Consistency is the secret sauce when it comes to social media. By showing up consistently your audience not only gets to know, like and trust you but they remember your brand!.
It doesn’t mean you need to post multiple times a day, and it certainly doesn’t mean repeating the same tile every time.
It means having a consciously considered brand (see brand style guide) for visuals, understanding its importance and following a few simple tips!
What is consistency in social media?
There are three critical ways in which your posts need to be consistent on social media.
Visuals
A great place to start with your visuals is your existing logo, with a couple of complimentary colours. Next, consider how you want clients to feel when they see your posts – are you inspiring confidence, action, or anger? Will you be using harsh angles or soft corners? Sometimes a consistently used filter is the answer. Play around before you begin, then stick to what you choose.
Frequency of posting
Recognisable visuals are great, but they mean nothing if you are not there often enough to build trust. If you have less than 2000 followers, I generally advise my clients to post 3-5 times weekly on most social media platforms to build their brand successfully.
Remember: Social media is a long game, so you should allow 6-12 months to build your brand successfully. No one starts out as recognisable as the Nike swish! Replies
To build trust, you (or your brand representative) need to post regularly and be consistently present to reply to comments and DM’s. This will also help you convert customers who reach out with questions or orders.
Importance of consistency in social media.
Brand recognition
With so much competition for our attention on social media, most potential customers need to see your brand at least 20 times before they really see it at all.
Improved engagement
The more you post, the more your audience will see your post and engage. The more engagement you get, the more the algorithm will consider you an interesting and valuable source to show users.
Increased credibility and expertise
How do you feel when you open up a brand’s Instagram page, and they have only 3-4 posts over several months? Does it instil confidence? What if they have posted 100 wildly inconsistent posts leaving you questioning their values and maybe even what their product is? Your clients are having the same thoughts. Consistent presentation over a period of time presents you as a credible source of expertise.
Easy ways to be consistent on social media.
Review and reuse
I’m not a fan of doing the work for the sake of doing the work, so if you can be savvy, be savvy. Very few of your clients will remember what you posted last week, let alone three months ago. Is it time to re-share a great post from the past that did well? Remember, it’s reduce, reuse, recycle! Try creating a library of successful posts and using them as inspiration for something similar or cross-posting them to different platforms over time. Just keep it consistent!
Canva templates
These are the best timesaver I can recommend! Save your brand colours, convert Canva’s own templates into your colours, and then save them for repeat use with different images or text. Some are free, but I recommend the paid version if it’s within budget because it allows you to access far more templates and stand out from the crowd with even less effort.
Scheduling tools
Previously the realm of professionals and requiring subscriptions to new programs, scheduling is now available to all social media users with ease. Indeed, most social media now let you schedule within the app, and those that don’t are heading that way. Scheduling is a great way to batch create content and then release it at regular intervals for consistency of showing up.
Got questions or want to save time and let me do it for you? Book a free chat now to see how we can work together.
