Kyle Lorber: Putting a New Spin on Social Media Branding

Social media outreach has been a central pillar of the branding efforts of businesses of all sizes for at least a decade. But in recent years, it’s taken a bit of a hit. This is due to the fact that social media as a fad has begun to die down somewhat. This could be due in part to the influx of political activity on social media contributing to a normalization of interest. But branding experts like Kyle Lorber are telling us that social media is not yet dead, particularly as a means to reach your core fans and customers.

Kyle Lorber says what advertisers have lost on the social media giants in mass exposure, they have gained in continued access to their core fans- and core fans are the ones who do all of the word of mouth advertising for you.

So what does this mean for you and for your core audience? Kyle Lorber tells us that brands have to build their own networks using the waning connection that social media offers as a bridge to a new period of independence. It’s a model that has been given to us by major influencers on platforms like YouTube, Instagram, and Twitter. The way it works is you build up a sense of membership through community, merchandise, and participation.

By community, Kyle Lorber says, the idea is to get your fans to think of as the platform rather than the social media website they found you on. This, of course, necessitates building up your own website, which every business should have anyway. But to take it further, you must provide incentive for your audience to join you on your own platforms on your terms, rather than on the terms of the social media hub where they found you.

The merchandise part is nothing new. You want to make specialized materials, shirts, coffee mugs, and the like with your branding hallmarks emblazoned on them. Give your audience a chance to distinguish themselves through their enthusiasm for your ideas, products, services, and so on. Make it clear these items are not available to those who only engage with you on the original social media platform.

Finally, we have participation. This has been a key part of online branding for some time. We want to draw our core audience into a relationship with us and with each other. Like your merchandise, or “merch,” Kyle Lorber says we should devise events online and in the real world where our core audiences can engage, collaborate, compete, and share.

“In short, the social media platform of yesterday: Facebook, Twitter, etc, is becoming the bridge to the social media platform of tomorrow- you.” — Kyle Lorber

It’s a model that is already catching on, but it’s hardly formalized yet. According to Kyle Lorber , you need to jump on board before it becomes the norm, and time is running out.

Originally published at https://kylelorber.com on November 25, 2020.