Brand Guidelines on Social Media – Yes or No?

“What are brand guidelines?”, you ask…

Well every brand is associated with a set of them. Right from the placement and size of the logo to the colours and language that the brand speaks, the brand guideline has a set of rules that has it all. Don’t have one as yet? You may have to consider making one for yourself – it’s the only way you can aim to achieve consistency for the image to your consumers mind.

Can I have brand guidelines for my brand on Social Media?

Of course you can! Just about any process can have guidelines. However on social media, they could refer to a certain personality of messaging and regular correspondence methods to be applied to your consumers. You could also define what type of news/ activities/ shares you do on a regular basis. All these could come under your brand guidelines. These are guidelines besides those you would be making for your visual identity – that would be your logo placement on the Social Media platform, The colour palette usage, the fonts and the styling. Hence consistent likes on a repetitive visual identity could immediately increase fan –following and invite curiosity of non-fans.

How strictly should I follow my brand’s guidelines?

Well in practicality, working around brand guidelines enables multiple users an easy understanding of carrying out processes from start to finish. Thus while managing your brand on social media, globalization of resources for brand management and online activity can be done with ease with a set of guidelines readily available for the resource to follow. However, one must keep in mind that the guidelines are only a set of rules to increase efficiency and they not a set of restrictions to curb your brand’s creative ability. Your brand guidelines need to be both rigid and flexible at the same time. Something like Yoga I presume. (smile)

The Bottom line

Every brand demands a certain quality to its value and the only way you could make this consistent is by drawing out a set of brand guidelines that is going to help you carry out that one effective message across to your audience consistently.