A brand book or social media style guide is a document cell phone number list that outlines the specific style choices you make for your brand on social media. Everything from templates, colors, and fonts, to choosing emojis and setting rules for how you communicate with your audience.
This document includes all aspects that define how you represent your brand.
Why create a social media style guide?
Some may think that the work on compiling a brand book is too complicated and voluminous, and, moreover, is purely formal. It is difficult to argue with the first thesis: indeed, it is not easy and takes quite a long time to compose a brand book in detail, accurately and correctly. After all, it is at this stage that you will make the main key and even strategic decisions, create a visual style that you will use in the future.
However, such painstaking and difficult work is not useless. Because consistency is key in social media. Your followers should easily recognize your content, no matter where they see it.
Even things like strict or more relaxed adherence to grammar and punctuation rules can have a big impact on brand perception.
If you want to increase awareness, trust, and loyalty to your brand, you need to be consistent in how you present it. That’s where a social media style guide comes in handy.
And by the way, a brand book for social networks will make it easier to work with both opinion leaders and with involved copywriters, SMM specialists , targetologists and designers. You will not need to reinvent the wheel and then be very surprised by the result obtained when applying for services. You will always be sure that the contractor is guided by the brand book, which insures you against an obviously unpredictable result that may not suit you at all.
However, it is not enough to simply list everything you would like to see in your brand representations on social networks. The guide should be a reference book for a content maker and SMM marketer, and therefore it simply must be clear, structured and, if possible, as concise as possible.
Like a classic brand book for a website, a social media guide should answer key questions about your brand voice, target market, and tone across different social platforms, as well as provide clear, actionable guidance on visuals.
