Your Social Media, Your Brand?

Posted by Jack Smith in Social Media | View Comments

One of the greatest things about Social Media and Web design today is that anyone can do it, which can also be one of the worst things for your image and brand.  Can virtually anyone find a site that offers some type of ‘FREE’ template for your Web site, blog or Twitter account?  The answer is a resounding ‘yes’, but the better question is, should they?

Without boring you with an exact stat, the percentage of consumers that are going to the Web first to research you, your product or your service before they ever meet you in person or visit your storefront has never been higher and shows no signs of slowing.  So with that said, your website, blog, Facebook Fan page or Twitter page is more and more often setting the first impression of you and your organization with your stakeholders.  Has it been hurriedly thrown together with little thought and expertise or is it part of a unified message and brand?

One of my favorite things about the work we do with our clients at The Social Latte is that it is more than just talking about social media strategy and teaching (although both are important), we actually build and execute on the strategies and advice we preach.  Sitting down and ‘getting dirty’ with the design and code of a site is one of my favorite things to do because that is the first place you start to see some tangible results.  And although a social media site needs to do a lot more than look pretty to achieve results, we all know how important first impressions can be.

As a franchise owner of Home Instead, one of our recent clients tasked us with creating their social media presence to match the new branding on their corporate site.  When their clients visited their social media sites, they wanted to make sure they were making the right impression and leveraging the work done on their brand by the corporate office.  Makes sense right?

We started from scratch with only a few personal photos and went to work and here are the results of our work.  First on the list was creating their blog, and of course we used my favorite WordPress framework – Thesis.  Notice the blog is a little less ‘formal’ than the website in look and feel, but still ties in all of the corporate branding and colors.

 

Next on the list was their custom Twitter background page created to match their corporate branding.

 

When we presented our work to the client, there was actually some concern their clients would mistake their sites for the actual corporate sites (which we found flattering – mission accomplished!).  So we made sure to add some local photos, images and information about their Richmond, Virginia location.  And although a social media site is never ‘complete’ in my opinion because you should always be adding content and functionality to maximize its value, our client has a solid foundation to start from that professionally represents their them and their brand.

The Social Latte specifically focuses on creating your ‘online home’ and making sure the first ‘electronic impression’ of your business is the best one possible  Is it time for you to upgrade your corporate image?  I’ll be sure to post an update when we complete their Facebook Fan page.