TEAM

Branding is more than just having the same logo or mark appear on all your communications. It’s about the consistency of tone both verbally and visually. Brand inconsistency can be confusing and lead to customers missing the messaging or even missing general brand awareness.

So how do you solve this problem, given that the typical viewer on most social media has a very limited attention span? Most people glance at or scroll through content rather than really absorbing and reading it. Here are a couple of things to keep in mind.

Keep your brand’s voice consistent across platforms.

Each social media venue is unique, so it’s OK to switch up the tone a bit if one is a little more conversational than another, but the core message should be consistent and not stray from the overall brand message. With social media, many employees have become advocates for their companies and their brands. This is a great way to expand your messaging capabilities with minimal cost, but you might need to rein in employees, all with different personalities and voices, posting about your brand without any sort of consistency.

Give the designs some brand consistency.

It takes a while to build up recognition with a brand. Do not throw customers or viewers off by switching up the look and feel of the design every couple of weeks. Most people are just scrolling through channels and not really reading. If the viewer can spot your communication at a glance and recognize it immediately, then you are two steps ahead of the competition. Establish specific brand standards for social like every other pieces of your branded campaign. If your branding uses a lot of custom icons or duotone images, pick that style up in your social media.

Think about the user experience and if these communications are driving a specific action.

If the content has a specific action and the viewer or user is sent somewhere (landing page, registration page, or an app), consider if there will be a disconnect when the user/viewer lands there. Is there brand consistency where they are going, or will it throw them for a loop because it looks and sounds so different? Users will think that they clicked wrong or that the link is wrong if the visual and written experience does not match up at first glance.

To summarize, maintaining brand consistency, especially in an era characterized by intense connectivity, is a good way to stand out in an already oversaturated market.

Design at JVA Campaigns

JVA Campaigns is a full-service public affairs and political consulting firm offering a wide array of services to help our clients win. We help organizations influence stakeholders and decision-makers across the country using proven principles, custom strategies, and of course, great design.

Users are more likely to watch short videos to completion, thus more likely to hear your whole message. 30 seconds is the absolute maximum. If you’re hoping to persuade an audience on an issue, that audience probably isn’t likely to want to watch a video on that topic voluntarily. That is, unless you can keep it short enough for them to find it worthwhile to see what happens.

3. Use at least one of the following: storytelling, emotion, or hard facts.

When you are the expert on a subject and the one doing the persuading, you may think that others will find your issue position persuasive for the same reasons you do. For example, if you are a proponent of creating jobs with infrastructure investment, you may be tempted to write a script with the top-line numbers, such as the $2.6 trillion investment gap. The truth is, in a fast-moving digital world, users are only willing to watch videos for a few reasons:

• to be entertained (storytelling)
• to be inspired (emotion)
• to learn something new (hard facts)

A concept like the $2.6 trillion investment gap simply doesn’t inspire a user to any of those actions and thus won’t persuade most users. It’s a good statistic to include in a video, but it shouldn’t be the main focus. Here are three alternative examples:

Year after year, direct mail continues to prove itself as an essential tool for winning campaigns. It is the most persuasive and cost-effective messenger for candidates trying to reach swing voters. Here’s why:

• You make the decision: Direct mail allows candidates to decide exactly when they want their messages to be received by their target audiences. Ninety-eight percent of consumers bring in their mail the same day it’s delivered.
• Mail allows you to integrate, repeat, and validate: Multiple pieces to a target audience allow candidates to reinforce their messages and gain name recognition. Direct mail’s effectiveness can also be boosted by layering it with digital.
• Mail is powerful and targeted: It has eight seconds from the mailbox to the trash can. Effective direct mail will catch the voters’ eyes with quality photography and engage them with concise and targeted messaging.
• Mail drives voters to take action: Over half of Americans said that they are more likely to search for information on a candidate after receiving mail. Candidates can direct voters to visit their websites for more information or to donate to the campaign.

At JVA Campaigns

We cut our teeth on high-stakes electoral politics in some of the country’s most pivotal states, where agility and the ability to shift tactics at a moment’s notice can mean the difference between failure and success. Get in touch with us.