July 31, 2023
The ever-changing social media landscape can be a slippery fella to keep ahold of at times. One day you think you’ve nailed it with one of the platforms, but then it changes its name and rebrands entirely! (Twitter/X I’m looking at you).
Or when you start adding team resource into a ‘favoured’ format or content type, only for a new algorithm update to go live over the weekend, and seriously mess up your plans!
However, as we all know with agency life and social media, flexibility and staying agile is the key to success. But so are creativity and innovation. Pushing the boat out, thinking outside the box and creating thumb-stopping content.
Here are just some of the brands that are doing it well
Community engagement
Many brands may think that they need to produce lots of entertaining content, give opinions, information or sell products on social in order to be successful and gain brand trust. But that type of content might not work with the brand’s business model or identity. And actually, just engaging with your community can reap a whole load of rewards.
An example of this is Microsoft on TikTok. A cross-generational household name. What could they possibly post about on TikTok? Well, if you visit their page, they do have their fair share of videos which serve their purpose. However, their shining star is the way they engage with their audience, and are able to poke fun at themselves for their shortcomings.
Viral TikTok star Jake Shane (octopusslover8), known for his hilarious ‘POV’ style videos – at the request of his audience – posted a video where he pretends to be Microsoft Outlook trying to find an email. IYKYK!!
The video gained over 361k likes, and received almost 3k comments from people all agreeing about how frustrating the search feature is on Outlook.
Microsoft themselves responded with a comment “Feeling attacked rn”. This was a perfect response from the brand, as they showed humour, didn’t defend their fault, and joined in on the virality. The audience loved the brand’s response and started commenting back to them and liking the comment.
Social brand personality
It wouldn’t be a post about ‘brands doing it well’ without the mention of my dear, sweet Duo. Over the past couple of years, Duolingo has built up a following of over 7M on TikTok alone through its fun content and the sassy personality of Duo, their owl mascot.
There are mixed opinions about the Duolingo app itself. Some multilingual people believe you can’t become fluent in a new language by using a free app, others think it’s a great tool to brush up on existing language skills, and some use it to pass the time.
Duolingo’s sassy brand personality leans into and plays into existing audience perceptions, creating tongue-in-cheek, relatable posts like this one – laughing about how they’re such a successful app, despite sometimes having a negative response from users.
Audiences love to comment and engage with Duo, all in the hopes of receiving responses like these.
Influencer/Ambassadors
KFC UK/IRE recently teamed up with TikTok star Grace Barry on their new Teriyaki Burger – aptly renamed “Barry-aki”.
Part of their social collaboration with Grace included a video she posted immediately after the first TV Ad in the Love Island break, where she said “if you just saw me on the ad break, no you didn’t”. Over on Twitter/X, KFC have renamed themselves as GKFC, with a change to their logo and lockup for the burger.
This collaboration is a prime example of choosing an ambassador that fits perfectly with their TOV, their audience and their personality.
If your brand needs to be defined for consistency, let’s chat!