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Net	
  Aesthetic	
  Design	
  (Pty)	
  Ltd.	
   	
  
Branding	
  White	
  Paper	
   	
  
	
  
Branding Crash Course: Quick Guide to
Branding in the midst of Social Media.
	
  
  2	
  
Table of Contents
Section	
   Page	
  Number	
  
1:	
  Basic	
  understanding	
  of	
  a	
  
Brand
2	
  
2:	
  Branding	
  in	
  the	
  Modern	
  
World.
8	
  
3:	
  Introduction	
  to	
  some	
  SM	
  
and	
  SM	
  Managing
11	
  
4:	
  Netaesthetic	
  Pricing 18	
  
  3	
  
Branding Crash Course: Quick Guide to
Branding in the midst of Social Media.
Netaesthetic Design (Pty) Ltd.
Branding Department.
	
  
SECTION	
  1:	
  Basic	
  Understanding	
  of	
  a	
  Brand.	
  
	
  
In this section you will gain a basic understanding of what branding is. At the end of this
section we will look at two easy-to-understand examples of strong branding.
What are people saying about you? What is a Brand?
Your brand is the relationship people have with your enterprise. It is the sum total of
their experience with your enterprise; from the visual sensations they get when coming
into contact with your logo and adverts, to the feeling they get after using your product
or service, and everything in between ( sales, customer service, supply chain, switch
board, et cetera).
A brand, and branding is meant to distinguish your product or service and create a
relationship between you and your customers, it denotes much more than the concepts
of marketing, goodwill and reputation. The concept is also not limited to the commercial
enterprise. NGOs, governments and politicians all brand themselves.
The advent of Social Media has changed the ball game of branding. Skip to Section 2
to find out how.
"A brand is no longer what we tell the customer it is, it is what they tell each other it is."
-Scott Cook (Director of eBay and Procter & Gamble)
  4	
  
Important Facets of Branding
• Visual Design:
The visual facet of a brand comprises the artistic elements (mainly colour and form) that
an enterprise uses to represent itself. These include your logo, your packaging, your
uniforms, and any visual element that people associate with your brand. If skillfully
done, an enterprise can represent itself and everything it stands for with a mere symbol.
A good example of a powerful design element is the American flag, which is used to
symbolize the American brand. This flag carries with it connotations of freedom, power,
dominance, and striving for success and achievement, much more so than the
geographical representation of the continent on an atlas.
• Marketing:
Marketing is the process of communicating information on either your product or your
brand, to your audience (target market) through various means; television adverts, radio
broadcasting, billboards and social media (the giant). Here is where big budget
enterprises have the advantage. The branding and marketing principles are the same
for both small and large scale businesses, however large scale enterprises have the
budgets that allow them to effectively reach more people. Larger budgets equate to
better quality production (adverts etc.) and larger audiences reached (even on social
media), simply because they can command more human resources and more exclusive
means of advertising.
Does this mean that small and medium-sized businesses are out of the game? Of
course not. If a brand is correctly established and managed, large scale awareness can
be created using social media. Often times small and medium-sized businesses supply
better quality products and/or services and social media platforms amplify the
word-of-mouth reach. Larger scale enterprises have teams of highly skilled people
running their social media. The power of social media is enormous, but so is the hype.
• Customer Service:
Both product industries and service industries have a certain contact point between the
enterprise and the customer. All enterprises must ask themselves how their customers
are being treated when they come into contact with the enterprise. Do they feel
satisfied after being dealt with?
I cannot stress enough, the importance of this facet! Bad customer service can ruin an
entire brand. Essentially a brand is meant to elicit a certain feelings within a person. Try
  5	
  
to remember a time when an employee of an enterprise totally disregarded your time
and value as a customer and treated you with disrespect... How did you feel? Do you
remember how you expressed this feeling of disregard with passion and conviction to
almost everyone you knew? Feelings like these are poisonous to your brand, and
now-a-days a post on Facebook, expressing your feelings of the brand, would reach
hundreds of potential customers and also create their mistrust in the brand. On the
other hand, good customer service is highly rewarded and adds a great deal to a strong
brand. Remember how you let the experience with a bad product slide, simply because
the problem was quickly resolved in a very friendly manner? People crave the feeling of
being valued. Authentically value your customers and they will stand by your side for a
life time as well as boast about how good your product and/or service is. Add this to
social media...you get the point.
• Experience of Product and/or Service:
Your product and/or service has to at least meet the expectations of your customers, or
surpass them. Do not allow for any anticlimax with your product and/or service. Nothing
is worse than being promised an amazing product or service, but receiving something
mediocre or of a poor standard. This makes your customer feel cheated. And guess
what...he or she vents out their frustration to hundreds of people on Twitter and
Facebook (maybe even thousands).
Strong Branding and its Power:
One weakness in your branding strategy and implementation has the potential to drag
down the whole brand with it. But, a strong brand creates a lifelong membership to your
product and/or service. Think of the places you shop at, the clothes that you wear and
the restaurants you dine at. 9 times out of 10 people will shop at the same place (even if
it is farther away from a similar store e.g. Woolworths instead of Pick n Pay or vice
versa), wear the same brand of clothing (esp. shoes because these are the most
branded clothing item. E.g. Nike instead of Adidas or vice versa), and eat at the same
restaurants (even if a person has experienced a bad meal there). This is because people
form emotional attachments to experiences (brands) which have satisfied them in the
past. People begin to associate these feelings of satisfaction and gratification with the
brand that delivered it to them.
Understand that people are emotional creatures and almost all of our decisions,
especially buying decisions, are based upon emotional needs (the need for safety and
security, the need to fit in etc.). What a strong brand does is meet these needs and
  6	
  
create the memory/association of this need being met with a specific brand.
Let’s look at two simple, yet strong branding examples: (X will be used as an
enterprise's name for purposes of generalizing)
Branding X's shoe (product branding):
1. In an advert, X shows Mr. Joe images of famous and celebrated athletes being
"super human" and doing all sorts of wonderful tricks and tumbles, while they subtly
show these athletes wearing the shoes which X wishes to sell, as well as any other
visual or sound elements associated with X. In cinematic and literary art, there is a
concept called the ‘climax’, which I am sure you are aware of. At the acme of Mr.
Joe's emotional build up or climax, reached due to skillful cinematic production, X
will cut the add and flash the shoe they wish to sell as well as show how awesome
the shoe is, with the use of a tag line or other advertising elements. If this is done
skillfully enough and often enough, Joe will subconsciously begin to associate these
strong emotions with the brand X or the shoe that was advertised.
2. Joe is in need of a new pair of shoes. He walks into a store where shoe X is in
abundance, very visible and isolated from competing brands (good supply chaining
and store placement). The shoe triggers the emotions which the advertisement had
created.
3. Joe asks a salesman for advice on the shoe, and being well trained, the salesman
explains how superior the shoe is and also makes Joe feel very important and well
looked after during the sales process.
4. Joe purchases the shoe based on the elicited feelings and then rationalizes the
purchase by confirming its great value for money and totally superior quality.
5. Joe gets home and he tries on his new shoes. The shoes are indeed of a good
quality. Joe feels on top of the world. Joe now constantly wears the shoes which
trigger his strong emotions which the branding champagne has created for Joe.
After a while, Joe's subconscious realizes that the shoes do not maketh the man,
and company X advertises another pair which "do".
Do This* Try realize how your perception of someone changes after you see them
wearing a very famous brand of shoe. (This happens because strong brands have been
able to condition us to feel certain things about them.)
  7	
  
Restaurant X:
1. Sally loves to dine out, but all the restaurants have become boring to her. She is
never treated as though she is genuinely special and the food she orders is always
decent but never "wows" her.
2. She decides to try out Restaurant X, which her friends have recommended to her
(word-of-mouth). Upon arriving to Restaurant X, Sally feels welcomed and invited by
the colours and well-designed interior and layout of the restaurant.
3. She is greeted with a genuine smile from a happy and friendly waitron, who really
enjoys working at Restaurant X. Sally is seated on a very comfortable chair and the
waitron makes Sally's ordering decision very easy by recommending the crowd
favorites and by knowledgeably commenting on the dishes Sally asks about. The
waitron makes any pricing increases of her recommendations 100% clear. Sally
orders what the waitron had recommended because the waitron is so happy and
Sally also wants to feel like this. (Note the waitron’s authenticity in her interaction
with Sally. She genuinely wanted to help Sally and didn't recommend anything
purely for means of increased profits. Understand that people are naturally
empathetic. We feel! Usually we know the motives behind actions or find them out
after the action has been done. Also, note how Sally associated the waitrons
happiness with the product she was selling. We tend to associate feelings with
tangible things and services. Always, always be authentic, even if you have to admit
to a product's and/or service's limitations. This is not a bad thing at all. Everything
has limitations, and clients will appreciate your honesty and respect your knowledge
about the product and/or service).
4. Sally's delicious meal arrives. Its aroma is described as heavenly (a lot of renown
psychologists believe that olfactories), or things related to the sense of smell, are
the strongest trigger of emotions. Think of what happens when you smell certain
perfumes...). Back to Sally. She digs into her meal and the taste surpasses her
expectations that had been created by the previous restaurants she had visited. The
portion is very generous and Sally feels extremely satisfied at the end of her meal.
She pays a fair amount (fair amount is based on product and brand value) and she
is thanked as she leaves the door.
5. Sally has just become a lifelong patron of Restaurant X. All the positive emotions
that were elicited in Sally, from her friends boasting about Restaurant X, her
impressions of the restaurant's look and feel, to her being thanked as she left the
door, are now associated with this brand. You can probably guess what Sally will do
when her mood needs to be uplifted.
  8	
  
A strong brand:
• Has an appealing identity.
• Convey and support a strong belief system and stands by its values.
• Is customer conscious (understands the value of its clients and strives to serve
them).
• Has a good quality product and/or service which is coherent with its advertising.
• Is memorable (elicits positive emotions within customers and markets itself well).
• Causes customers to become members of the brand.
• Is authentic.
• Is consistent!
Why Branding is Vital:
It is a well-known fact that if people do not recognize and trust your brand, it is very rare
that they will do business with you, even in business-to-business (B2B) transactions. A
strong brand creates trust and emotional attachment to an enterprise. Psychologists
have shown that 90% of buying decisions are based on emotions which are then
rationalized. A customer buys Nike sneakers because they have a desire to be fit and
healthy as well as being seen as trendy and cool (the needs that the Nike brand meets.
Note, to understand how Nike meets these needs, one needs to study brand
psychology and people’s perceptions in much more depth. If you train, think about how
much you were motivated to train after purchasing a new pair of branded shoes. Or,
think about how you broadcast yourself to people when you wear a suite as opposed to
casual clothing. Only after the unconscious desires are fulfilled by the Nike shoe, does
the customer rationalize their purchase ("This is the best sneaker on the market" or "It's
definitely the best value for my money") to eliminate any post-buying-regret (something
a good brand should deal with well, also known as post-cognitive dissonance).
The brand of an enterprise has a value and economists are using complex algorithms to
try and determine the exact monetary value of a brand. Without a strong brand, your
enterprise will not be able to reach its full potential.
  9	
  
Section 1 Concluded:
You now understand the basics of branding. You understand that:
• Social Media and the internet has changed the ball game of branding.
• A brand is essentially an engineered experience.
• A brand has value.
• A brand consists of many facets (A logo, advertising, colour scheme, quality,
customer service, sales, supply chain, online and over the telephone
interactions, et cetera).
• Branding is used to create desired associations with your enterprise.
• Without proper branding you cannot reach your maximum potential. Good
branding is vital.
• Strong brands take every single part of their B2C or B2B interactions into mind
and skillfully engineer these interactions.
• Consistency is key!
SECTION 2: Branding in the Modern World.
In this section you will learn about branding Implementation. We will also teach you the
new branding strategies that a lot of big companies are implementing in this time of
branding reform.
The New Normal:
I'm sure that you've heard of a little company called Facebook...just kidding, of course
you have. "As of the third quarter of 2015, Facebook had 1.55 billion monthly active
users." – (www.statista.com). Facebook is only one of many major social media
platforms that people use for both business and pleasure. The "Global Village" (a
  10	
  
concept associated with renowned Canadian philosopher and writer, Marshal
McLuhan) is currently at a zenith compared to any previous stage of modern civilization.
Today, most people in developed regions can really be considered as being citizens of
two worlds: the normal and the virtual. The nature of the latter and its business
implications will be discussed in this section.
Note, for the purposes of this manual, we will not go into an in depth discussion about
exactly how the virtual world has changed human psychology, especially the
psychology of the so called ‘Millennials’, a person reaching young adulthood during the
turn of this millennium. It is just important to note that attention spans have drastically
shrunk (not intelligence or capacity for learning) and people absolutely love sharing their
newly found virtual-voices to everyone they can possibly reach on the various social
media platforms. Also, the 1st place most people turn to for information now-a-days is
the World Wide Web.
So what does the New Normal look like?
Today, billions of pieces of information are being shared daily on social media. People
are posting, tweeting and blogging and they are reaching thousands of people at any
one time. Multi-screen habits are starting to form, the average person now watches
television on their mobile device just an arm’s reach away. People are spending at least
two hours per day on the Web, taking in a lot of information in bite sized chunks (in the
form of content like info-graphics, tweets and videos). Almost everything of importance
(including products and services) are being discussed and analyzed by the masses.
People (a much better term for "customers" in the New Normal) are "closer" to each
other and more connected than ever before. An experience a person goes through
could potentially affect people from all across the globe, as that experience is shared in
the virtual world (social media). This means that we, as branders and marketers, better
be careful of what we get people talking about. One negative brand experience and
BOOM! The discussion bomb hits the virtual world. No need to be worried though. If
your brand is strong enough, loyal customers will defend it, and if the brand's virtual
presence is well monitored and managed, negative comments will do very little
damage. On the other hand, people love sharing their positive experiences on social
media, and this can be a massive advantage for your brand. Social media has really
made it possible for even small scale businesses to grow a large fan base and clientele.
  11	
  
How To Approach Branding and Marketing in The New Normal:
"The world is an extremely noisy place. And we are not going to get people to
remember much about what we tell them. No company is. That's why we have to be
extremely careful about exactly what we want people to remember about us." - Steve
Jobs (Co-Founder of Apple)
It is vital that you define exactly who you are, what you stand for and to be concise and
consistent with the message that you want to deliver to your audience. Because of the
vast volumes of information being shared today (the noisy word Steve Jobs spoke
about), the branding masters are veering from the old and monotonous branding
campaigns which tell us how "this, this, this and that feature makes us better than our
competitors", to more creative, personal and memorable branding campaigns. We all
remember how "Red Bull" had a man sky-dive from space while they streamed it on
YouTube. One of the most successful branding campaigns of our generation, the "Dove
Sketches" campaign, celebrated - not the superiority of its product - but instead
something more noble and personal: the inherent beauty of women. Remember that
everyone is levelled to the same playing field. On the field of social media your
company is perceived very much like an individual. There is no more use for companies
to obnoxiously shout out information which no one really wants to hear, in order to be
remembered. Large companies have realized the importance of building authentic
relationships with their followers on social media. This is achieved through the creation
of high quality content that is engaging to your audience and coherent with your brand.
Engagement:
It is of the utmost importance to elicit interaction on your social media platforms. You
must have the ability to get people to talk about and share information on your product
or service. This is achieved by consistently posting high quality and relevant content.
This is one of the main jobs of a company's social media team. What separates
professional content creators from individuals, is that they usually form part of a
collaborative design process which results in much higher quality content. This is one
of the reasons why many small-scale and almost all large-scale businesses opt for
working with specialized agencies. Agencies like Netaesthetic Design allow for
businesses to have constant, high quality and consistent content, which engages the
target market, to be posted on the various social media platforms. A collaborative team
of social media managers will ensures that your company consistently and effectively
engages with its audience. How you interact on social media will determine the success
of your marketing strategy.
  12	
  
Whether you're "Nike" or Joe Soap, a tweet is a tweet and a Facebook comment is a
Facebook comment. Companies have realized how important it is to engage with their
audiences at personal levels. As mentioned before, one should engage with people as
people and not as "customers", who are tired of being nagged and pushed to spend
their money. At Netaesthetic Design we believe that this is the essential paradigm shift
for success in the new normal, as social media continues to revolutionize businesses
interact with their clients.
SECTION 2 CONCLUDED.
You now understand that:
• We are currently part of a world that is more connected than ever before.
• Most people can be considered citizens of a virtual reality, glued together by
social media.
• Social media has given us the potential to reach a global audience.
• Social media has revolutionized branding and marketing.
• Companies are starting to realize the importance of authentic and personal
communication and campaigns on social media.
• Successful social media marketing campaigns rely on constant monitoring,
interacting and adhering to you brand's rules and standards.
SECTION 3: Introduction to some SM and SM
Managing:
In the past, businesses needed extremely large budgets in order to effectively market
their product or service to a vast audience. With the advent of social media, this has
changed. It is now possible to implement a very effective marketing or branding
strategy at a fraction of the cost. But, why are all companies not properly utilizing the
  13	
  
effective tool called social media? Well, like most things, becoming good at marketing
and brand building on social media takes time, effort and expertise. Running a business
profile on social media is not at all the same running your personal profile, which is
almost always used for entertainment purposes and not for strategic purposes.
Business owners today are starting to realise the value of employing social media
managers (SM managers). SM managers make sure that a business' social media is
active and correctly managed. A good social media manager is someone who is both
intelligent and sociable and need to have some expertise in the branding process.
Some services that a SM manger provides includes:
• Social Media Audit.
• Setting up accounts in the correct way.
• Branding accounts.
• Social media strategy.
• Monitoring accounts.
• Responding where needed.
• Engaging audiences is conversations.
• Creating and finding high quality content to post.
• Creating advert campaigns.
• Crisis planning.
• Creating competitions and give aways.
• Conducting analyses of how effective your marketing strategies are.
Why Your Business needs to be active on Social Media:
Improve Customer Service: Social media is a great way to engage with your
customers. People will talk about your business whether you're on social media or not.
We strongly advise not to pass up this opportunity to make customers happy. People
appreciate it when they feel that your brand actually cares about them by responding to
  14	
  
all their questions and queries. Real-time social media allows you to make customers
happy and in turn creates brand evangelists. Whether or not you're on SM, people will
talk about your business. Specialized software allows one to monitor exactly where and
when people mention your business. Responding to people gives businesses the
opportunity to mend their relationships with dissatisfied people and to create brand
evangelists who drive positive brand incentives.
Brand Building: You no longer need to spend millions to create an international brand.
SM allows us to launch branding campaigns for much much lower costs.
Drive Sales: According to Crowdspring, 50% of small business owners reported the
gain of new customers through social media, most notably through Facebook and
LinkedIn. Not only can you enforce credibility through social validation you can also
proactively search for new customers.
Understand Clients better than ever before: Social media monitoring and analysis
allows us to really understand what our clients inside and out. These analyses allow us
as branders and marketers to really tailor strategies that work.
Working With a Team of Social Media Managers:
A Social Media team has the powerful quality of being a...team! To play this game well,
one must be careful of being the Jack of all trades and the master of none. In a good
agency's team, each individual is assigned to perfect one task, be it copy writing and
editing, filming, customer service, etc., and then the team should synergistically
produce a remarkable product, which in this case will be well branded social media
platforms.
A social media team saves you time and hard work by taking the responsibility of
running your social media platforms for your company. They should fully understand
your brand and how to represent it. Social media management entails lifelong learning
in order to keep up with the latest tricks and trends in the ever changing online world.
Like any job a social media manager has to incorporate the managing of platforms into
their daily routine. From morning to night. Some of the services which social media
managers provide, includes: setting up accounts, constant monitoring of all accounts,
responding to audience members in the correct manner, creating giveaways and
competitions, creating social media adverts and knowing how to plan and respond in
crisis situations. Social media managers also have the experience of working on various
platforms and know very well how to set up and implement social media marketing
strategies in order to achieve set goals.
  15	
  
Content generation for your Social Media campaign.
In online world, striking content is absolutely vital. It is what people crave. It is the
reason that someone has followed your page. People's social media platforms are
saturated with all sorts of content, most of which is immediately scrolled over. Your
content needs to be as eye-catching. If your content is not skillfully crafted, you won't
cause the pattern break in someone’s scrolling behavior and your message will also just
be skimmed over. Content generation is very different when it comes to a business'
page as opposed to a private profile. Each post needs to be part of a bigger strategy,
which ultimately will result in you achieving a desired goal.
Content should be crafted in a way that allows consumers to identify with your brand.
As we have mentioned before, people are tired of "being sold to" and need to identify
with your brand's values in order to become a brand member. It is important to identify
your consumers and align the social media campaign with their interests and their
characteristics while always remaining authentic.
Remember that when branding, consistency is key. Most people fall out after the
creative process and don't follow through when it comes to the hard work. If your brand
isn't continuously producing and publishing relevant content, you can say "adieus" to
all your potential Brand Members. Each one of your platforms should convey a
message that is consistent with your brand. All the platforms should work in synergy to
create a consistent and effective message, which will be broadcasted to all of your
subscribers. Each platform is unique in its uses and functions, but it is important that
your brand is consistent across all of them.
Content generation plan:
We have decided to craft one piece of content which we will cut to fit all of the
platforms which we will be using for your campaign. This original piece of content will
be crafted to cover the bases of the different platforms. For example: a Facebook post
will contain images and text. These images will be used to post to Instagram, while the
text can be shortened to a hyperlink and posted on Twitter. The same message MUST
be conveyed across all platforms. This ensures that the message will not be missed by
a consumer if they only log onto Facebook and not Instagram, for example.
Another important aspect of Social Media is getting consumers' attention and wanting
them to be associated with your brand. Facebook offers the ability to 'share' posts.
Although this might not seem like it at face value, but by sharing a post a consumer
associates themselves with a brand. It shows that the consumer agrees with the
message of the post as well as the morals and values of the organization whose
  16	
  
content they share. Competitions and give aways are the easiest and most effective
way to encourage consumers to share messages conveyed by your brand. Although
the 'shares' and associations may be superficial, it is a form of exposure that your
business desperately needs. Give aways should be related to your business. This may
sound simple but consumers have become aware of 'competitions for likes' and are
weary of companies that are giving something away solely for the sake of likes. For
example, your travel company should offer a GoPro camera for its first competition as
this is something that relates to your business - families can use the camera to take
photos of their holidays. Also, '20/30% off your next holiday' can be a great way to
encourage consumers to enter the competitions.
Each platform is a gateway to the others; your Facebook page should encourage
consumers to follow your business on all of the platforms that you will be using. This
can only be done by ensuring that all of the platforms are of the highest quality. If a
consumer enjoys using your Facebook page, they should in theory enjoy using your
Instagram page. Each platform will have links to all of the platforms that you will be
using as well as a link to your website. This, apart from making it easy for your
customers to find your other platforms, will do wonders for your Google page rankings,
directly relating to Search Engine Optimization. Social media is just that - media
platforms used by consumers to socialize in the digital space. For consumers to be
social, they must engage in communication with others. Social Media is a way to
encourage word-of-mouth recommendations between consumers as they will talk
about your brand to other consumers on the various platforms through comments,
shares and likes. Word-of-mouth after all is the most effective form of marketing
available. People will trust their friends before they trust a million rand advertising
campaign. Also, the more traffic and activity you have on your platforms, the more
attention Google will pay to you and your rankings.
The Neteastetic Design campaigning process:
Client Debrief:
1. Find out exactly what your business is about. We want to know what it is that
you stand for. In what way do you help people?
2. Collect and examine your brand's visual elements. Discuss these elements with
the client.
3. Help the client set realistic and achievable goals with regards to social media.
  17	
  
4. Set an estimate time frame in which we will be able to achieve the set goals.
5. Make sure the client is satisfied and feels welcome to contact us at any time
during our working hours.
Working Cycle:
1. Create branding manual.
2. Set up a social media marketing and branding strategy.
3. Implement the strategy.
4. Analyze the strategy.
5. Reform strategy wherever it’s needed.
6. Implement reformed strategy
Platforms to use:
We recommend 5 social media platforms: Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter and
Google+.
Facebook: The most popular social media platform in the world, with over 1 billion
users. It is suitable for content in the following forms: videos, links, images and text –
pretty much all types of content can be shared on Facebook. It is a very big meeting
place of opinions and word-of-mouth recommendations.
Instagram: Instagram is a picture-sharing platform. It allows users to share pictures and
categorize the images into hashtags, which allow other users to discover pictures that
have been ‘hashtagged’ in a certain way. For example, #Beach and #Summer.
LinkedIn: LinkedIn is the professional’s version of Facebook, supporting a fewer
number of content forms, but adding to the corporate image of your company. It is
used to network as a working professional or as a business and allows for more formal
associations to be made, than as opposed to Facebook.
Twitter: Twitter is a very popular platform. The only platform, which has a character limit
of 140, concerning the text that a user will post, however, Twitter does allow for image
uploads. Twitter originated the worldwide trend of ‘hashtagging’, #Example, in order to
categorize content.
  18	
  
Google+: This is a relatively new player on the field, but any user will tell you that soon
most people will be active on Google+. Google+ has come up with a concept which
they have termed "Circles". Circles allow users to organise their posts in a much more
effective way. People see what they want to see and only allow posts to be viewed by
the people it was meant for e.g. family instead of friends. When a person sees your
content on Google+, chances are that they are very willing to engage with your brand.
SECTION 3 CONCLUDED:
You now understand that it is absolutely important that your business takes social
media seriously. Branding effectively across multiple platforms tends to be very time
consuming and requires a lot of thought and effort. Social media managers relieve you
of a lot of labour and stress, and can save you tons of time, effort and even money.
Social media is an ever-evolving field with a vast amount of benefits for both individuals
and businesses. It is important to work with social media managers who stay current
and have pride in what they do.
  19	
  
SECTION 4: Netaesthetic Pricing (for those who are
interested in working with us)
We charge R1500 per platform, per month.
This includes:
• Our expertise with regards to social media and the external software needed
to effectively run a campaign.
• Correct setting up of accounts.
• Account branding (subject to extra costs).
• 10-15 posts uploads per month.
• Constant monitoring.
• Responding to relevant comments.
• Setting up Add Campaigns (subject to extra costs).
• Content production and publishing.
The price on the market for services similar to ours start in the R10,000's per platform,
per month. The special rates we are offering now are only going to be this affordable for
a limited time only.
SECTION 4 CONCLUDED:
I hope that you have found the information, which has been presented to you, useful.
One of our main focuses at Netaesthetic Design is to stimulate thought amongst
business professionals about current business affairs.
We invite you to get into contact with us at:
info@netdesign.co.za

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Branding Crash Course

  • 1.                   Net  Aesthetic  Design  (Pty)  Ltd.     Branding  White  Paper       Branding Crash Course: Quick Guide to Branding in the midst of Social Media.  
  • 2.   2   Table of Contents Section   Page  Number   1:  Basic  understanding  of  a   Brand 2   2:  Branding  in  the  Modern   World. 8   3:  Introduction  to  some  SM   and  SM  Managing 11   4:  Netaesthetic  Pricing 18  
  • 3.   3   Branding Crash Course: Quick Guide to Branding in the midst of Social Media. Netaesthetic Design (Pty) Ltd. Branding Department.   SECTION  1:  Basic  Understanding  of  a  Brand.     In this section you will gain a basic understanding of what branding is. At the end of this section we will look at two easy-to-understand examples of strong branding. What are people saying about you? What is a Brand? Your brand is the relationship people have with your enterprise. It is the sum total of their experience with your enterprise; from the visual sensations they get when coming into contact with your logo and adverts, to the feeling they get after using your product or service, and everything in between ( sales, customer service, supply chain, switch board, et cetera). A brand, and branding is meant to distinguish your product or service and create a relationship between you and your customers, it denotes much more than the concepts of marketing, goodwill and reputation. The concept is also not limited to the commercial enterprise. NGOs, governments and politicians all brand themselves. The advent of Social Media has changed the ball game of branding. Skip to Section 2 to find out how. "A brand is no longer what we tell the customer it is, it is what they tell each other it is." -Scott Cook (Director of eBay and Procter & Gamble)
  • 4.   4   Important Facets of Branding • Visual Design: The visual facet of a brand comprises the artistic elements (mainly colour and form) that an enterprise uses to represent itself. These include your logo, your packaging, your uniforms, and any visual element that people associate with your brand. If skillfully done, an enterprise can represent itself and everything it stands for with a mere symbol. A good example of a powerful design element is the American flag, which is used to symbolize the American brand. This flag carries with it connotations of freedom, power, dominance, and striving for success and achievement, much more so than the geographical representation of the continent on an atlas. • Marketing: Marketing is the process of communicating information on either your product or your brand, to your audience (target market) through various means; television adverts, radio broadcasting, billboards and social media (the giant). Here is where big budget enterprises have the advantage. The branding and marketing principles are the same for both small and large scale businesses, however large scale enterprises have the budgets that allow them to effectively reach more people. Larger budgets equate to better quality production (adverts etc.) and larger audiences reached (even on social media), simply because they can command more human resources and more exclusive means of advertising. Does this mean that small and medium-sized businesses are out of the game? Of course not. If a brand is correctly established and managed, large scale awareness can be created using social media. Often times small and medium-sized businesses supply better quality products and/or services and social media platforms amplify the word-of-mouth reach. Larger scale enterprises have teams of highly skilled people running their social media. The power of social media is enormous, but so is the hype. • Customer Service: Both product industries and service industries have a certain contact point between the enterprise and the customer. All enterprises must ask themselves how their customers are being treated when they come into contact with the enterprise. Do they feel satisfied after being dealt with? I cannot stress enough, the importance of this facet! Bad customer service can ruin an entire brand. Essentially a brand is meant to elicit a certain feelings within a person. Try
  • 5.   5   to remember a time when an employee of an enterprise totally disregarded your time and value as a customer and treated you with disrespect... How did you feel? Do you remember how you expressed this feeling of disregard with passion and conviction to almost everyone you knew? Feelings like these are poisonous to your brand, and now-a-days a post on Facebook, expressing your feelings of the brand, would reach hundreds of potential customers and also create their mistrust in the brand. On the other hand, good customer service is highly rewarded and adds a great deal to a strong brand. Remember how you let the experience with a bad product slide, simply because the problem was quickly resolved in a very friendly manner? People crave the feeling of being valued. Authentically value your customers and they will stand by your side for a life time as well as boast about how good your product and/or service is. Add this to social media...you get the point. • Experience of Product and/or Service: Your product and/or service has to at least meet the expectations of your customers, or surpass them. Do not allow for any anticlimax with your product and/or service. Nothing is worse than being promised an amazing product or service, but receiving something mediocre or of a poor standard. This makes your customer feel cheated. And guess what...he or she vents out their frustration to hundreds of people on Twitter and Facebook (maybe even thousands). Strong Branding and its Power: One weakness in your branding strategy and implementation has the potential to drag down the whole brand with it. But, a strong brand creates a lifelong membership to your product and/or service. Think of the places you shop at, the clothes that you wear and the restaurants you dine at. 9 times out of 10 people will shop at the same place (even if it is farther away from a similar store e.g. Woolworths instead of Pick n Pay or vice versa), wear the same brand of clothing (esp. shoes because these are the most branded clothing item. E.g. Nike instead of Adidas or vice versa), and eat at the same restaurants (even if a person has experienced a bad meal there). This is because people form emotional attachments to experiences (brands) which have satisfied them in the past. People begin to associate these feelings of satisfaction and gratification with the brand that delivered it to them. Understand that people are emotional creatures and almost all of our decisions, especially buying decisions, are based upon emotional needs (the need for safety and security, the need to fit in etc.). What a strong brand does is meet these needs and
  • 6.   6   create the memory/association of this need being met with a specific brand. Let’s look at two simple, yet strong branding examples: (X will be used as an enterprise's name for purposes of generalizing) Branding X's shoe (product branding): 1. In an advert, X shows Mr. Joe images of famous and celebrated athletes being "super human" and doing all sorts of wonderful tricks and tumbles, while they subtly show these athletes wearing the shoes which X wishes to sell, as well as any other visual or sound elements associated with X. In cinematic and literary art, there is a concept called the ‘climax’, which I am sure you are aware of. At the acme of Mr. Joe's emotional build up or climax, reached due to skillful cinematic production, X will cut the add and flash the shoe they wish to sell as well as show how awesome the shoe is, with the use of a tag line or other advertising elements. If this is done skillfully enough and often enough, Joe will subconsciously begin to associate these strong emotions with the brand X or the shoe that was advertised. 2. Joe is in need of a new pair of shoes. He walks into a store where shoe X is in abundance, very visible and isolated from competing brands (good supply chaining and store placement). The shoe triggers the emotions which the advertisement had created. 3. Joe asks a salesman for advice on the shoe, and being well trained, the salesman explains how superior the shoe is and also makes Joe feel very important and well looked after during the sales process. 4. Joe purchases the shoe based on the elicited feelings and then rationalizes the purchase by confirming its great value for money and totally superior quality. 5. Joe gets home and he tries on his new shoes. The shoes are indeed of a good quality. Joe feels on top of the world. Joe now constantly wears the shoes which trigger his strong emotions which the branding champagne has created for Joe. After a while, Joe's subconscious realizes that the shoes do not maketh the man, and company X advertises another pair which "do". Do This* Try realize how your perception of someone changes after you see them wearing a very famous brand of shoe. (This happens because strong brands have been able to condition us to feel certain things about them.)
  • 7.   7   Restaurant X: 1. Sally loves to dine out, but all the restaurants have become boring to her. She is never treated as though she is genuinely special and the food she orders is always decent but never "wows" her. 2. She decides to try out Restaurant X, which her friends have recommended to her (word-of-mouth). Upon arriving to Restaurant X, Sally feels welcomed and invited by the colours and well-designed interior and layout of the restaurant. 3. She is greeted with a genuine smile from a happy and friendly waitron, who really enjoys working at Restaurant X. Sally is seated on a very comfortable chair and the waitron makes Sally's ordering decision very easy by recommending the crowd favorites and by knowledgeably commenting on the dishes Sally asks about. The waitron makes any pricing increases of her recommendations 100% clear. Sally orders what the waitron had recommended because the waitron is so happy and Sally also wants to feel like this. (Note the waitron’s authenticity in her interaction with Sally. She genuinely wanted to help Sally and didn't recommend anything purely for means of increased profits. Understand that people are naturally empathetic. We feel! Usually we know the motives behind actions or find them out after the action has been done. Also, note how Sally associated the waitrons happiness with the product she was selling. We tend to associate feelings with tangible things and services. Always, always be authentic, even if you have to admit to a product's and/or service's limitations. This is not a bad thing at all. Everything has limitations, and clients will appreciate your honesty and respect your knowledge about the product and/or service). 4. Sally's delicious meal arrives. Its aroma is described as heavenly (a lot of renown psychologists believe that olfactories), or things related to the sense of smell, are the strongest trigger of emotions. Think of what happens when you smell certain perfumes...). Back to Sally. She digs into her meal and the taste surpasses her expectations that had been created by the previous restaurants she had visited. The portion is very generous and Sally feels extremely satisfied at the end of her meal. She pays a fair amount (fair amount is based on product and brand value) and she is thanked as she leaves the door. 5. Sally has just become a lifelong patron of Restaurant X. All the positive emotions that were elicited in Sally, from her friends boasting about Restaurant X, her impressions of the restaurant's look and feel, to her being thanked as she left the door, are now associated with this brand. You can probably guess what Sally will do when her mood needs to be uplifted.
  • 8.   8   A strong brand: • Has an appealing identity. • Convey and support a strong belief system and stands by its values. • Is customer conscious (understands the value of its clients and strives to serve them). • Has a good quality product and/or service which is coherent with its advertising. • Is memorable (elicits positive emotions within customers and markets itself well). • Causes customers to become members of the brand. • Is authentic. • Is consistent! Why Branding is Vital: It is a well-known fact that if people do not recognize and trust your brand, it is very rare that they will do business with you, even in business-to-business (B2B) transactions. A strong brand creates trust and emotional attachment to an enterprise. Psychologists have shown that 90% of buying decisions are based on emotions which are then rationalized. A customer buys Nike sneakers because they have a desire to be fit and healthy as well as being seen as trendy and cool (the needs that the Nike brand meets. Note, to understand how Nike meets these needs, one needs to study brand psychology and people’s perceptions in much more depth. If you train, think about how much you were motivated to train after purchasing a new pair of branded shoes. Or, think about how you broadcast yourself to people when you wear a suite as opposed to casual clothing. Only after the unconscious desires are fulfilled by the Nike shoe, does the customer rationalize their purchase ("This is the best sneaker on the market" or "It's definitely the best value for my money") to eliminate any post-buying-regret (something a good brand should deal with well, also known as post-cognitive dissonance). The brand of an enterprise has a value and economists are using complex algorithms to try and determine the exact monetary value of a brand. Without a strong brand, your enterprise will not be able to reach its full potential.
  • 9.   9   Section 1 Concluded: You now understand the basics of branding. You understand that: • Social Media and the internet has changed the ball game of branding. • A brand is essentially an engineered experience. • A brand has value. • A brand consists of many facets (A logo, advertising, colour scheme, quality, customer service, sales, supply chain, online and over the telephone interactions, et cetera). • Branding is used to create desired associations with your enterprise. • Without proper branding you cannot reach your maximum potential. Good branding is vital. • Strong brands take every single part of their B2C or B2B interactions into mind and skillfully engineer these interactions. • Consistency is key! SECTION 2: Branding in the Modern World. In this section you will learn about branding Implementation. We will also teach you the new branding strategies that a lot of big companies are implementing in this time of branding reform. The New Normal: I'm sure that you've heard of a little company called Facebook...just kidding, of course you have. "As of the third quarter of 2015, Facebook had 1.55 billion monthly active users." – (www.statista.com). Facebook is only one of many major social media platforms that people use for both business and pleasure. The "Global Village" (a
  • 10.   10   concept associated with renowned Canadian philosopher and writer, Marshal McLuhan) is currently at a zenith compared to any previous stage of modern civilization. Today, most people in developed regions can really be considered as being citizens of two worlds: the normal and the virtual. The nature of the latter and its business implications will be discussed in this section. Note, for the purposes of this manual, we will not go into an in depth discussion about exactly how the virtual world has changed human psychology, especially the psychology of the so called ‘Millennials’, a person reaching young adulthood during the turn of this millennium. It is just important to note that attention spans have drastically shrunk (not intelligence or capacity for learning) and people absolutely love sharing their newly found virtual-voices to everyone they can possibly reach on the various social media platforms. Also, the 1st place most people turn to for information now-a-days is the World Wide Web. So what does the New Normal look like? Today, billions of pieces of information are being shared daily on social media. People are posting, tweeting and blogging and they are reaching thousands of people at any one time. Multi-screen habits are starting to form, the average person now watches television on their mobile device just an arm’s reach away. People are spending at least two hours per day on the Web, taking in a lot of information in bite sized chunks (in the form of content like info-graphics, tweets and videos). Almost everything of importance (including products and services) are being discussed and analyzed by the masses. People (a much better term for "customers" in the New Normal) are "closer" to each other and more connected than ever before. An experience a person goes through could potentially affect people from all across the globe, as that experience is shared in the virtual world (social media). This means that we, as branders and marketers, better be careful of what we get people talking about. One negative brand experience and BOOM! The discussion bomb hits the virtual world. No need to be worried though. If your brand is strong enough, loyal customers will defend it, and if the brand's virtual presence is well monitored and managed, negative comments will do very little damage. On the other hand, people love sharing their positive experiences on social media, and this can be a massive advantage for your brand. Social media has really made it possible for even small scale businesses to grow a large fan base and clientele.
  • 11.   11   How To Approach Branding and Marketing in The New Normal: "The world is an extremely noisy place. And we are not going to get people to remember much about what we tell them. No company is. That's why we have to be extremely careful about exactly what we want people to remember about us." - Steve Jobs (Co-Founder of Apple) It is vital that you define exactly who you are, what you stand for and to be concise and consistent with the message that you want to deliver to your audience. Because of the vast volumes of information being shared today (the noisy word Steve Jobs spoke about), the branding masters are veering from the old and monotonous branding campaigns which tell us how "this, this, this and that feature makes us better than our competitors", to more creative, personal and memorable branding campaigns. We all remember how "Red Bull" had a man sky-dive from space while they streamed it on YouTube. One of the most successful branding campaigns of our generation, the "Dove Sketches" campaign, celebrated - not the superiority of its product - but instead something more noble and personal: the inherent beauty of women. Remember that everyone is levelled to the same playing field. On the field of social media your company is perceived very much like an individual. There is no more use for companies to obnoxiously shout out information which no one really wants to hear, in order to be remembered. Large companies have realized the importance of building authentic relationships with their followers on social media. This is achieved through the creation of high quality content that is engaging to your audience and coherent with your brand. Engagement: It is of the utmost importance to elicit interaction on your social media platforms. You must have the ability to get people to talk about and share information on your product or service. This is achieved by consistently posting high quality and relevant content. This is one of the main jobs of a company's social media team. What separates professional content creators from individuals, is that they usually form part of a collaborative design process which results in much higher quality content. This is one of the reasons why many small-scale and almost all large-scale businesses opt for working with specialized agencies. Agencies like Netaesthetic Design allow for businesses to have constant, high quality and consistent content, which engages the target market, to be posted on the various social media platforms. A collaborative team of social media managers will ensures that your company consistently and effectively engages with its audience. How you interact on social media will determine the success of your marketing strategy.
  • 12.   12   Whether you're "Nike" or Joe Soap, a tweet is a tweet and a Facebook comment is a Facebook comment. Companies have realized how important it is to engage with their audiences at personal levels. As mentioned before, one should engage with people as people and not as "customers", who are tired of being nagged and pushed to spend their money. At Netaesthetic Design we believe that this is the essential paradigm shift for success in the new normal, as social media continues to revolutionize businesses interact with their clients. SECTION 2 CONCLUDED. You now understand that: • We are currently part of a world that is more connected than ever before. • Most people can be considered citizens of a virtual reality, glued together by social media. • Social media has given us the potential to reach a global audience. • Social media has revolutionized branding and marketing. • Companies are starting to realize the importance of authentic and personal communication and campaigns on social media. • Successful social media marketing campaigns rely on constant monitoring, interacting and adhering to you brand's rules and standards. SECTION 3: Introduction to some SM and SM Managing: In the past, businesses needed extremely large budgets in order to effectively market their product or service to a vast audience. With the advent of social media, this has changed. It is now possible to implement a very effective marketing or branding strategy at a fraction of the cost. But, why are all companies not properly utilizing the
  • 13.   13   effective tool called social media? Well, like most things, becoming good at marketing and brand building on social media takes time, effort and expertise. Running a business profile on social media is not at all the same running your personal profile, which is almost always used for entertainment purposes and not for strategic purposes. Business owners today are starting to realise the value of employing social media managers (SM managers). SM managers make sure that a business' social media is active and correctly managed. A good social media manager is someone who is both intelligent and sociable and need to have some expertise in the branding process. Some services that a SM manger provides includes: • Social Media Audit. • Setting up accounts in the correct way. • Branding accounts. • Social media strategy. • Monitoring accounts. • Responding where needed. • Engaging audiences is conversations. • Creating and finding high quality content to post. • Creating advert campaigns. • Crisis planning. • Creating competitions and give aways. • Conducting analyses of how effective your marketing strategies are. Why Your Business needs to be active on Social Media: Improve Customer Service: Social media is a great way to engage with your customers. People will talk about your business whether you're on social media or not. We strongly advise not to pass up this opportunity to make customers happy. People appreciate it when they feel that your brand actually cares about them by responding to
  • 14.   14   all their questions and queries. Real-time social media allows you to make customers happy and in turn creates brand evangelists. Whether or not you're on SM, people will talk about your business. Specialized software allows one to monitor exactly where and when people mention your business. Responding to people gives businesses the opportunity to mend their relationships with dissatisfied people and to create brand evangelists who drive positive brand incentives. Brand Building: You no longer need to spend millions to create an international brand. SM allows us to launch branding campaigns for much much lower costs. Drive Sales: According to Crowdspring, 50% of small business owners reported the gain of new customers through social media, most notably through Facebook and LinkedIn. Not only can you enforce credibility through social validation you can also proactively search for new customers. Understand Clients better than ever before: Social media monitoring and analysis allows us to really understand what our clients inside and out. These analyses allow us as branders and marketers to really tailor strategies that work. Working With a Team of Social Media Managers: A Social Media team has the powerful quality of being a...team! To play this game well, one must be careful of being the Jack of all trades and the master of none. In a good agency's team, each individual is assigned to perfect one task, be it copy writing and editing, filming, customer service, etc., and then the team should synergistically produce a remarkable product, which in this case will be well branded social media platforms. A social media team saves you time and hard work by taking the responsibility of running your social media platforms for your company. They should fully understand your brand and how to represent it. Social media management entails lifelong learning in order to keep up with the latest tricks and trends in the ever changing online world. Like any job a social media manager has to incorporate the managing of platforms into their daily routine. From morning to night. Some of the services which social media managers provide, includes: setting up accounts, constant monitoring of all accounts, responding to audience members in the correct manner, creating giveaways and competitions, creating social media adverts and knowing how to plan and respond in crisis situations. Social media managers also have the experience of working on various platforms and know very well how to set up and implement social media marketing strategies in order to achieve set goals.
  • 15.   15   Content generation for your Social Media campaign. In online world, striking content is absolutely vital. It is what people crave. It is the reason that someone has followed your page. People's social media platforms are saturated with all sorts of content, most of which is immediately scrolled over. Your content needs to be as eye-catching. If your content is not skillfully crafted, you won't cause the pattern break in someone’s scrolling behavior and your message will also just be skimmed over. Content generation is very different when it comes to a business' page as opposed to a private profile. Each post needs to be part of a bigger strategy, which ultimately will result in you achieving a desired goal. Content should be crafted in a way that allows consumers to identify with your brand. As we have mentioned before, people are tired of "being sold to" and need to identify with your brand's values in order to become a brand member. It is important to identify your consumers and align the social media campaign with their interests and their characteristics while always remaining authentic. Remember that when branding, consistency is key. Most people fall out after the creative process and don't follow through when it comes to the hard work. If your brand isn't continuously producing and publishing relevant content, you can say "adieus" to all your potential Brand Members. Each one of your platforms should convey a message that is consistent with your brand. All the platforms should work in synergy to create a consistent and effective message, which will be broadcasted to all of your subscribers. Each platform is unique in its uses and functions, but it is important that your brand is consistent across all of them. Content generation plan: We have decided to craft one piece of content which we will cut to fit all of the platforms which we will be using for your campaign. This original piece of content will be crafted to cover the bases of the different platforms. For example: a Facebook post will contain images and text. These images will be used to post to Instagram, while the text can be shortened to a hyperlink and posted on Twitter. The same message MUST be conveyed across all platforms. This ensures that the message will not be missed by a consumer if they only log onto Facebook and not Instagram, for example. Another important aspect of Social Media is getting consumers' attention and wanting them to be associated with your brand. Facebook offers the ability to 'share' posts. Although this might not seem like it at face value, but by sharing a post a consumer associates themselves with a brand. It shows that the consumer agrees with the message of the post as well as the morals and values of the organization whose
  • 16.   16   content they share. Competitions and give aways are the easiest and most effective way to encourage consumers to share messages conveyed by your brand. Although the 'shares' and associations may be superficial, it is a form of exposure that your business desperately needs. Give aways should be related to your business. This may sound simple but consumers have become aware of 'competitions for likes' and are weary of companies that are giving something away solely for the sake of likes. For example, your travel company should offer a GoPro camera for its first competition as this is something that relates to your business - families can use the camera to take photos of their holidays. Also, '20/30% off your next holiday' can be a great way to encourage consumers to enter the competitions. Each platform is a gateway to the others; your Facebook page should encourage consumers to follow your business on all of the platforms that you will be using. This can only be done by ensuring that all of the platforms are of the highest quality. If a consumer enjoys using your Facebook page, they should in theory enjoy using your Instagram page. Each platform will have links to all of the platforms that you will be using as well as a link to your website. This, apart from making it easy for your customers to find your other platforms, will do wonders for your Google page rankings, directly relating to Search Engine Optimization. Social media is just that - media platforms used by consumers to socialize in the digital space. For consumers to be social, they must engage in communication with others. Social Media is a way to encourage word-of-mouth recommendations between consumers as they will talk about your brand to other consumers on the various platforms through comments, shares and likes. Word-of-mouth after all is the most effective form of marketing available. People will trust their friends before they trust a million rand advertising campaign. Also, the more traffic and activity you have on your platforms, the more attention Google will pay to you and your rankings. The Neteastetic Design campaigning process: Client Debrief: 1. Find out exactly what your business is about. We want to know what it is that you stand for. In what way do you help people? 2. Collect and examine your brand's visual elements. Discuss these elements with the client. 3. Help the client set realistic and achievable goals with regards to social media.
  • 17.   17   4. Set an estimate time frame in which we will be able to achieve the set goals. 5. Make sure the client is satisfied and feels welcome to contact us at any time during our working hours. Working Cycle: 1. Create branding manual. 2. Set up a social media marketing and branding strategy. 3. Implement the strategy. 4. Analyze the strategy. 5. Reform strategy wherever it’s needed. 6. Implement reformed strategy Platforms to use: We recommend 5 social media platforms: Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter and Google+. Facebook: The most popular social media platform in the world, with over 1 billion users. It is suitable for content in the following forms: videos, links, images and text – pretty much all types of content can be shared on Facebook. It is a very big meeting place of opinions and word-of-mouth recommendations. Instagram: Instagram is a picture-sharing platform. It allows users to share pictures and categorize the images into hashtags, which allow other users to discover pictures that have been ‘hashtagged’ in a certain way. For example, #Beach and #Summer. LinkedIn: LinkedIn is the professional’s version of Facebook, supporting a fewer number of content forms, but adding to the corporate image of your company. It is used to network as a working professional or as a business and allows for more formal associations to be made, than as opposed to Facebook. Twitter: Twitter is a very popular platform. The only platform, which has a character limit of 140, concerning the text that a user will post, however, Twitter does allow for image uploads. Twitter originated the worldwide trend of ‘hashtagging’, #Example, in order to categorize content.
  • 18.   18   Google+: This is a relatively new player on the field, but any user will tell you that soon most people will be active on Google+. Google+ has come up with a concept which they have termed "Circles". Circles allow users to organise their posts in a much more effective way. People see what they want to see and only allow posts to be viewed by the people it was meant for e.g. family instead of friends. When a person sees your content on Google+, chances are that they are very willing to engage with your brand. SECTION 3 CONCLUDED: You now understand that it is absolutely important that your business takes social media seriously. Branding effectively across multiple platforms tends to be very time consuming and requires a lot of thought and effort. Social media managers relieve you of a lot of labour and stress, and can save you tons of time, effort and even money. Social media is an ever-evolving field with a vast amount of benefits for both individuals and businesses. It is important to work with social media managers who stay current and have pride in what they do.
  • 19.   19   SECTION 4: Netaesthetic Pricing (for those who are interested in working with us) We charge R1500 per platform, per month. This includes: • Our expertise with regards to social media and the external software needed to effectively run a campaign. • Correct setting up of accounts. • Account branding (subject to extra costs). • 10-15 posts uploads per month. • Constant monitoring. • Responding to relevant comments. • Setting up Add Campaigns (subject to extra costs). • Content production and publishing. The price on the market for services similar to ours start in the R10,000's per platform, per month. The special rates we are offering now are only going to be this affordable for a limited time only. SECTION 4 CONCLUDED: I hope that you have found the information, which has been presented to you, useful. One of our main focuses at Netaesthetic Design is to stimulate thought amongst business professionals about current business affairs. We invite you to get into contact with us at: info@netdesign.co.za