One of the most common questions I hear from people that I first meet and are looking for advice or guidance in the social space is, “Which brands do you think are doing a great job?”. A lot of the time, I tend to stray away from the question for the simple fact that these people are looking to duplicate the successes of whomever I mention. The beauty of being social with your following is by being yourself. Your brand needs to own its identity and be original, it is the reason your brand has been successful up to this point. So as I lay out some of my newly favorite brands in this blog post, I beg of you to not look at them and say “Well, we should be doing this.” Instead, look at them in admiration and see how your brand can adopt some of the strategies not content.
First up is ESPN. Every male in America knows this brand. That alone is something great to have in your arsenal when launching a social campaign. ESPN could have taken the easy route, not invested in social and still had the 6 million fans they currently have on Facebook, but they didn’t. Some things they execute with success:
1) Daily, Engaging Posts: Every day, ESPN adapts their social calendar to revolve around what is occurring in the sports space. Photos are present in nearly every post (remember, photos increase interactions/impressions drastically.) Every post has a call to action and every post utilizes their irreverent, targeted voice.
2) Live Chat w/ Personalities: It’s all about transparency. ESPN often holds live chats with their anchors, sports experts and others on their Facebook page. Questions are taken from their following, creating an engaging, live event.
3) Promotion: During their prime time shows, ESPN can be seen advertising their social networks in prime real estate on the TV screen. Something many shows have caught on to and have begun implementing.
Remember college? If you do, you were not enjoying this next brand enough. That’s right; I am actually applauding the social media efforts of one of the cheapest beers of all time, Natural Light. In case you are not familiar with this brew, this is a beverage the majority of college students enjoy due to the fact that you can buy a 30 pack for $15. Here are some highlights from this brand’s social footprint:
1) Embrace Your Brand/Following: Natural Light knows that 99% of their consumers refer to their beverage as ‘Natty Light’. The company embraced this, named their fan page appropriately and secured the proper vanity URL. Their posts are dedicated to the college demographic with irreverent photos and embracing the party scene.
2) Photos, Photos, Photos: Natty Light does an excellent job of creating entertaining content in a simple photo. Their posts are often puns of the photo itself. Again, I cannot emphasize the importance of using photos when posting on behalf of a brand.
3) Promotion: Once again, this brand displays their Facebook presence on their website in quite dominant fashion. Instead of simply placing a 10×10 Facebook icon below the fold, they invest some actual, legitimate real estate and give a reason for the user to click on the icon.
Your brand may not have the following that these mammoths have, but it doesn’t matter. Every day, I make it a mission to highlight engagement and interactions on clients’ behalf. The value in interactions and engagements far outweighs the fan count. Implement some of these posting/promotion strategies and you will start to see activity on your fan page.
Chad Bryant (@chadATL)
Chad is the Director of Digital and Social Media Strategy at No Limit. If you want him to review your brand’s footprint, be sure to email him: chad@nolimitmediaconsulting.com