Sometimes, an agency isn't needed. Whether you're a small company, multi-national corporation or 'one-man band', there are some things you can do yourself, do them well and have success with them...
Design doesn't always have to be "pretentious, fancy stuff", it can sometimes be straight down the middle, "let's just do this and do it well". That attitude can be the right one for certain jobs and will instantly impact on your brand reputation, in comparison to doing absolutely nothing at all.
Let us explain further...
Profile pictures that improve your image
Carefully consider which photos you and your team use on social media. Of course personal profiles are free from rules and regulation (but they should be private) but company profiles should be carefully looked at. You cannot make your team upload professional, company photos to LinkedIn, but the management should certainly do this.
If you haven't had any professionally-shot photography taken of individual staff and the team, now is the time to consider it.
Create simple, branded social media graphics
Play about with designs and layouts to come up with effective, eye-catching branded graphics for your social media cover photos and header images.
For Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn you can utilise the "header space" to match company colours or branding. If you're limited with your design skills, an agency - a good agency - will do this for next to nothing, price-wise.
If you are on Twitter, but don't know how / don't have the money to get someone else in, use the Theme settings, to change your colour to the company one (see below). Changing the Theme Colour will then change the URL link colours and the main background of your header image (if you don't have other graphics in use).
Keep your social media profiles looking fun and friendly
As well as the above, keep them on-brand and engaging. How? Upload photos of your real life staff in real life work situations. It sounds so simple, but it is still so often abandoned by companies.
Even those who are actively using social media, find it easier to use stock photos or just tell people what they're doing, rather than show it.
Anyone who likes their facts and statistics, knows that images and photography at least DOUBLE the engagement rates of a tweet [source].
Being on-brand doesn't take much
Dig out your brand guidelines and review your typical font and colour palette choices for branding. Follow through with them across social media, email campaigns, promo material and photography.
Keep everything relevant to your brand, to increase the awareness of your company.
If you don't want to share your band, is it because it's time for a look at your b rand strategy and its effectiveness and relevance?
