Rebranding on social media: what to watch out for

Your brand is everything your customers recognise and relate to when they think of your business. If you’re thinking about rebranding, it’s important to consider the affect this will have on your social media.

That’s because your social media channels contribute significantly to your customers’ perception of your business and brand.

Here we’ll cover some reasons you might want to rebrand your business and what to watch out for when you’re rebranding on social media.

Top reasons to rebrand your business

Eventually, every company reaches a stage when their branding needs updating. This won’t always mean completely overhauling your brand or renaming your business. In many cases, a few tweaks may be all that’s required to stay up to date.

Some key times you might consider rebranding include:

1. If your core business values have changed

Your core values shape your business’ vision and the culture of your company. If these values change, you might update your branding to reflect your business’ new direction.

2. When your visuals look dated

Perhaps your website was created many years ago and looks very dated. Or maybe your logo no longer suits the style of your company. Your visual identity has a huge impact on the perception of your business, so it’s important to periodically check it’s still relevant and fresh.

3. If you want to reach a new audience

Different branding appeals to different people. If you’re trying to reach a new audience, it’s time to consider if your current branding is still suitable.

4. If you predict growth or are entering a new market

If your company is growing, you might want to update your branding to better represent a larger corporate structure.

5. If you’re changing your product offering

If you’ve diversified your products and services, your existing branding may be too restricted. Google, originally just a search engine, now has a huge range of products. They created an umbrella company, Alphabet, with new branding to better represent the variety of products on offer.

Example: Why Instagram rebranded

This year, Instagram updated its logo and app. In a blog post shared by the company, they said:

The Instagram community has evolved over the past five years from a place to share filtered photos to so much more – a global community of interests sharing more than 80 million photos and videos every day.

The new more modern logo represents the brand’s diversity, while the app now showcases images and videos more effectively.

A holistic approach to rebranding

When you change one element of your branding, it’ll affect the other parts of your brand identity.

Some important aspects of your branding include:

• Brand name
• Products and/or services
• Logo
• Colour palettes
• Images
• Typography
• Tone of voice
• Website
• Social media
• Company culture

Looking at your branding holistically will ensure all the components that make up your brand work in harmony.

Rebranding on social media

Social media is a great way to drive traffic to your website, influence buying, and communicate with your customers.

If you’re rebranding, you’ll need to incorporate any changes into each of your social media channels. Especially any changes to your brand name, visuals, tone of voice and website.

Unfortunately, Twitter and Facebook don’t make it very easy to change your brand name while holding onto your online footprint.

So here are our top tips for navigating through a name change on these two important social media platforms:

Changing your brand name on Twitter

If you already have a Twitter account for your business you may worry about the consequences of changing your brand name. Especially if you want to keep any brand mentions that could lead people to your business.

If you want to change your Twitter account name but keep your followers and mentions, here’s an easy workaround:

1. Create a new account with a temporary name – you’ll need a second, live, email address for this account.
2. Rename your existing Twitter account with your new brand name – this immediately releases your original brand name.
3. Log in to the new Twitter account you created and rename it to your original brand name.
4. The account with your old name won’t have any followers but all mentions of your brand will remain. And all your original followers will now follow the Twitter account with your new brand name.
5. Update the profile on the account which has your old brand name, so people know to follow the active account with your new name.
6. Remember to update external links to your Twitter URL, including on your website and other social media channels.

Changing your brand name on Facebook

On Facebook, there are a couple of options if you want to change your brand name. There are pros and cons to both.

Option 1: Update your page name to your new brand name

If you choose this option, you’ll lose your existing mentions but will keep all your likes and page content. Facebook will need to also approve your new page name before the change is visible to your audience.

Facebook periodically changes their rules about altering your page’s name. At present, there’s no limit on the number of times you can do so. But it won’t allow you to change your page name too frequently.

You’ll need to update your page URL (also known as your username) separately. Facebook currently gives you two goes at changing your page URL, so use them wisely. And don’t forget to update any external links to this URL too.

Option 2: Merge your existing page with a new one

Your other option is to create an entirely new page for your business with your new brand name. You can then merge this new page with your old one.

This allows you to keep all your Facebook likes and check-ins from your old and new pages. However, you’ll lose any content from your old page, including posts and photos once the pages are merged. People who like your old page will be notified of your page’s name change.

Be aware that Facebook may suspend both pages if they deem them too dissimilar.

As you can see, there’s a lot to consider when rebranding your business – changing your branding on social media is just a small fraction of the bigger picture.

But social media shouldn’t be neglected when you’re rebranding as it can have a big impact on your online presence into the future.