It’s 2021. By this point social media has been around for a while and everyone AND their grandma is on it. It’s a space where people connect, share ideas, start movements and influence culture. Things are constantly happening, algorithms are changing and new features are added almost daily to accommodate brand presence and to help influence people’s purchasing decisions.
With almost 4 billion people in the world (in August 2021 at the time of writing this article) having social media accounts, it comes as no surprise that these mediums are powerful instruments of mobilisation of people.
The world of advertising has been around for a long time, but it has never been easier to reach large audiences as a brand, than it is now. With the help of cookies, sponsored ads, influencer marketing, in-app purchases and an entire plethora of tools developed independently by each social media to help your brand shine, selling your product or service should be easy, right?
Wrong.
Having the technological advancements to correctly target your audience is undoubtedly a great start, but understanding what they like and need from you as a brand is the real challenge. That’s why you need to approach them with a strategy that shows clear intent and interest in them as individuals, rather than just a pair of eyes to put your product/service in front of.
So what is social media strategy? To put it briefly, it’s a big umbrella that covers your audience’s needs and your business goals as a company. It’s a way to attract and build a genuinely interested community that keeps coming back for the content you create, engages with you and is loyal to your brand.
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Creating a strategy is a process that takes a while because it requires some research and deep reflecting about your company’s goals and objectives. Here are some example questions you need to answer about your audience, social media presence and your brand in order to build your strategy:
- What is your target audience? Why them?
- What kind of problem do they have and how does your product/service solve that?
- How do you want them to perceive you?
- How often are you going to post content and on which channels?
- What about influencer marketing? Would that be a part of your strategy?
- What are your competitors up to?
To help you visualise what a great strategy looks like, here are 4 examples of a few different global brands strategies that just work:
Chipotle
There’s a chance you might have seen this video on the internet once or twice.
Chipotle was one of the first global brands to give Tik-Tok a chance and has been handsomely rewarded for it. Most of their content involves hashtag challenge trends, raising organic reach and building a loyal community on the platform through the power of entertainment. Their first challenge #ChipotleLidFlip generated over 240 million views in the first month, but their second one (#GuacDance) beat that record by almost doubling its views to a whopping 430 million (and currently standing at 1,1 billion views). Talk about success!!
By creating these types of videos on a platform with a primarily Gen Z user demographic, they became relevant and popular again. Chipotle reported a digital sales growth of 88% and overall revenue growth of 14,6% at the end of 2019 when Tik-Tok was still very new. A lot of this increase in sales was very much due to the changes made in their social media strategy.
BooHoo
BooHoo is an international fashion retailer that fosters PrettyLittleThing and Nasty Gal under its company umbrella. In brief - a lot of products to promote! But how in the world did they increase their sales by 45% by the end of May 2020? An integral part of their quick success has been influencer marketing and a complimenting owned channels social media strategy.
Influencer endorsements allowed BooHoo to reach a younger, more loyal audience while their account’s relatable and shareable content made them stay and follow for more.
Their content strategy is to share pop-culture-fuelled, funny and engaging content that you want to share with your friends. And that’s really all you need for organically growing your brand account in addition to your influencer marketing efforts.
National Geographic
With an incredible 138m followers, National Geographic is the second most-followed brand on Instagram, and with a good reason. As a nature magazine, they have a powerful visual storytelling identity that keeps evoking strong emotions in their followers’ minds. By handing over some of the creative control to their photographers, they help people experience our planet in a raw, authentic and unfiltered view.
The account also uses the platform to bring attention to global and environmental issues, educating its followers on the current state of our planet and ways they can help bring positive change.
Their activism-like approach gathers astounding amounts of impressions and engagements every day, providing value for each individual on 2 fronts: visual and activism.
KFC
Now there’s a brand that listens to its community! A part of KFC’s winning social media strategy is to talk openly about direct customer feedback, take it into account and turn it into a successful campaign. An example of that is their creation of a “find my chicken” Twitter bot after a bad strategic move on their part. They had switched chicken suppliers which resulted in meat shortages all around the country, unable to meet the demand. With the help of the bot people were able to locate the nearest KFC and finally get their chicken. What a cool move!
This resulted in increased brand loyalty since customers felt heard and appreciated.
And even more recently, KFC started a campaign around the fact that nobody liked their French fries. They raised the topic in hopes of promoting their new fry recipe that everyone should try. The campaign resulted in 62% of increased awareness, which went well beyond their target of 50%
Key takeaways:
Social Media strategy is a lot about what it sounds like…being social. For companies, this opens up an incredible opportunity to be a part of their audience’s lives, not just while making a purchase decision, but also in their daily lives, thus increasing brand awareness and standing. At the heart of a good strategy is a well understood audience, an appropriate use of different channels and content that is cohesive, provides value, evokes positive emotions and starts a conversation.
If you need help with your own strategic approach, goal definitions, content themes or anything else social media-related, you can contact us Trooters and we’d be happy to help!
We have a lot of in-house expertise and are buzzing with new creative ideas every day! We can create a cohesive strategy for your company from start to finish, as well as help you alleviate that pesky content production stress by coming up with a solid hands-on content creation action plan and then executing it.
We make brands influential on social media. Are you ready for the next step?
Joona Haatainen
CEO & Troot
joona.haatainen@troot.fi
Stefani Kirilova
Creative Strategist
stefani.kirilova@troot.fi
