April 1, 2016
9 Social Media Strategies Winning on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram & Vine
When was the last time you stumbled onto a company’s social media page and thought, “Hey, this company is actually sharing some cool stuff”? Today, virtually every company has some sort of social media presence. But few companies are utilizing that presence effectively. It’s not easy to catch the eye of your customers. Between Facebook’s algorithm making it hard for business pages to get views and Twitter curating your best tweets, brands must get creative to stand out and win attention. Here are nine brands that are doing just that.
1. TruGreen on Facebook: Share Actionable Tips
TruGreen focuses on providing instant value to their readers on their Facebook page through actionable tips. The posts are short, easy to understand, and eye-catching with a bright image. Even better, each tip features a hashtag so you can aggregate all of their related tips into one feed. The hashtag carries of to their other social media accounts as well, creating consistency across their multiple platforms. Make it work for you: Keep your tip bite-sized, and be sure to include a beautiful image with your logo to give the post a more official feel. Also, don’t leave it at just one tip—turn it into a series. That kind of continuity gives your Facebook fans a sense of what they can expect every time they visit your page.
2. New Balance on Twitter: Holiday Hijack
On Saint Patrick’s Day, New Balance jumped into the conversation with a few clever product image tweets. The posts were simple, and didn’t link to any specific product. However, the images showed off the creative side of the New Balance brand. Make it work for you: Holidays always have trending hashtags on Twitter, so they’re easy to plan for. Fill in your social media calendar with both the major holidays and the lesser-known ones that align with your brand. But don’t worry too much about perfect relevance. After all, New Balance had nothing to do with Saint Patrick’s Day until they photographed their shoes as a shamrock. Let your photography be the missing link.
3. Random House on Pinterest: Bridge the Gap
On a platform seemingly built for recipes and DIY home décor, it might be surprising to see a company from a more traditional industry like publishing killing it at the Pinterest game. But Pinterest is surprisingly flexible and can be used for virtually any industry. Random House uses many of their boards to target specific reader groups such as romance fans and Jane Austen devotees. By posting both links to their own website alongside other pins, they’ve created well-rounded boards and have something for everyone. **Make it work for you: **Pinterest got its start as a women-oriented platform, but now it covers topics in nearly every category and operates largely as a search engine. Focus your boards on topics that relate to your core services, but don’t hesitate to branch out into the more popular topics like recipes and home décor whenever you can make a connection. For example, Random House’s “Bookshelf Styling” board features the interior design aspect of home libraries.
4. Old Navy on Facebook: Curate Customer Photos
Old Navy’s brand focuses on clothing that’s made for everyday people instead of for the world of high fashion. They’re accessible and ready to wear. Not only does this post feature real people, but it also addresses the concerns a wearer might have. Namely, that the jeans are stain-repellent. This post works for several reasons. First, a user-generated photo works like a customer testimonial. It shows other customers that the product is already being worn successfully by their peers. Second, any time you call out a customer on a public platform, you create a customer for life. Make it work for you: If you don’t already have users sending you photos of your product in use, simply ask for them. Once you have one photo, you can post it and begin a cascading effect. Showcasing user photos encourages other users to share their own, eventually creating a pool of customer photos at your disposal. And when you have a small collection, put them in an album (or multiple) in your page photos and regularly encourage your readers to see how other customers are using your product.
5. Glossier on Instagram: Create a Consistent Look and Feel
Instagram is all about attractive images, making it a perfect platform for the beauty brand Glossier. The company is relatively new, but its hazy pink photos and simple product packaging have created a cult-like following. The formula Glossier follows is straight forward. Most posts feature customers or models wearing their products, and the photography always sticks to their neutral tones and pink highlights. The accompanying text is short and to the point. Because Instagram doesn’t make links clickable in the text section, Glossier doesn’t try to drive to articles. Instead, they use the platform as it was intended—as a photo album. **Make it work for you: **Every Instagram photo should be different, but they should all have a similar feel to them. This can be done by using the same filter settings for each photo, or featuring consistent colors. Focus on images that tell your brand story. For example, instead of simply telling users about a sale as you might on Facebook, share a beautiful photo of the product in use.
6. Dunkin’ Donuts on Vine: Keep It Simple
Vine is a tricky medium because it’s purely video, and few business have the time and resources to make videos regularly. Dunkin Donuts stands out because their product is not naturally suited to video (coffee doesn’t exactly dance on its own), yet they’ve found a myriad of creative ways to promote their products. Most of their videos are stop-motion and very simple, but the result is branded content that’s extremely shareable and full of the warm-fuzzies. Make it work for you: Vines should always be entertaining, but as Dunkin Donuts shows, they don’t have to be complicated. Try making a stop-motion film with an easy app like Stop Motion Café, or hold an internal contest for employees to submit short videos of their own.
7. Toblerone on Facebook: Win at Customer Support
According to Jay Baer, 42% of people who reach out for customer support on social media expect a response within an hour. Sound crazy? What’s crazier is how few of them actually get any response. Talk about missed opportunities. Toblerone has perfected what few brands remember to do: On social media, be social. It’s not just about posting engaging content. It’s about following through and taking part in any discussion that follows. Make it work for you: Don’t worry about responding to every comment. Focus on responding to customer complains and inquiries, and pepper in fun responses to other comments when you can. Keep it light, and encourage users to contact you privately for anything that might be sensitive.
8. Everlane on Twitter: Go Behind the Scenes
Everlane has built a name for itself by being incredibly transparent about its business practices and ethical factories. Their Twitter account is a primary way of communicating that transparency. This tweet features a video of the clothing brand’s founder inviting users to follow on Snapchat as he and his team visits a new factory in Sri Lanka. Not only is video content engaging, but forwarding followers to Snapchat is also a smart move since Snapchat provides a more captive audience. You can send Snaps directly to followers, so they’re much more likely to see it than on Twitter. Make it work for you: Live, behind-the-scenes content is practically what Twitter was built for. The behind-the-scenes content makes the fan feel like they’re a part of the action, and the humans behind the brand forge a genuine connection between company and customer. But because tweets have such a short lifespan, encourage customers to connect with you on other platforms as well.
9. General Electric on Instagram: Tell Amazing Stories
General Electric is hardly a company that you’d immediately think of when it comes to brands on Instagram. However, their access to incredible photography makes them stand out. GE regularly posts about the different projects they’ve contributed to in an effort to build positive brand sentiment and further establish their brand as a chief innovator. And so far, it’s working. **Make it work for you: **Create a single focus for your Instagram and stick to it. For example, try making your feed all about recent news in your company, or use it to share interesting tidbits from your company’s history. There should be a flow of information, so as the reader scrolls through your photos, they’re picking up pieces of a larger narrative. Your turn to weigh in. What companies would you add to this list? In the comments, tell us who’s killing it on social media, and why they deserve to be on this list!
