Building Brand Recall through Social Media

I believe brand awareness is a measure of how well a brand name is connected with a product. For example: Nirma is a name associated with generic detergent, Ariel & Tide with a value added/sophisticated detergent. Similarly, in real estate you’ll have brands associated with affordable housing and brands associated with luxury living. Brand Recall means providing a product category to the customer and asking him to readily recall a particular brand name for that product. Brand Recognition and Product Awareness is essential for Brand Recall. You require prospective buyers to think of your brand when they are thinking about your product category.

One of the first priorities for any brand creating their social media strategy, I believe, is creating brand recall. Social network engagement and targeted reach helps achieve this. Brands should focus on creating a social image in sync with their brand guidelines to create a unique identity in a crowded market of opportunity.

Social Media Impact is often underestimated in various businesses due to lack of direction and awareness with differentiating products. This understanding has helped early movers in the real estate digital domain get ahead of the crowd who are stuck up in the belief that traditional methods that are tangible can bear measurable benefits. The same crowd forgets how branding differs from selling. I have observed that your pull strategy can be driven in an optimal way by adopting social media as one channel in the overall marketing strategy. Achieving optimal results in real estate branding through social media can be explained in a process led by ‘LISTEN’ing:

L: Listen to your audience (their interest areas, buying patterns, lifestyle patterns). Give them what they want in value, and they will show interest in your product.

I: Interact with them by building conversations. Once you effectively achieve your pull objective, you can retain attention through interaction.

S: Structure content: Make it simple, do not be loud, build your brand and share your brand values.

T: Target Reach – It pays to spend on reaching the right people. There is no value in engaging irrelevant audiences. Know your buyers and their influencers, research their interest areas.

E: Engage with beautiful content: Visually stunning and textually attention-grabbing content may not always be possible. But consistency in design and creativity in communication will always keep you ahead.

N: Nurture your audience. Once engaged, you need to give your audience what they want, in sync with your products, to gain their attention.

Build your brand recall with the power of Listening!

Some pointers on creating Brand Recall:

Be Creative but Assertive!
In a competitive market like that of real estate, there is no room for creative limitations. Adopting a conservative approach in social media due to preconceived ideas and apprehensions just culminates in a too-little-too-late scenario. And before you know it, your opportunity to stand out from the crowd is gone!

Measure your Impact!
Whether a Twitter trend or a viral post on Facebook, Measuring Social Media Impact in real estate comes from analyzing engagement, social media sentiment, and brand recall while running Pay Per Click Ads. The way to identify and measure recall is through a better Click Through Rate (CTR). I have observed social media impacting lead based campaigns proving the effectiveness of this process. Brands that have a higher following and engagement have delivered better digital advertising results.

Opt for Offline Integration, Too!
Traditional branding viz. billboards, hoardings, newspaper ads, etc., is high on cost and has limited reach, delivering results, but at high costs. Integrating digital campaigns with offline activities works a synergistic effect, delivering results at significantly lower costs.

For us at Amura, delivering sales results comes from a holistic branding approach that uses social media as the major pillar in branding initiatives, in a way that compliments advertising.

Adopt social media for Brand Recognition and Awareness, its effect on your advertising budgets will surprise you!

Credits: Denver Mascarenhas