by Dylan Nunley
Remember the "good old days" when simply being present on social media was enough to stand out from the crowd? Unfortunately, today is a hell of a lot different. As the social media marketing landscape gets more clustered and competitive, being memorable may seem impossible at worst and extremely difficult at best.
Yet, no matter how large or small your marketing budget is, there's one simple tactic to ensure your audience on social media remembers you: creating a brand kit.
Defined, a brand kit is a set of templates where a company agrees on their color palette, types of fonts and more, which will then be used on all marketing materials to create consistency.
A terrific example of a brand kit done well is a company we all love to hate or hate to love: Coca-Cola. No matter what platform you're scrolling through, the second we see that crimson and white color palette coupled with a Spencerian font, we instantly know the content is promoting Coke products.
Want to have the same effect at your own company? Here's why your company should create a brand kit for your social media channels and how to get started.
Why Have a Brand Kit
1. Consumer Psychology
The primary reason you need to have a brand kit is it will help you to be instantly identifiable in the eyes of your audience due to basic consumer psychology. By having a consistent theme on all your visual assets (color scheme, styles of text, filters on your photos, etc.), your most loyal fans will immediately think of your brand anytime they see that arrangement colors and fonts on their social media feeds (if the association you hold in their mind is positive, of course). Because consumers are exposed to so many competing brands on social media, being immediately recognizable will put you ahead of the pack.
2. Saving Time
On top of the psychological benefits of standardizing all your assets, you'll also be saving you and your team an immense amount of time formatting and reformatting content across social media platforms. By having a brand kit, anyone on your team will be able to go into the kit and seamlessly create new social media posts which follow those themes.
In the business world, time is money, and having a brand kit is yet another way to buy time back.
How to Create a Brand Kit
1. Decide on a color palette.
Choose which colors will be used in all your visual assets. That way, no matter if you're creating an infographic or Instagram post, you won't have to decide which colors are "fair game" and which aren't, time and time again.
2. Decide on a font, or fonts, that all your content will use.
Having consistent typeface across all your social media content is another way to make an imprint on your audience. If you're switching your font on every single post, not only will your brand appear tacky, it'll also be limiting how instantly recognizable you will be on social media.
3. Construct templates for all the styles of content your brand typically creates.
If your company frequently publishes infographics, video snippets, word art or any other style of posts, creating branded templates to streamline the content creation process will save you time.
In today's marketplace, as competition increases by the day, brand awareness is getting more difficult as a direct result. Creating a brand kit is something any brand, large or small, can do for free to ensure they're memorable on social media.
Sometime soon, set aside an afternoon, pull out the whiteboard and begin creating a brand kit. You'll be happy you did.
Special thanks to Dylan Nunley for providing insight and inspiration for this article.