For targeting new and existing customers, social media is the key to branding success.

Using social networks to build a brand is a cost efficient and effective way to reach out to new and old customers. Social media is a great way to look at your target consumers’ social media dialogue to learn how to adapt your branding strategy.

I’ve decided to write some of my thoughts on the “big” players on the social media front at the moment– Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Foursquare, and Pinterest.

Twitter: Instead of focusing on a brands product or services, it’s more effective to share content on Twitter that encourages customers to talk about their services. This strategy will allow your brand to respond to customers as a peer, rather than as a brand. If the brand is a peer, it will be able to connect on a more emotional level while offering valued advice.

Instagram: It isn’t really effective to do what most of the competition does– blatantly hype up your own products or services. Employing a different strategy will be more effective. You need to be tapping into the lifestyle benefits of the brand. On Instragram, photographs of people’s using your product and essentially unintentionally endorsing your product is what should be shared. A simple “like” or tagging a client in a photo on Instragram will go a long way in establishing brand loyalty.

Foursquare: This is a great tool if you are targeting an audience that is very social. You can offer specials like, “If three friends check in, you each get $5 off.” Foursquare is not the best way to interact with potential customers, but rather a great way to keep customers coming back over and over. This is a great strategy for places such as hair salons.

Facebook: Just maintaining a Facebook page is an easy way to keep and create brand awareness. The strategies listed above can be tied into a Facebook page to have updates become automated. If you update too much though, people will be driven away from your brand.

Summary: Providing customers with a platform that welcomes engagement and encourages response is a great way to get people to continuously talk about your brand. You do not need a company-wide policy that says your employees need to use social media because just by having fun social media strategy employees will naturally interact with customers. This is an extremely easy way to enhance customer service and hype up your brand.