When it comes to branding, consistency is one of the most important elements. Your branding will never reach maximum effectiveness without it. Your message needs to carry over to every element of your marketing, from your company website to your packaging, stationery, emails, and social media. Otherwise, potential customers will never learn to recognize your branding and thus remember your company.
That’s not to say you can’t make customizations for different platforms. Sometimes it might make sense to make slight changes for certain platforms, or during holidays or special occasions–like how Google changes its logo for things like historical events, celebrity birthdays, and holidays. But the overall aesthetic of your branding should carry over enough that it is still easily recognizable.
Let’s look at some areas where you should concentrate on keeping your branding consistent across various social media platforms.
Profile Picture
Most companies use the company’s logo as their profile picture on social media, which is usually a good idea. Unless your company focuses on one very recognizable face, using your logo keeps branding consistent, and each view of your profile increases brand recognition. You may need to alter your logo slightly to account for the circular format on many social media platforms, especially if it is a tall or wide design. However, make sure it is easily readable and recognizable, even in the small size that most platforms present profile pictures.
Colors
Colors should also remain consistent. Anywhere colors can be customized, including your profile picture, background, header graphic, or other areas, should carry your company’s main representative colors.
T-Mobile is a brand that is famous for its use of a specific color–pink. As you can see from their social media profiles, the pink color is used consistently across all of their channels.
Content
Content is more important on social media than branding because your followers and viewers will pay a lot more attention to your content than your branding. All content you post should be consistent with your brand’s message, your company’s core beliefs, and be relatively free of controversy (unless your brand specifically revolves around something naturally controversial.)
Voice
Finally, your content’s voice must remain consistent. If your company is known for professional content, don’t suddenly start posting jokes or funny memes. If your brand is known for being fun and lighthearted, don’t start posting a lot of sad or serious content. There will be exceptions from time to time, but try to use the same voice for the majority of your content.
Remember, consistency is key. Your logo, colors, content, and voice should always carry over to each platform in order to increase viewership and engagement. While minor variations are perfectly acceptable, maintaining consistency will be an effective tool for increasing brand recognition.