Consistency; the key to great marketing

By JOHANNE JEFFERSON, Digital Marketing Consultant 

“Success doesn’t come from what you do occasionally, it comes from what you do consistently” Marie Forleo, Entrepreneur.

Consistency is so important in all aspects of your business- whether that is in customer service, product quality, branding or anything else. In this blog we will look at how important consistency is when it comes to social media.

1) Post consistently for better reach with your social media

Social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram rely on data to decide who sees your posts. Typically, only around 2% of your followers will see your posts on their newsfeed on Facebook.

Social media platforms want to keep users on their apps for as long as possible. How do they do that? With good content that gets good engagement, and if that’s your stuff then you’ve hit the jackpot.

Posting consistently is one of the ways that you can improve your visibility on social media. The algorithms love it. Decide how much content you can post in a day/week and do that consistently.

Take a look at your insights and see when your audience are online and schedule posts during that time for maximum effect. At any given time, there are around 1500 posts that Facebook could show you on your newsfeed, so they filter it down to what it thinks are 300 of the best. Posting consistently can help your business’ posts be one of them.

2) Brand consistency = A strong brand

When it comes to building a strong online brand, a good place to start is with your brand persona. Are you fun, serious, local, global, friendly, formal?

Once you’ve decided that, then you need to think about the images and tone of voice that would match your persona. Any time you create content for social media, make sure it matches your brand persona.

But, what does that mean?

Imagine you run a high-end clothing store aimed at a 55+ males who dress formally. Using terms like ‘on fleek’ and sharing video clips of cats on a skateboard are probably not matching your brand persona. Leave that kind of content for the skate shop.

An interior design business that is all about modern, fun, bold, bright colours, will want to make sure their social media posts are also modern, fun, bold and bright.

Use your logo, brand colours and straplines consistently too. Imagine if Coke branding was sometimes pink, sometimes blue, sometimes CAPITALS, sometimes not. It wouldn’t be that strong, iconic brand we all instantly know.

A consistent brand = a strong brand because customers will know it’s you and know what to expect when they chose your product or service.

3) Consistency is good for a positive customer experience

(unless you are consistently bad!)

• Do you respond to customer messages/DMs promptly?

• Is your ‘link in bio’ up to date?

• Do your FB and Insta shop links work?

• Does your content add value to your customer?

These are the kind of things that you need to be consistent with if you want to generate a positive customer experience through social media. Have you ever seen a special offer online only to realise at the checkout that it’s not on anymore and they just hadn’t removed the advert? So annoying!

Or how about when you send a DM about a product or service you are interested in and they never respond?

People talk, especially online. Make sure they are talking positively about your brand by being consistent.