In today’s digital age, social media is one of the most powerful tools for building brand awareness. With millions of active users on various social media platforms, businesses can reach a vast audience and create a strong online presence. 

However, with so many businesses competing for attention, it can be challenging to stand out from the crowd. That’s why it’s so important to use social media effectively to build brand awareness effectively.

Brand awareness refers to the degree to which a brand is recognized by potential customers and associated with its particular product or service. 

It doesn’t always have to reach eponym status (e.g. ‘Hoover’ instead of ‘vacuum cleaner’), as simpler forms of awareness are still considered a success. 

For smaller businesses, successful examples of brand awareness could be: 

• Consumers having knowledge of what your business is known for
• Social media users recognising your ad in their feed
• Customers choosing your brand over competitors
• Search engine users typing your business name or other branded terms into search

In this article, we’ll explore the best and most effective ways to build brand awareness using social media.

1. Build Brand Awareness with Brand Advocates

When individuals become passionate about a brand’s product or service and actively promote it to others, this is known as brand advocacy.

One of the easiest ways to spread brand awareness using brand advocacy is through the use of influencers. 

Some of the best brand advocates, however, don’t need to be paid. Encouraging your satisfied customers to share user-generated content is effective in building trust with their network of family and friends. 

This is because these types of recommendations, known as earned media, are trusted by 92% of consumers worldwide over other types of advertising.

It’s clear that positive user-generated content about businesses is much more effective than brand messaging.

Brands can encourage satisfied customers to share user-generated content by offering incentives and featuring them on their social media channels. Or, you could host social media contests where customers can submit their content for a chance to win prizes. 

A great example of this is Starbucks’ ‘White Cup Contest’. This marked the launch of Starbucks’ $1 reusable white cups in the USA and Canada. 

The contest encouraged customers to purchase the white cups, draw their own designs on them and share their creations on social media.

2. Utilise Paid Advertising to Generate Brand Awareness

There’s no denying that organic social media can be effective. However, if building brand awareness is one of your main goals, we highly recommend investing in paid social media.

Paid advertising can help take your brand to the next level, to an extent that would be very difficult with organic content alone. 

For example, Meta Ads Manager allows businesses to create and target ads to specific demographics, interests and behaviours on Facebook and Instagram. If your main focus is B2B, then LinkedIn Ads allows businesses to target a specific professional audience based on job title, industry, and company size. 

Paid social media advertising can also help businesses reach people who are not already following their brand. This can be particularly useful for small businesses with limited social media following. 

Overall, social media advertising can help businesses build brand awareness by increasing reach, attracting new customers, and ultimately providing a valuable return on investment by driving revenue.

3. Use the Best Social Media Platforms for Your Business

Just being on social media is not enough. Businesses need to be on the right platforms that align with their target audience and business objectives. 

For example, if the majority of your sales are B2B, then you would probably be wasting time trying to perfect your TikTok marketing strategy: your time would be much more successfully invested into building brand awareness on a platform like LinkedIn.

Meanwhile, if your business sells visually appealing products or services, then TikTok, Instagram or Pinterest would be excellent platforms for building brand awareness. 

Understanding which platforms to use will help businesses reach their target audience more effectively, which in turn builds lasting brand awareness. 

Additionally, staying up to date with emerging platforms can also give businesses a competitive edge. For instance, some brands have found innovative ways to capitalise on the rise of BeReal to reach younger demographics.

4. Give Your Brand Some Personality

Your brand’s social media presence needs to stand out from the rest to be successful. Working on developing an engaging tone of voice that suits your brand can be the difference between a stale social media strategy, and consistently going viral.

There’s a misconception that only certain industries, like fast food or retail, can have a creative and engaging social media presence. However, that’s simply not true. 

Take the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation’s Twitter account as an example. 

It would have been easy for them to just share cute animal photos, but instead, they chose to showcase a unique brand personality, which has won over their followers.

Posting the same promotional posts and links just isn’t going to cut it now that social media is so crowded. If you create the personable and relatable content that users crave, they will actively want to see your brand’s content on their feed.

5. Spread Brand Awareness with Hashtags

Social media has come a long way since hashtags were one of the main ways of increasing your reach. But that doesn’t mean that you should forget about them – they are still a powerful tool for increasing brand awareness.

By using relevant and brand-applicable hashtags, businesses can increase their post impressions and reach a wider audience. 

One example of a tool you can use to find the best hashtags to use is Hashtagify. Hashtagify allows you to search for relevant hashtags in your industry and see how popular they are. It also suggests related hashtags that may be useful for increasing your reach.

It’s important to consider both the social media platform you’re posting on and the current trends that are driving conversations. 

By doing so, you can ensure that your hashtags are reaching the right audience and helping to build your brand’s presence on social media. So don’t underestimate the power of the hashtag – it’s alive and well!

 

Building Brand Awareness on Social Media: Conclusion

In conclusion, social media is a powerful tool for building brand awareness. It’s not just about being present on social media. It’s about being on the right platforms and using the right strategies to connect with your target audience. 

By leveraging user-generated content, paid advertising, and hashtags, businesses can effectively build brand awareness and reach a wider audience. 

Use specific analytics tools – such as Meta Business Suite and Twitter Creative Studio – to monitor key metrics like reach, impressions and followers. Tracking your social media performance will highlight what is most successful at increasing your brand’s awareness. 

With the right approach, businesses can differentiate themselves from their competitors and create a lasting impression on their audience.