As more consumers turn to Instagram, Facebook and TikTok for discovery and decision-making, social media has become valuable for businesses to build a strong brand identity. Using these platforms, businesses can increase recognition and build trust among their audience by creating a consistent branding image. A strong social media presence can help build deeper connections, helping brands engage directly with consumers. However, knowing how to introduce and promote your brand on social media is important.
In this article, we will cover key strategies to help you build your brand identity on social media platforms, driving awareness and customer loyalty.
1. Define Your Brand’s Core Values and Mission
Defining your brand’s core values, mission, and vision is essential for building a strong identity on social media. Every strong brand identity starts with clarity. Before creating content, define what your brand stands for — your mission, vision, and values.
These foundational elements guide your messaging and ensure consistency across all your social platforms, helping you build a connection with your audience. Building a brand from scratch isn’t easy, having a strong marketing agency locally like BDSA can strengthen your brand’s foundational layers in a faster way.
When Li Ning, a global sportswear brand renowned for its basketball and badminton gear entered the Singapore market, our team at BDSA was tasked with shaping a compelling social media presence for its local debut. With the launch of its first direct-to-consumer retail stores, it was crucial to establish a distinct brand presence amidst strong competition.
We developed a cohesive visual and messaging strategy tailored for social media while keeping the brand’s essence in mind. This approach ensured that the brand’s legacy of sports excellence and innovation was clearly communicated, making it both recognizable and relatable to Singaporean audiences.
With a strong brand compass in place, every post on their Instagram — from visuals to captions — became a reflection of their core identity, building trust and recognition with their audience.
This ensured that Li-Ning’s legacy in sports excellence and innovation was communicated, making the brand recognizable and relatable to local consumers.
2. Know Your Audience — and How They Engage
Knowing your target audience is important in social media marketing to create content that resonates effectively. By conducting thorough research into your audience’s demographics, interests, and online behaviors, you can adjust your messaging to match their preferences and needs. This ensures that your content is engaging and relevant, promoting brand awareness and encouraging more meaningful interactions.
This is of course an ongoing process to understand your audience as the brand evolves through the years. Some key areas to think about when building up your target audience:
- Having a few demographic pillars instead of just a single defined audience
- What type of content would they potentially engage with most?
- What times are they most active? When would they be active, especially on Tiktok / Instagram?
- Which formats (videos, carousels, stories can potentially drive the most interaction?
In the case of Li-Ning, BDSA recognized that while its basketball community in Singapore was strong, there was potential to expand the brand’s reach. We tested basketball-focused content, which was well-received,while also exploring opportunities to highlight the brand’s versatility.
This included producing a user engagement video featuring a running enthusiast testing out the shoes and sharing an unbiased review. Thereafter, we ran digital ads to build top-of-mind recall for the product and showcase the brand’s diverse lineup of shoes. As a result, we retained loyal fans while attracting new audiences, effectively balancing engagement with growth for Li-Ning.
3. Develop a Consistent Visual Identity
Building a consistent visual identity is crucial in establishing your brand’s presence on social media. This includes defining key elements like your logo, color scheme, typography, and imagery style. When these visual elements are consistent across all platforms, they help reinforce brand recognition and convey a sense of professionalism.
Here’s a quick guide on how to get started with a basic brand kit:
- Logo variations – Pick the best logo
- Defined color palette – A set of brand colours that complement each other
- Brand fonts – 2 to 3 fonts that fit the brand tone
- Signature image tone (example vibrant, minimalist, futuristic, Y2K).
Keep in mind that visual identity isn’t just about looking good, it’s about being recognizable. Every element, from your brand’s Instagram highlights to product photos, should follow consistent styling.
For bigger brands, we know the drill—branding’s usually locked in with a full set of HQ guidelines. Instead of reinventing the wheel, we use those as our base and adapt them for what works best for Social Media in Singapore’s landscape.
For smaller businesses without a set brand guide, that’s where BDSA can help to create a social media look and feel that’s easy to follow and helps the brand grow with consistency and confidence.
BDSA demonstrated the importance of visual consistency while developing a tailored social media visual corporate identity for Li-Ning. We ensured that every post, featuring product close-ups or lifestyle shots, aligned perfectly with the brand’s athletic aesthetic.
The same approach followed by Li-Ning can be transformative for brands without formal visual guidelines. Their polished social media feed became a clear reflection of the brand’s identity and enhanced its recall.
4. Find (and Stick to) Your Brand Voice
A distinct brand voice helps build a strong, recognizable presence on social media. Your brand’s voice should demonstrate its personality and resonate with your target audience, allowing you to form a deeper connection. Whether it’s playful, professional, or punchy, it should feel natural..Consistency in tone is key in branding, as it helps build a relatable and trustworthy brand image over time.
A good way to define it? Think of 3 adjectives that describe your brand (e.g., bold, warm, clever, sleek). Then build guidelines for tone, language, and even emoji use.
For Li-Ning, having a distinct brand voice was key, especially in a competitive market like Singapore where global sports brands dominate the scene. To set them apart, we crafted a voice that struck the right balance between technical storytelling and relatable, everyday content.
By highlighting product innovations such as BOOM technology, sharing community-generated reviews, and offering educational tips, Li-Ning positioned itself as both authoritative and approachable. This blend of expertise and relatability strengthened their brand image and allowed it to engage meaningfully with its audience.
5. Use Content Formats That Drive Engagement
In social media marketing, developing content that aligns with your brand values and appeals to your audience’s interests is key to increase brand awareness and maintain strong engagement. Content should offer value while remaining relevant to your followers’ preferences, whether it’s informative, entertaining, or inspiring. To keep your feed dynamic and audience attention high, it’s important to mix formats that educate, entertain, and convert across platforms like Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and LinkedIn.
Different content formats spark different types of engagement — from stopping the scroll to driving conversations. Here’s a list of content formats that works across most channels:
- Short-form Videos: Ideal for trend-hopping, product launches, behind-the-scenes snippets, and user-generated content.
- Carousels or Slideshows: Break down ideas step-by-step or showcase product features in an interactive, swipeable format.
- Static Visuals & Branded Graphics: Use these for inspirational quotes, professional product shots, or campaign branding to reinforce visual consistency.
Essentially the above content mix should cover these 3 pillars:
- Educational / informative Content
- How-to guides
- Sharings about the brand’s Unique Selling Points
- Offer tips or industry insights
- Community-Driven Content
- Feature user-generated content (UGC)
- Highlight customer testimonials
- Share behind-the-scenes moments
- Promotional Content
- New Product / Discounted Offers / Early Bird Discounts
- Promote limited-time offers or sales nearing to double digit days (11.11 Sales)
In this regard, BDSA helped Li-Ning boost engagement by strategically using Instagram’s dynamic tools. For instance, we used carousel posts to showcase shoe specifications and design details, allowing followers to explore the products in depth.
Reels and Stories were incorporated to share quick reviews, behind-the-scenes glimpses, and exciting store launch announcements, tapping into trending content formats. Meanwhile, static visuals with clean, professional imagery promoted Li-Ning’s credibility and provided brand consistency across the feed. This thoughtful blend of content types kept the social media audience engaged and solidified Li-Ning’s position as a dynamic and trustworthy brand.
6. Use Tools That Make Social Media Work Smarter
Advanced social media tools are essential for streamlining content planning, scheduling, and tracking performance. They save time and ensure that your content aligns with your campaigns and audience behavior.
Content Scheduling Tools:
- Plan your posts in advance and maintain a consistent presence
- Buffer / Latter are popular choices for Instagram Image post, carousels, Stories, and Reels
- TikTok’s own Video Scheduler
Project Management and Content Planning Tools:
- Consider Monday.com to help manage content timelines and schedules ahead of time
Social listening platforms:
- Brandwatch offers valuable consumer insights and sentiment analysis that can help you fine tune your brand voice.
In this area, we helped Li-Ning manage its social media presence by integrating Brandwatch for valuable insights into audience preferences and trends. We also used our proprietary framework for content ideation, approval, and scheduling, ensuring timely and consistent posts.
This approach allowed Li-Ning to stay on track with its campaigns while maintaining the quality of its content. By leveraging these tools, BDSA was able to optimize Li-Ning’s social media marketing strategy, ensuring that every post was purposeful and aligned with the company’s branding goals.
7. Engage Actively with Your Audience
Interacting with your audience regularly helps in building strong relationships and maintaining brand identity and loyalty. By actively participating in conversations and replying to comments and direct messages, your audience perceives that you value their input and are committed to engaging with them.
Active engagement strengthens your brand’s community and encourages more authentic interactions. It creates a sense of connection beyond transactional relationships, helping cultivate a loyal customer base.
8. Track Performance and Adapt Quickly
Analyzing social media performance is crucial for understanding what works for your audience and making changes in your strategies. By using analytics tools, you can gather valuable insights into which content performs best, enabling you to refine your branding approach and improve future campaigns.
6 Key metrics to watch on Instagram:
- Reach & Impressions
- Engagement Rate
- Follower Growth
- Website Clicks (via Bio or Story Links)
- Number of Saves & Shares
- Story Completion Rate
5 Key metrics to watch on Tiktok:
- Video Views & Watch Time
- Engagement Rate for Likes, Comments, Shares, Profile Visits
- Follower Growth
- Profile Views & Clicks
- Traffic from Link-in-Bio
- Trending Sound Usage & Hashtag Reach
BDSA helped Li-Ning achieve this by holding weekly client catch-ups, which provided opportunities to review performance and make data-driven adjustments. For instance, by identifying high-performing content, we doubled down on successful posts and fine-tuned ad targeting to reach specific niche audiences, such as basketball enthusiasts and casual runners.
This ongoing analysis and adaptability ensured that Li-Ning’s advertising campaigns continued to perform at their peak, maximizing engagement and achieving long-term success.
Building a Strong Brand Identity on Social Media with BDSA
Creating a strong brand identity on social media requires a strategic and thoughtful approach that combines a consistent visual identity, a unique brand voice, engaging content, active audience interaction, and continuous performance monitoring. By focusing on these key marketing steps, you can increase awareness, attract and retain customers, and ensure your brand aligns with your target audience.
BDSA’s partnership with Li-Ning exemplifies the power of such a strategy. By combining Li-Ning’s brand essence with data-driven social strategies, our social media marketing services helped the brand establish a strong presence in Singapore’s competitive sportswear market. The brand’s Instagram campaign accelerated store launches and created a growing community centered around performance, innovation, and style. With a particular focus on basketball and running enthusiasts, Li-Ning is now on a clear path to market dominance.
Crafting a memorable social media identity takes more than good design — it’s about telling the right story.
Ready to shape your brand’s social media presence? Let’s talk. Consider partnering with BDSA for expert assistance in crafting effective social media branding strategies.
