Brand guidelines, in their most basic form, are a set of colours and fonts you use for all your marketing, signage and basically anything digital or printed that comes from your business. They are a set of rules, standards if you like, for how anything should look.
When a company doesn’t have them, we simply take our cues from the company logo to ensure when we create your content, the branding makes it instantly recognisable as a post from you.
Consistency is key on social media, and marketing in general, and it is important that you create a clear and strong brand identity that doesn’t just take into consideration the look of your posts but also the message you are sending out by your tone.
Parents and potential families will, of course, want to know you are fully up to date with the latest safeguarding information and learning discoveries, but they will also want to ensure you are a warm and welcoming environment for their little ones. They want to know the people behind the social media pages; this is why ‘meet the team posts’ do particularly well. They need to see a more personal, nurturing environment with content that appeals to their needs. Not corporate, formal sales posts.
So, our advice this month is to have a think about who you are writing these posts for and how you can engage them with your ‘tone of voice’. Also, take a look at your brand guidelines and see if they still fit with your business, or need an update. And, in the absence of brand guidelines, see if your logo accurately reflects you, and use this to draw up your first set.
Nicola Read is owner of social media management company Babbl, www.babbl.co.uk
