Social Media Marketing Strategy: The Brands We’re Loving on Social Right Now

We sat down with Andrea Flanders, social media guru and THP’s Director of Social Media & Communications, to learn what the top brands on social are doing to break through in a crowded online space, and three ways you can take your social media marketing strategy to the next level.

There are a ton of brands that have nailed the science behind a stellar social media presence, and we’ve probably all got a few that immediately pop into mind. But what makes them stand out? Is it a skillfully crafted caption, perfectly timed witty meme, or viral ASMR video? The common denominator is their mastery of driving conversation across three key areas: campaigns, tone of voice, and aesthetic.

Driving conversation is more than just being ‘loud’ in the traditional sense. Brands that are successfully breaking through the noise are the ones whose strategies strike a chord with consumers’ emotions.

Post all you want about why your products are the best, but in a digital climate where consumers are hypersensitive to overtly salesy or branded marketing, it takes more than just shouting about your brand and products from the rooftops to win your target audience’s approval!

The average American adult consumer spends almost 3 full hours a day on their smartphone, and 94% of them have an account on at least one social platform. Because of this, consumers have come to expect the ability to engage with their favorite brands anytime and anywhere. In order to successfully engage with social platforms, marketers must develop an integrated strategy that delivers the right content, to the right audience at the right time. This creates a positive and memorable experience that wins the loyalty of consumers.

A rewarding online-to-offline consumer experience takes an an insight-led content strategy, with a high level of coordination across all marketing efforts. We like to refer to this integrated approach as an “agility loop,” where we leverage social listening and insights to inform content production at every step of the way, creating a cyclical production model that’s founded on continuous optimization.

When we create a piece of content and launch it in market, we leverage social listening, KPIs, and audience insights to gain an understanding of what resonated and what didn’t. From there, the beauty of an end-to-end model like THP’s is that we’re able to really leverage these insights in real-time to inform our customers’ content strategies in the moment. A highly agile model like this allows our customers to unlock significant cost savings and impressive ROI. By creating content that’s customized and tailored to your audience’s interests, you’ll see more actions being taken on your content, which yields a lower cost-per-result, and allows you to maximize your marketing budget in the way that makes the most sense for your strategy.

Every brand wants to go viral on social, and when done right, brands can have a memorable and lasting impact on the consumer experience. One brand in particular that I like to use as an example of having nailed it from a ‘tone’ perspective, is bathroom tissue brand, Charmin. Famous for their quick-witted captions, sassy clap backs, and posts filled with cheeky humor (pun intended), Charmin has found the secret sauce to creating an authentic tone of voice on social. Because of this, they’ve received endless word-of-mouth and organic lift across their key social channels from posting and engaging with their audience in a fun, approachable and humorous way.

From an aesthetic perspective, Postmates really does get ‘it’ and their consumers – staying true to their tagline. They understand that it’s all about first impressions and marketers need to think of their brands’ Instagram feeds like they would their own dating app profile.

At first glance, your feed needs to highlight your brand’s identity in a cohesive and appealing way that makes consumers want to follow you to see more. It needs to be carefully curated to ensure its visual appeal, leveraging content that speaks to and resonates with your target audience. Postmates does this by achieving the perfect balance of great UGC (user generated content), influencer posts, and strategic branded content. But, brands need to tread carefully when trying to be relevant; trying too hard to be fun or trendy can have a negative impact, coming across as inauthentic or ‘trying too hard’ in the eyes of consumers.

Lastly, mattress brand, Casper, takes the gold for campaign creativity in what on the surface seems like a small social media campaign, but generated big buzz. During a time when we saw the ASMR trend blow up, the brand broke through the noise by strategically using YouTube and Spotify to create their Sleep Channel campaign. Sleep Channel is a curated playlist of soothing sounds, stories, and meditation tracks to help their consumers (both current and prospective) achieve a sound night’s sleep. In doing this, Casper’s marketing team found a relevant and authentic way to insert their brand into a common (and crowded) consumer narrative, helping to increase loyalty and build strong followings across key channels.

By leveraging the right content at the right time and optimizing it for the right audience, brands can generate buzz and create lasting connections with their consumers on social media.

Need help creating a memorable customer experience on social? THP, a Tag company, is the leading on-demand provider of end-to-end content creation and social media solutions for 750+ top brands across North America, Europe, and the UK. Get in touch to learn more.