A consistent brand image has long been linked with higher revenue. No wonder top companies like Apple and Coca-Cola invest heavily in building a unified brand identity. But let’s be honest, not all companies have massive marketing and social media budgets, so they need to be more savvy in building a consistent brand image.
The good news is that with just a few key things in place, you can build a recognizable brand. Here’s how to do it. But before we dive into the actual steps, let’s lay some groundwork.
What Is a Brand Image?
Brand image, or brand identity, is the perception of your brand in the minds of consumers. It’s the combination of visual elements, messaging, and overall experience that people associate with your brand. This perception is shaped by every interaction a consumer has with your brand, whether it’s through your products, customer service, social media presence, or marketing campaigns.
Why Is a Consistent Brand Identity Important?
Numerous perks come with building a recognizable brand. Here’s a lowdown of the most important ones:
It Sets Your Brand Apart
What is the common denominator among the world’s most successful companies? It’s branding—the unique personality of a company that sets it apart from its competitors.
For example, Nike’s brand image revolves around athleticism, inspiration, and innovation, while Disney’s centers on magic, family, and entertainment.
Consistency in the appearance and tone of these brands, and in how their brand ethos is reflected in the products they create, is what resonates with consumers and distinguishes them.
It Enhances Brand Recall
The more consistent your brand image, the easier it is for customers to remember you. Think about how quickly you can identify brands like Starbucks or McDonald’s simply by their colors or logos. This strong recall means customers are more likely to choose your brand over competitors, as they can easily recall your brand when making purchasing decisions.
More Recognizable Brand=More Sales
Lastly, but perhaps most importantly, a strong and consistent brand can lead to higher profits. When your brand looks and sounds the same across all platforms, it becomes more recognizable. In turn, customers know what to expect, which builds trust.
Studies have shown that 71% of consumers are more likely to buy from a brand name they recognize.
Let’s now go over a few easy steps that can help you create and maintain a consistent brand identity on social media.
A Step-by-Step Guide to Achieving a Consistent Brand Image
1. Create a Familiar Look Through Brand Guidelines
The first step in building a consistent brand identity is to invest in a professional design for a cohesive look. Here we’re talking about things like your logo, color palette, typography, imagery style, and any other visual elements that represent your brand.
Consistent visuals ensure that whether someone sees your brand on Instagram, your website, or a billboard, they instantly recognize it.
Start with your logo—make sure you have variations for different backgrounds. Stick to a defined primary and secondary color palette, and choose specific fonts for headers, subheaders, and body text. Define the style and mood of the photos or illustrations you’ll use.
Document these elements in a shared, easily accessible file so your entire team is aligned. If you’re working with freelancers or influencers, you might also want to create a social media or branding kit.
2. Establish a Brand Voice
Your brand voice is how your brand sounds to your audience—the so-called personality behind the words.
Are you formal or casual? Playful or serious? Your voice should reflect your brand’s values and resonate with your target audience.
A consistent brand voice makes your content more relatable and trustworthy.
To establish this, first, understand who your audience is, their interests, and how they speak. Decide on the tone that matches your brand’s personality. Then, document do’s and don’ts for your brand voice.
For instance, if you’re a fun and quirky brand, you might say, “Hey there, awesome peeps!” instead of “Dear valued customers.” This ensures that every piece of content your team creates feels cohesive and on-brand.
3. Have a Content Strategy in Place
It’s going to be hard to create a consistent brand image without a proper content strategy. Having a content strategy means you have a plan for creating and distributing valuable content on your social media channels.
Content is king, but only if it’s consistent and aligned with your brand. A well-crafted content strategy ensures that your content aligns with your brand’s goals and audience interests. That’s very important when building a consistent brand image.
4. Plan and Schedule Content
Now that you have your content strategy, it’s time to plan and schedule your content. This step ensures that your content is published regularly and maintains consistent quality.
A well-planned schedule prevents the dreaded content drought and keeps your audience engaged. Regular posting helps maintain audience interest and keeps your brand top-of-mind.
To ensure a consistent brand identity, your best bet is to rely on content templates to plan and schedule your social media posts. Jess Cook, Head of Content at Island, believes that templates can have compounding returns for brands. In particular, she shared her experience with branded frames for video clips, which helped her create a backlog of video content that’s on brand without being cookie-cutter:
Using templates and batch-creating content in advance can also save you lots of time, which is a bonus.
5. Define Engagement Rules
How you speak to your audience on social media matters too. That’s where engagement rules come in. This includes responding to comments, handling complaints, and participating in conversations.
If your brand voice is formal, it’s not going to look good if you start joking and posting memes in response to customer comments. Likewise, if you’re slow to respond to customer messages or complaints on social media, like taking two months, that’s also not going to reflect well on your brand.
Take Ryanair, a low-cost Irish airline famous for its humorous social media interactions. On X (Twitter), you can find plenty of instances where the airline responds to customer complaints with a funny twist.
In the image below, a passenger complained about paying for a window seat but ended up with just a tiny circular window in the emergency door. Ryanair’s response? They simply circled the tiny window in the customer’s photo without any further comment.
This light-hearted and cheeky response perfectly illustrates their playful approach to customer service on social media. Most importantly, it reflects their distinct tone of voice, which helps them maintain their brand image.
6. Use Tools
Finally, let’s talk tools. The right tools can streamline your processes and keep everything on track, helping you maintain consistency across all your marketing efforts.
Tools can save you time, reduce errors, and keep your brand image consistent across all channels. They help automate and organize your workflow, making consistency easier to achieve.
Take Gain, our social media tool, for example.
With Gain, you can set up custom approval workflows for your social media content. It automates the gathering of feedback and approvals from key stakeholders, so whoever at your company is responsible for the brand image—whether it’s the content creator or a creative director—can review social media content to ensure it aligns with the brand.
If you’re running a social media management agency, Gain’s approval workflows provide an effective method to review posts before delivering them to clients. This way, you can make sure everything you post on social media fits your brand perfectly.
FAQs About Maintaining a Consistent Brand Image
First off, nail down your brand’s mission, values, and who you’re trying to reach. Then, create a solid set of brand guidelines that cover everything from visuals to how you talk to your audience. Get a good content strategy in place and use a scheduling tool to keep your posts consistent and on-brand.
Watch out for inconsistent visuals, changing up your tone too much, and not sticking to a regular posting schedule. Always stick to your brand guidelines and keep things steady. Use planning tools to help keep everything on track, and don’t forget to tweak your strategy based on what’s working and what’s not.
When rebranding, update everything at once and let your audience know what’s happening so they’re not confused. Use feedback to guide your changes and make sure the new look and feel still fits with who you are.
It’s okay to slightly adjust tones for platforms. For example, you can be more casual on Instagram and professional on LinkedIn. The key is to keep your core brand voice consistent so people always recognize the brand, no matter where they find it.
Consistent Brand Identity is a Non-Negotiable
And there you have it! Achieving a consistent brand image across your social media isn’t rocket science, but it does require a thoughtful approach and a bit of planning. Follow our steps, and you’ll quickly see the benefits of brand recognition and audience loyalty.
If you need a tool to create, schedule, and publish on-brand social media content, consider Gain. Grab a free trial to see Gain’s full capabilities.
