This is the second post in a series about Social Media Strategy. You can read all of the posts here: series one – social media goals and tactics.

Content can be created and spread through social media to improve public perception of your brand by evoking specific qualities which make it distinct from others. For new websites or businesses, this pervasive visibility generates brand familiarity. Social media channels can rapidly generate word of mouth and buzz for most brands.

Having a brand-name, whether it is a logo, image, or simple text is extremely easy to create and showcase in the Social Media marketspace. A fun place to look at how people are using and experimenting with brand images is at Twitter. Take a look at some of the avatars that people use to identify themselves:

(Get your twitter mosaic here.)

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Images get noticed

Mostly faces, with some logos and artwork. Some of these folks change their avatars from time to time (or daily like Chris Brogan seems to do) for special occasions, marketing programs, or just for fun. If you are beginning to use Twitter as a tool for your business, it is best to choose an appropriate avatar and stick with it until people learn who you are by name.

Use the same avatar everywhere you go, and on every social network that you join. You can even go to gravatar.com and enter the image there in order to spread it around on blogs that enable the service in the Comments area. Then you have the ability to present a consistent branded image everywhere that you get involved with your clients and peers.

If you decide to use a picture, you can simply choose one from your collection. If you prefer a logo, be careful that it can be re-sized and still be recognizable. Whichever image that you choose you should go ahead and upload it to your flickr account (in appropriate sizes) so that the image is readily available to you wherever you are.

Be more than the image

The second part of increasing your brand awareness has to do with what you are saying and how you say it. Your avatar and your name should be enough to let people know who you are (in terms of your business), don’t turn your Tweets and comments into sales pitches with links to your sales page. People get involved with social networking sites for the conversation, for the discussion. You can and should “share links to recent news and updates, but it needs to show that a real person is sharing something of value. Contextualize it. The link is interesting only if the person posting it is credible, and is showing that they are making a judgment call about what is or isn’t worth posting. [from Mashable, ed.]”

Tweet example

In this example Kelly Olexa had shared a blog post that she found, then I “re-tweeted” it after I read it. It was a very good article, and I quoted a little piece of it above. As I told a client earlier in the week, “Don’t get sales-y, just pass on some value or say thanks.”

Focus on building awareness rather than leads

By building your credibility and value as a source of information you will increase the visibility of your brand and enhance its reputation. Let the power of the network work for you in bringing in new leads and potential clients. Get involved, create a conversation, and the business will come.

The next post in this series (social media goals and tactics) will look at reputation management. You can subscribe to these posts by RSS or via e-mail.

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