3 quick tips to make sure your social media content is always on brand

By: Suzanne Gardner

Whether you’re passionate about social media or you frankly find it all a bit intimidating, there’s one benefit we can probably all agree on: social media allows us to communicate with our audience easier and quicker than ever before. Even when you don’t have the time or the resources to write a blog post or send out a newsletter, it’s usually pretty easy to find a couple of spare minutes to post to your Facebook page or send out a tweet. 

But just because you can send out a status update or share a news story in less than five minutes, that doesn’t mean that you should. Posting on social media is so easy that sometimes we end up posting too often, with content that veers off-topic or off-brand. (And yes, you can post too often – social media algorithms favour posts with high engagement, so it’s more beneficial to share fewer posts that are high quality and help to meet your social media goals.)

By making sure that all content you post is relevant, purposeful, and compelling, not only will your social media presence remain focused and on brand, but you’ll also start to gain higher engagement and audience reach on your social posts. For not-for-profits, choosing the right content to share will help you become thought leaders in your area of focus; for small businesses, you’ll be positioning yourself as the go-to resource for your clients.

So how do you decide if your post is worth sharing? Before you publish, try asking yourself these questions:

Does this content align with our mission statement? Is it relevant to our organization’s primary areas of focus? While weighing in on major news stories or trending topics can be an easy way to insert your organization into a popular conversation, before you do, make sure that the subject matter is thematically appropriate. Your social media presence is an important extension of your brand, and all content that you share should help position your organization as a thought leader in your areas of focus. For example, if you are a women’s shelter in Toronto, centring your content around women who have experienced violence, poverty, and homelessness, especially locally, will help put your organization front of mind when Torontonians think of shelters and advocacy organizations in the city. This, in turn, makes them more likely to want to financially support you.

Is this content purposeful? What are you trying to achieve by sharing it? Every single post you publish should have a clear purpose for your organization. If you’re a not-for-profit organization, this purpose could be to teach your audience about a cause, to inform them about an event or fundraiser, or to elicit a strong emotional response about an important issue. If you’re a small business, your post’s purpose could be to tell your audience about new products or services, to inform them about relevant issues in the news, or to show them how your business uniquely meets their needs.

Is this content compelling? Will it capture my audience’s attention? Think about when you’re scrolling social media on your phone: what kinds of posts make your thumb stop? Our social feeds are jam-packed with content, most of which we swipe past, so you need to think about how to make your posts stand out from the crowd. One key way to do this is to vary your post types to keep your followers interested, meaning that you’ll share a mix of eye-catching photos and videos, along with link posts to articles you or other reputable sources have written. Make sure your copy is snappy, too! Try putting yourself in the mind of your target audience and think about whether or not you would click on this post if you saw it in your own social feed.