Organic Social
Love it or hate it, organic social has become a necessary aspect to growing your brand.
This is your best opportunity for others to discover you. As well as the most lucrative way to connect and build a community.
People are really looking to be entertained, inspired, educated and feel connected to something. Organic social can hit all of these points without being a ton of effort.
So here is my best advice to utilize the space.
Make it stand out.
Try something new, give your audience unexpected content and see how they respond.
Utilize features unique to each app in a different way. This will give your audience a familiar feeling and cause them to stop scrolling to further investigate.
Even beautifully, polished content can be given a unique spin. Your grid may become filled with largely the same content, so it can pay to try something unique. If it flops you never need to do it again, but if it works then give yourself the reprieve to try some scroll stopping content.
User Generated Content (UGC)
Connecting your viewers to your brand by posting their content.
One of the most powerful resources you have is UGC content. This makes your audience feel seen and empowered, as well as free up the need to create something new.
If you utilize a specific hashtag this will populate with fans that love your brand and want to share it. Show your love if something catches your eye. No need to do it all the time, but it will benefit both sides.
*Be sure you ask permission before use.
No need to be perfect.
Just shoot the content!
Content is king, but gone are the days of content needing to be completely polished and put together. Social media these days cares less about content being polished and looking like it’s from a magazine. Since Covid people are looking for something real and authentic.
So just shoot the content. Make something that talks about the brand in someway, but forget needing to make it perfect before posting. It may flop, but at least you put it out there.
Utilize carousels
Utilized on multiple platforms to increase view time and discourage scrolling.
Give your audience small tidbits that encourage them to keep scrolling. You aren’t giving all the information away on the first image. But you’re telling a story and keeping your audience along for the ride.
A/B Test Your Content.
Use the same content in multiple ways to see what resonates the best with your audience.
The beauty of reels of your for you page (FYP) is not everyone will see everything. The algorithm feeds your audience with what they interact with most. So try the same thing in a couple formats, this will tell you what your audience resonates with and is most valuable content to continue pushing forward with.
Especially for Instagram, if you post something to Reels it does not need to live on your grid. So same content may live in multiple places.
Giveaways
Giveaways are a great way to tap into tother audiences.
By partnering with other brands and asking followers to share and tag this creates buzz and gets attention by those who may not be following you.
Giveaways may also be a great lead generation. Depending on how good the grand prize is, people will give their email over for a chance to win. Which will bring them into your conversion funnel.
Cross Posting
Content may be used in more than one location, as long as they follow that specific channels ecosystem.
As simple as putting out a teaser or recipe on one channel, but promoting to go check out somewhere else if someone is looking for more in depth directions. For many recipe or just food and beverage posts people are looking to digest it in different ways.
On YouTube it can be the full in depth recipe. Show people how each step happens, and the history behind how this came together.
On Instagram viewers are looking for more of a final product image. Think of this as your cook book mentality. Show your viewers what it can be, but say how to do it in the caption.
On TikTok people are looking for something quick and to the point. They don’t need it to be polished, but walk through the process in a very concise way. Just get to the point.
Cross posting is beneficial to every brand, but do not expect the same content to perform equally across all channels. Know your audience through each area.
The importance of being heard.
As a brand, your audience wants to feel connected and aligned on the same values.
The post “We stand with you.” was one of the most controversial we put out as a company. During this time, protests over George Floyd were at their peak across the country. While in the past it was okay for brands to stay silent, this was a time of saying nothing is saying something.
I brought this question to our team of, “what do we want to say”. At first they were questionable, as most brands were. But we rallied within the company to stay true to brand and create something good. It was important in this decision to maintain the brand ecosystem and not misconstrue our stance as just trying to be part of something.
The three posts stand in similar value and weight. These were all moments I urged to speak out on because they not only were true to our brand, but the affected the lives of our athletes and community.
Not every viral moment needs to have a voice, but it is important to speak up when it aligns correctly.
