Scroll through your social feed for 60 seconds. You’ll see a cafe posting about its ‘perfectly roasted coffee’, a tech start-up announcing its ‘innovative new feature’, and a local shop running its ‘biggest ever sale’. Notice a pattern? They all sound vaguely positive, vaguely professional, and completely interchangeable. You scroll on by, unengaged.
At Make Me Social, we see this every day: brilliant UK businesses with fascinating stories to tell, getting lost in a sea of sameness. And it’s a huge missed opportunity, especially when 76% of consumers say they’re more likely to buy from a brand that reflects their values. Building a social media brand identity is also about uncovering what makes you genuinely distinctive so people don’t just see your content, they connect with it.
Ready to make your brand unforgettable online? Let’s craft a social media brand identity that gets heard and remembered.
What Is a Social Media Brand Identity?
Simply put, a brand identity is the full sensory and emotional impression you leave: the visuals, values, storytelling, personality, responses and behaviours. We often tell our clients to think of it as the part that makes people lean in rather than scroll past.
How does a brand’s identity differ from its voice?
Your social media brand voice is the consistent personality infused into your company’s communications. It’s how you’d sound if your brand walked into a room and started a conversation.
In short:
- Identity = Visual style, tone, values, narrative archetype, post cadence, brand personality in motion.
- Voice = The language, humour, pacing, perspective you use in captions and replies.
Your tone of voice might shift slightly depending on the platform – LinkedIn typically calls for more professional language than TikTok – but your core brand identity remains constant across your integrated marketing strategies. It’s like how you might dress differently for a business meeting versus a weekend barbecue, but you’re still unmistakably you.
Defining Your Unique Social Media Brand Identity
Creating an authentic brand personality starts with brutal honesty about who you are as a business. We begin every session by asking our clients some fundamental questions. We’ve summarised some of these questions below.
1. What three words would your best customer use to describe you?
Not what you hope they’d say, but what they actually tell their friends. In our experience we often see that a brand might describe their personality one way, but talking to customers reveal the full picture. Take Avani Hotels: while their internal branding focused on “luxury escapes”, we showed how they could also employ an element of playfulness by creating trendy AR filters that let guests interact with Avani’s vibe.
2. What makes you genuinely different?
Every accountancy firm claims to be “approachable.” Every tech startup is “innovative.” Dig deeper. Take it up as a fun exercise to do with your team. Maybe you’re the accountant who explains tax returns through football analogies, or the tech company that admits when things go wrong. Your brand values should translate into tangible, consistent characteristics that you can build on.
3. How do you want people to feel after interacting with your content?
This shapes everything from your emoji use to your response time. A children’s charity might want followers to feel inspired and empowered, while a luxury watch brand might aim for aspiration and exclusivity.
Once you’ve answered these questions, map out your identity pillars.
Here’s an example for a boutique tech brand:
| Layer | Examples |
|---|---|
| Personality and archetype | Confident maker, curious guide |
| Core values | Transparent innovation, human-centred tech |
| Visual tone | Warm gradient colours, dynamic device-in-hand videos |
| Voice traits | Insightful, playful, welcoming |
| Emotional goal | Empowerment, approachability, clarity |
Crafting Your Social Media Brand Identity Guidelines
Clear brand guidelines can transform good intentions into consistent execution. It is not just enough to construct your mission, vision, target audience, and core values. We’ve developed a framework of pointers to keep your identity authentic across every post, story, and comment:
1. Visual identity system
- Brand colours, secondary palettes, gradient rules: 2025 trends include bold neons, colour blocks and vibrant gradients
- Logo placements, font hierarchy, motion graphics style: Micro video loops, kinetic captions are powerful engagement drivers
- Imagery and graphic style: Photo tone (lighting, filters), iconography, illustration style, motion template or video frames
- Layout and whitespace rules: Grid structure per format (Instagram feed, LinkedIn carousel, TikTok vertical); ratios, breathing space, margin guidelines
2. Voice and tone playbook
- Voice traits: Solid summary of voice personality. For e.g. confident yet approachable, playful yet precise. Helps ensure copywriters and responders keep tone consistent
- Tone modulation guidelines: How to tweak tone per platform. LinkedIn more polished and reasoned; TikTok snappier and playful; threads/X more conversational but aligned to brand core
- Grammar, emoji and punctuation rules: One‑liner permission limits, exclamation usage guidelines, official emoji choices/unapproved ones. (See how the following sounds: “What now?” vs “What now 🤔”.)
3. Content pillars and formats
- Content themes: Define 3 – 5 pillar themes (e.g. “Innovation insights”, “Behind‑the‑scenes”, “Community stories”) and their narrative angles.
- Preferred content formats: Identify signature formats. Reels, carousels, user‑generated reposts, founder POV threads, tutorials, all explained by example and usage context.
- Platform-specific format templates: Carousel layout rules for Instagram vs LinkedIn; TikTok video structure tips; image ratio and text overlay rules for Stories, Threads, Shorts
4. Platform-specific adaptations
Your core voice stays consistent, but delivery adapts:
| Platform | Identity application |
|---|---|
| Visual storytelling with conversational captions | |
| Professional insights with personality | |
| TikTok | Quick, trend-aware content that still sounds like you |
| Twitter/X | Concise, witty, and timely |
5. Social intelligence and listening protocols
- Listening dashboards: Use tools to track mentions, sentiment, phrase adoption, trending culture cues; refine your voice identity in real time
- Trend adaptation framework: Set criteria for when to adopt a trend or meme (must align with pillars, values, content ethos) and who approves it
6. Documentation and access systems
- Brand book vs. style guide: Include both the deeper brand story and the tactical style rules in one place. This helps internal teams live the identity, not just replicate design
- Asset library: Central repository for approved logos, templates, fonts, editorial blurbs, hashtag sets – easily accessible to content creators
Empower Your Team and Scale with Consistency
A killer identity needs everyone on the same page:
- Response templates: Structured replies that flex for questions or praise, but keep tone and character consistent.
- Voice and identity workshops: Training that embeds identity until it feels natural, not forced.
- Quarterly personality audits: Is the tone consistent across platforms? Has the visual feel drifted? Audit and adjust.
Ready To Turn Heads on Social Media?
Our co-founder, Jem Bahaijoub, is spilling all the secrets to mastering engagement right here in our latest blog, don’t miss out!
How Can I Measure the Impact of My Social Media Brand Identity?
Numbers tell the story of whether your brand personality truly resonates. We track specific metrics that reveal customer engagement patterns:
Engagement quality over quantity
A thousand likes mean nothing if they’re not from your target audience. We measure:
- Comment sentiment and depth
- Share reasons (are people adding their own stories?)
- Direct message quality
- User-generated content inspired by your voice
Conversion tracking
Does your voice drive action? Monitor:
- Click-through rates by content type
- Conversion rates from social traffic
- Customer lifetime value from social-acquired customers
Social listening insights
Social listening reveals how people talk about you when you’re not in the room. Are they using your language? Sharing your perspective? That’s voice success.
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UK Brands Nailing Their Social Media Brand Identity
Let’s celebrate some brands whose voices cut through the noise:
Aldi UK
Aldi UK has mastered the art of witty and self-aware social commentary. Their voice is playful, often cheeky, and adept at jumping on trending topics with a distinctive local flavour of humour. They frequently engage in lighthearted banter with other brands and their audience, making their supermarket brand feel surprisingly personable and entertaining.
Lush Cosmetics
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Lush’s social media channels are a vibrant extension of their ethical and sensory brand experience. Their voice is passionate, informative, and visually rich, showcasing their handmade, cruelty-free products while consistently championing their values around sustainability and activism. They excel at showcasing user-generated content and creating engaging product-focused videos, especially on TikTok and Instagram.
Surreal Cereal
Surreal Cereal has carved out a truly unique and unconventional niche, particularly on LinkedIn. Their brand voice is distinctly quirky, often long-form, and subversively humorous, challenging the typical corporate tone of the platform. They use unexpected storytelling and bold, self-deprecating humour to engage an audience in a way that is memorable and stands out from traditional B2B marketing.
Let’s Build Your Brand’s Identity
Building a distinctive social media brand identity is about amplifying what already makes you special. Every brand has a unique story, perspective, and way of connecting with their audience.
Ready to discover your brand’s authentic personality? We’re here to help you find it. Drop us a line at hello@makemesocial.co.uk or ring 0800 654 6505 for your free consultation.
