LoginSchedule demoLoginSchedule demoHere are the most important things you need to know to effectively rebrand your social media accounts when rebranding your business.
Rebranding your business is a daunting undertaking that involves so much more than just deciding on a new name.
It is about casting aside outdated and failed aspects of your business and dramatically rethinking how to position your products and services within a marketplace.
As social media becomes an increasingly integrated – and integral – aspect of a business’s overall marketing strategy, it’s important to make sure that when you rebrand, all of your corporate social media efforts are transitioned to the new brand.
Related: Don’t forget to have a simple, yet accessible social media policy. Here are some best social policy examples and template to create or update your current one.
Social media is run on external, third-party platforms, which means you need to make sure each of your platforms can be appropriately altered to reflect your new brand identity. For example, as you decide on a new business name, you want to make sure you can get a matching Twitter to handle for it.
You also must be sure you understand all of the ramifications of rebranding across all social media platforms. For example, Facebook generally stops you from changing the name of your page once it’s accrued 200 likes; the idea is to prevent people from selling their pages after they’ve accrued a lot of likes.
If you decide to build a new page, you must prepare a campaign to ensure all of your fans “like” your new page, and you also must be prepared to lose a lot of your fans who either deliberately or unwittingly decline to “like” your new page.
Social media is no longer an afterthought or a bonus in a well-designed corporate business strategy; it’s a fully integrated component.
You must, therefore, give your social media team a seat at the table from day one of your rebranding strategy discussions. They are just as important and necessary for any rebranding to work.
The last time your business rebranded, chances are it was before the age of social media.
Consequently, many of your logos, fonts, and other design choices probably weren’t optimized for social media; when social media came along, your business probably just forced its design aesthetic to fit into your social media platforms.
Now is the time to create a sharp new design aesthetic that is truly optimized for and synergistic with modern-day social media sensibilities.
Everyone likes to feel special and gain access to something that the general public can’t see.
You can capitalize on this common societal desire by giving your biggest social media fans (as well as bloggers and journalists who cover your industry) a sneak preview of your rebranding efforts.
You can use social media to publicize and select which lucky fans get to participate in this exclusive peek.
During this sneak peek, make sure you explain the thinking and rationale that went into your rebranding effort, such as how colors, shapes, and slogans were selected, and how your rebranding is helping you reach a different set of customers.
Many people can be resistant to change, and these emotions tend to run highest among your biggest fans. So craft a transition engagement strategy that informs and convinces your audience how and why your rebranding strategy is going to take your business to new heights.
As you rebrand, it’s important to tell your rebranding story over and over again across a variety of social media to ensure it sinks in and begins resonating with your audience.
For example, you may want to consider a YouTube video that celebrates your rebranding effort.
You also should emphasize what is NOT changing, to give your nervous fans some peace of mind.
It’s important to have continuous, direct interactions with your social-media audience throughout the rebranding process; you should be prepared to answer all of their questions as directly and truthfully as possible, and also to offer a heartfelt response to your followers who openly criticize your rebranding effort.
Your employees each have a unique following on social media that can exponentially increase the reach of your brand, so use those followings to publicize your rebranding effort. If you can get your employees excited about the rebranding, you’ll be able to encourage and incentivize them to share details about it on their personal social media accounts.
This is where EveryoneSocial’s social media sharing platform can assist you in your social media rebranding efforts. Our platform gives social media managers an easy way to streamline rebranding messaging throughout their entire organization to make sure everybody in your organization has the message right.
Social media is one of the fastest and most insightful ways to gather feedback about virtually anything, so when you rebrand, you should be listening to your audience more carefully than ever.
Although your audience may be negative and critical of your rebranding, they also may give you suggestions and ideas for how to tweak and improve your rebranding strategy.
Social media offers businesses a rich, multi-layered platform on which to showcase a rebranding effort.
To take full advantage of social media after a rebranding, just remember to do the following: Plan and strategize about pitfalls and opportunities in advance, promote your rebranding with your social media audience, get all of your employees involved in the rebranding effort and listen closely to the feedback you get through social media.
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Todd served as Director of Marketing at EveryoneSocial, leading content strategy and editorial across the blog through 2021. Today he is Head of Content & Brand at RemoFirst, founder of Linkeezy (an inbox and content tool for LinkedIn), and a SaaS marketing and content advisor.
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