How to Change or Update Social Accounts When You Have Launched a Rebrand.
Is it time for a refresh of your brand? There are many reasons for wanting to change things up, whether it’s keeping up with current trends, to better reflect your current business or responding to customer feedback — whatever your reason, rebranding takes work!
In this guide, we’ll run through how to rebrand your social media accounts, with tips for each social platform. Whether you are planning a full relaunch of your brand or just a refresh, these tips would help you in either phase.
Where To Start
Rebranding is so much more than just changing your logo and updating your brand colours — although, we’re not downplaying these elements; refreshed logos are relevant and keep everyone engaged.
Here are some tips to consider before changing things up.
Be prepared.
Check to make sure all social handles are available across all the platforms you’ll be using. We also recommend they be connected to your business email and not your personal.
Research your competitors.
Find out who your competitors are and what people are saying about their products. Look at what areas their business is missing the mark and in turn, the ways your business could solve those problems.
Redefine your brand.
As a part of researching the market, define what it is your business offers and how it’s unique from others. What are your new goals and what are you wanting to achieve?
Bring your brand to life.
Now the fun part — designing your logo, picking new brand colours and changing up your copy. Make sure your new identity stands apart from your competition and isn’t too similar.
How To Announce Rebranding on Social Media
Hype up your rebrand in advance.
The best way to build buzz about your new look is to generate excitement about the changes you’re making. Give your audience teasers with posts like “Big changes coming in a few weeks, watch for more details!” This also helps you gauge interest and measure how positive their reaction is.
Then, once you are ready to make it official across your accounts, be sure you are prepared. Double-check all the previews for your posts, links to your website, any videos, captions… all the details!
How To Launch a Rebrand on Your Social Accounts
A great way to engage your followers before your rebrand is to add a countdown to your Instagram story (have them tap the countdown so they’re notified of the big day).
On announcement day, shout it from the rooftops! Share your rebrand to your stories, make a dedicated post, add a reel, — even consider an Instagram Live. Explain your reasons for the changes to your brand and your new vision going forward.
If you are renaming your Facebook page, an important tip to note is that Facebook will only allow you to change your page name once. Something else to be aware of and plan for: the name change can take up to 10+ days for your update to be approved.
Remember to update your new branding colours, logo and copy to be consistent with your rebrand. Finally, make sure you update the About section, URLs, and any other information that may reflect the old name.
Changing your username on Twitter is a fairly simple process — that is, if your new handle is available; If you have done substantial rebranding and are changing your username entirely, it might be more difficult to get depending on availability.
If you’re unable to secure the username you want, you could try modifying the name slightly, making sure it’s still relevant. Try adding a location. For example, @Johns_Pizzeria becomes @Johns_PizzeriaAB.
Rebranding on LinkedIn can get a little tricky, depending on the scale of your rebrand. LinkedIn won’t let you completely change the company name, only make minor adjustments. For example, “Dream Company” could be changed to “The Dream Company.”
The reason for this is that changes to company pages affect former and current employees’ profiles. If you are doing a major rebrand and need to change your company name, the only way is to create a whole new company page.
Wrap Up
Whether you are planning to refresh the look of your brand, or if it’s time for a complete overhaul, hopefully, this guide has provided some helpful tips. Making sure all your social media channels are updated properly is a major part of the rebranding process; if you think you could use more in-depth guidance, reach out to our Social Media Marketing team today!