Do you roll your eyes when you hear the all too familiar phrase “Consistency is Key” when it comes to succeeding on social media?
There is a lot of wisdom in these words, but the saying is so often used that it has seemed to have lost its true meaning. Firstly, consistency doesn’t mean constantly posting to the point of burnout — which is an especially common problem for solopreneurs.
So, what does it mean to be consistent on social media anyway?
Consistency in social media marketing encompasses three separate but related categories that ultimately boils down to your brand being instantly recognizable when someone is scrolling through their feed.
Branding, messaging, and frequency all factor into consistency when it comes to content creation for social media. Here is a guide to each element to streamline your on-brand posting strategy.
Aesthetics is the visual hallmark of your brand. Having a recognizable logo, color palette, and fonts that readers can associate with your brand makes it stand out from the rest.
Design tools like Canva allow you to create custom brand palettes. These essential brand elements can be saved onto templates that you can reuse to stay consistent in your graphic design and save time in your content creation process.
Read more about How To Easily Write Content When You Have No Time.
Unlike a fancy logo or beautifully curated Instagram grid layout, a content strategy that includes consistent messaging isn’t just nice to have; it is the foundation for all messaging in your business.
Your Mission Statement, Unique Selling Proposition, Brand Values, and Content Pillars all dictate consistent messaging that allows your audience to easily identify what your brand stands for in the marketplace.
A mission statement is a sentence or short paragraph that defines the why of a brand. It gets at the heart of the why defining the reasoning and motivations behind why your business exists in the first place.
At its core, a Unique Selling Proposition answers the question, Why should I choose your business over the competition?
A unique selling proposition, more commonly referred to as a USP, is the one thing that makes your business better than the competition. It’s a specific benefit that makes your business stand out when compared to other businesses in your market, as defined by the e-commerce experts at Shopify.
A great USP highlights your strengths based on what makes your brand or product uniquely valuable to your customers. Focus your USP on what your customers value because being “unique” doesn’t mean much if it’s not something your target audience truly cares about.
Brand values are a set of guiding core principles that shape every aspect of your brand. They dictate your brand message, identity, and how you approach business as a whole.
These questions can help you define your brand values:
Want to see what this looks like in action? Read 5 Companies with Core Values that Stand Above the Rest.
Sometimes called a content bucket or a brand pillar, a content pillar is a subset of a topic or theme that forms the foundation for your overall content strategy. Your content pillars are the intersection of your expertise and what your audience desires.
For example, if you’re a health coach, your pillars might be vegan nutrition, meditative yoga, and mindful journaling. Each of those pillars is a very specific subject that you could create content around to establish your authority in that field and help your audience learn more about.
When you’re trying to talk to everyone, you end up talking to no one, so don’t fall into the common fear of niching down to serve a very specific audience.
You should have at least three pillars, but no more than five. Three is best for those just starting out. These should be topics you can easily speak with authority on when a client has a question.
One of my favorite questions to unlock this level of content creation clarity is What Could You Give a 30-Minute TED Talk Right Now?
Showing up regularly for your audience on social media is one of the hallmarks of a successful content marketing strategy.
When someone visits your social media profile, they want to know that you are active and providing valuable information on a consistent basis. Think about it this way, if a brand didn’t post on Facebook for eight months, would you follow them for insights? I think not!
It’s a highly strategic set-it-and-forget-it technique that ends inconsistency. The amount of content and when you publish it is integral to any savvy content strategy.
Read more about How to Create a Content Batching Schedule that works for you.
Consistency encompasses three separate but related categories that ultimately boils down to your brand being instantly recognizable when someone is scrolling through their feed. Your branding, messaging, and frequency all factor into consistency in content creation for social media.
Consider them all when you are creating to develop your own formula for consistency and brand recognition that will position you as an authority in your industry.
Happy Creating!
Cyndi, Owner of Ascent StoryCraft
Let’s Get Social! Connect with Me On:
This was very helpful . Thank you for your advice and tips. I will be following your blog and IG for guidance.
Thank you, Rosita! I am so glad it could help.