Developing an online personality requires a brand to identify who they are and the brand they want to be. This thinking, once established, will allow the brand to roll out their personification through social media.Not having a personality is the first problem many brands face. Essentially a well-defined corporate identity is always in place, however it is the tone and personality that has rarely been defined.To correct this, brands need to fully understand the types of human personas in terms of tone and personality that their brand represents to begin engaging in the social space. A social voice is manifested in several ‘real’ people. A brand is more human in social. It listens, learns and engages in two-way conversation.

How do brands establish their brand tone and personality?

1. Brands need to start by taking a look at their corporate identity. Understand what their brand currently represents, what their brand should represent and how their customers will potentially perceive them online.This will allow the brand to map out and identify its core personality strengths against competition; gaps the brand could potentially occupy in the market and opportunities for growing its online personality.
2. Deciding what the brand will be talking about is the next area of focus. This is a really important and detailed process that will allow the brand to focus on both what the brand has to say that will add value to its audiences, and what the audience wants to hear. Once these content categories have been decided, the brand tone and personality will begin to take shape.
3. Use a diagram to map out and visualise how the tone and personality will apply to varying categories of content, and where that tone and personality can overlap on content categories. The diagram should be used as guidelines for all staff interacting in the online space on behalf of the brand. It should form the basis of the tone to all interactions, and is integral in ensuring a consistent brand tone and personality online. The majority of social media brand failures are usually attributed to the inconsistencies in brand tone and response.

The diagram above illustrates the four key areas that help a brand to establish its brand identity. In this article we’ve focused on the personality aspect, but have touched on the importance of understanding the target audience and the value proposition for these audiences.

What is a target audience?

A target audience is a group of customers, identified by the business that the business has decided to aim its marketing efforts and ultimately its products and or services. A well-defined target audience should be the first element in any marketing strategy. Having this defined and segmented will make the process of establishing the brand identity simpler.

Understanding value proposition

A value proposition is a business or marketing statement that ultimately incentivises why a consumer should buy a product or use a service. This should convince a potential consumer that one particular product or service will add more value or better solve a problem than other similar offerings.For brands, defining their social media tone and personality could potentially be one of the more difficult exercises of their social media journey, but it is the most important. By understanding the target audience, creating a value proposition and taking the time to define the brands tone and personality, this will ultimately form part of the revenue generating model of the company.Call the Bang Online team to discuss your social media strategy!