outlook: Why You Need to be Humanising your Brand
With the year well underway, we’re already seeing a number of businesses realise that they need to be prioritising their online presence. Here at Blackjet, we work with a very wide range of businesses. Although their digital strategies differ from one client to the next, we’re seeing a very clear theme amongst all of them that is delivering results across the board — the need to humanise their brand. When it comes to creating an effective social media strategy, humanising brand is everything. Think about it — your customers don’t want to buy from a brand who uses inauthentic stock imagery. They want to buy from other humans who they identify with, people who understand their pain points and can offer a solution. So… how do you humanise a brand?
Create a bank of content photography
Most people have a cell phone with camera capabilities nowadays. Next time you’re taking a photo to share online, make sure people are in it. The photo doesn’t have to include their face — it could be their hands, looking over their shoulder, the back of their body — anything to show that there is a human element to what’s being photographed. We know for a fact that human based content performs better than stock photography; it’s a proven formula that we know works well for social media. It’s time to showcase the humans behind your brand to the world. Again, it doesn’t always have to be photos of their face — so even the ones who are camera shy can still take part!
Share some behind the scenes content
Here’s some serious insight: people are craving to know more about the behind the scenes of your business. What does that look like in your line of work? Perhaps it’s a...
- Time lapse of your team packing orders ready to be sent off
- A snap of an on-site visit you're doing
- A showcase of your suppliers
- Or a sneak peek of something being worked on.
It doesn’t have to be complicated; it’s just about remembering to capture content in the moment. An easy way to make sure these photo opportunities don’t get missed is by assigning a couple of people as social media champions or activators. If it’s their job to capture snaps around the place, then you’ll have lots of content to work with in no time!
Showcase how you’ve solved customers’ problems through case studies
Case studies are a very easy and effective way to highlight how exactly your business has solved a problem for a customer. We’ve got a simple formula that businesses can take away and use:
- Problem profile – detail exactly what the issue was and why your business needed to step in.
- Solution – note how you solved the problem and why you took the approach that you did. Remember to include specifics and details!
- Results – what did the results look like for this customer? Success can be different for everyone, so highlight what it was for them.
- Testimonial – ask the customer to write a few sentences about their experience working with you and why they would recommend your business. Crafting the content above is important, but at the end of the day, a testimonial from the customer themselves is truly invaluable.
After being crafted using the above strategy, the case study can be posted on your website and then your social media. The case study can be shared across socials multiple times too — twice with the link to the website to read it in full, and another one or two times sharing the testimonial only. That’s a whole lot of stuff to be added to your content pipeline! We wouldn’t recommend sharing all that content at once, so make sure it’s spread out across 4-6 weeks — it’s important to have a balance of content throughout your calendar!
And for the final check before take off…
Whether you’re specifically looking to humanise your brand or are just wanting to maintain an online presence, having a clear social media plan in place is essential. Your plan should cover content across a range of what we call ‘content pillars’ – specific topics that your brand will consistently create content for. Here at Blackjet, our client content plans take shape in the form of a calendar; we plan out content for each month based on what’s happening in their business. Although a plan is fundamental for take off, this is arguably the most important thing when it comes to humanising a brand — consistency and accountability! Having a clear plan in place is essential, but if no one’s holding you accountable, then how will it be done consistently? If you’ve decided to have your social media done inhouse then that’s great, but you need to have some accountability measures in place. If you are struggling to maintain that consistency and are not quite hitting the mark, then let’s have a chat about how we can help.
Ready to humanise your brand and set your online presence apart from the rest? This is the year that your business flies high online, and we’d love to be part of the flight. For a free one-on-one discovery call with Founder Christine, book in a time here.