The Reality of Social Media Brand Awareness

by Tyler Rice

Last updated November 3, 2020

No one really cares about your brand.

There I said it. Once you accept this fact, you can begin building the correct communication with your audience.

This is what sets social media and traditional media outlets apart. Think about how long advertising took hold of television.

People would be watching their favorite program when suddenly, it would get interrupted by an advertisement that was “in your face.”

You had no choice but to watch the advertisement until your program returned. Well, I guess you could have used that time to use the restroom or grab a bag of Cheetos.

The point is that people reject the annoying, pushy messages that pop-up on the internet and on their television sets.

Advertising is now about providing something interesting, useful, or even funny, to gain more engagement from them.

As much as you want to show people how “cool” your brand is, they will never think of it as high as you do.

People do not really want to engage with your brand; they want to engage with people.

It is imperative to keep this fact in the back of your head when you are coming up with communication strategies.

This goes to show that social media marketing is about connecting with people.

You have to humanize your brand and connect with them on their level. With this mindset, you will gain a deep relationship with your customers, which is what will boost your brand awareness and reputation.

You Do NOT Control Your Brand

Yet another “Yikes” moment. As mentioned before, social media marketing involves personalization and it is this humanizing factor that makes people listen.

This means that you can no longer control the messages on your brand. The people control it.

People have a perception of what you do and what they like or dislike and spread that information to other people that actually listen. With social media, these messages can be spread quicker than ever with tremendous reach.

Imagine you work for TripleTree Hotels and one of your employees has a bad day (terrible break-up) and gives a customer a snotty attitude at the front counter for asking too many questions.

This customer then walks away in anger thinking about how they never want to stay at TripleTree again while they spend one minute giving a one-star review on Yelp about the terrible service. Shortly after, the person posts to the public on Facebook:

“I Will NEVER stay at a TripleTree Hotel again!!! Worst Service EVER!”

Sally, one of the customers’ best friends, shares the post commenting that she cannot believe how TripleTree still cannot get their act together after the awful service she received the last time she stayed at their hotel.

Now you have hundreds of thousands of people who are instantly exposed to this terrible message for your brand.

You could dump hundreds to thousands of dollars on expensive, flashy, marketing campaigns but in the end, are people going to listen as they listened to other people talking about your brand from whom they trust?

Advertising and marketing is an evolving field and it is important to keep up with how people react to businesses.

This is a time where you are able to spend less time pushing your brand and more time influencing brand perceptions and correcting misperceptions.

Show off your Brand Anyways

Now that we have gone over the misconceptions about brands and why you should focus less on “how awesome” you brand is, it should be mentioned that there is definitely a time and place to buy some business swag for yourself and friends/family. Just try not to be too pushy with it for people you are not familiar with. There are many brands that begin with some embroidered patches, custom pens, water bottles, and even custom koozies. 

Are you needing consultation for your social media brand awareness campaigns? Reach out to one of our business experts below.