PR and social media provide endless opportunities for you to brand yourself digitally. They gives you a tangible way to show who you are, what you stand for, and your overall professional identity. You may have been told countless times that having a social media presence will help you stay relevant in the midst of a media overload.
However, PR and social media management means more than simply owning accounts and handles on multiple platforms. Having minimal content under your name is not enough to build a sturdy online presence, nor help “stay relevant”. Your presence will come from the quality content you put out, and the way you understand certain platforms.
Social media can be a powerful PR tool to reach your target audiences through interconnected platforms, all while maintaining your narrative. Managing your various accounts comes with the greater knowledge of who you are through your personal branding, and an additional understanding of the tools you’re using.
Your Presence Comes From Consistency
Keeping your branding consistent across each of your various social platforms will be key in curating your desired online presence. Each platform has different features, purposes and reputations, therefore you need to stay consistent while also staying appropriate to the social platforms purpose.
According to the Lassonde Entrepreneur Institute, having a consistent brand reaps many rewards, including a greater brand recognition from the public, and a sense of trust from your stakeholders. If you truly know your personal or company identity as a result of in-depth branding and PR discussions, then you can accurately communicate your brand to the public and therefore “shape customer perception”.
By showing confidence and commitment to your brand in your PR social media management.
How Does Social Media Management Work as a PR Tool?
With the growing presence of B2B and B2C social media communication, platforms have understood this evolving need for new business resources. Tools, all created with the intention of providing a professional aspect to these respected platforms, bring your account from one of personal and casual use to one of genuine business use: Instagram Business Tools, Twitter for Business and LinkedIn for Business.
With these tools, you are able to see post insights, allowing you to further analyze impressions and to see what works for your feed, as well as what doesn’t. Recognizing which posts reach a wider audience, expanding past your immediate followers, can help you in deciding what to continue posting in the future. This can happen organically or by boosting your content through paid business tools. Either way, knowing how each post is received on the internet will prove important in planning your brand’s PR and social media management strategy and presence.
The Thought Behind Your Feed
Managing and maintaining various social channels requires a lot more thought per post than one may think. Upon the early creation of apps like Instagram and TikTok, users would typically post in a more casual tone, not focusing on the quality of the content. Traditionally, social media can be looked at as casual for individual users or even a place for brands to get to know their consumers on a different, more personal level. With social media platforms not only becoming more popular for individual creators, but also for corporations and brands, there are many new standards to follow.
The concept of appearing casual, but still polished and well-branded, can be considered an art form in itself. Requiring more thought than simply snapping a picture and posting it, appearing relatable but not unreliable or unprofessional, is a new phenomenon that brands, big and small alike, have started to follow. In order to present as relatable and reliable to your audience, Forbes recommends highlighting your brand’s “why” in your content. This humanizes your brand on your social platforms, and gives your audience a reason to trust your content.
Telling a cohesive story through your content can also help your page to appear more purposeful and organized. Read here to learn more about the importance of storytelling in your online brand.
Different Platforms, Different Purposes
Understanding the different usages for each social platform will remain key to your PR and social media management for your brand. Now that you’re confident in your brand identity and the types of messaging you will promote on your pages, you can delve at the more technical side of social.
For example, keeping up with the different media layouts, feed formats and content requirements for each of your platforms will remain vital to displaying your social media knowledge and courtesy. Overall, it’s a matter of knowing the personalities of each platform, while adhering to the common practices by shifting your wording to meet the platform’s word count, or photo dimensions based on what fits for that specific feed.
Your Online Brand at Your Fingertips
You can shape your digital brand by strategizing, scheduling and brainstorming social media content that represents who you are. By staying true to your identity and appropriate to the social platform at hand, you can manage your online reputation through social media channels. If you’re unsure how to start, you can always speak to a content and social media manager.