You love these brands on social media and offline. You even follow a few of them. There’s something that makes these brands tick. Something that drives these brands to make social media marketing more interesting for consumers. We’re talking about the 9 best brands on social media and decoding a few tips for your brand.
These 9 best brands on social media have set gold standards with their social media strategy. We’re unearthing their social media strategy to share a few tips for your brand’s social media marketing.
Learning From The 9 Best Brands On Social Media
1. Netflix
Streaming giant Netflix is a powerhouse of content. Not only does the OTT platform have a large repertoire of content, they also have content geniuses that drive their social media marketing. Since the brand is in the business of content, good content marketing comes naturally to Netflix.
One of their key strategies is social listening. Netflix keeps tabs on conversations online for each of their shows. From celebrities making Birdbox popular to Twitterati commenting on how good Money heist season 1 was – Netflix team taps into real-time conversation. Their social media marketing strategy boils down to the culture of the brand at its root. Netflix’s cultural manifesto explains freedom of thinking, responsibility while keeping entertainment at its core.
“We want to entertain the world. If we succeed, there is more laughter, more empathy, and more joy.” All their social media marketing revolves around this. Whether it is a new show they’re promoting or an announcement of a new season.
They don’t just create trailer clips; they ensure that the marketing is entertaining across all social networks. And who can deny the power of their meme-marketing.
POV: You just finished watching Bridgerton. pic.twitter.com/4kmDpInP6I
— Netflix India (@NetflixIndia) March 26, 2022
When it comes to special days and moment marketing Netflix brings its A-game. The team doesn’t follow the moment marketing bandwagon like some brands do. They’re selective about the trends, often setting those trends and ensuring it’s a good fit for the brand.
https://www.facebook.com/NetflixIN/photos/a.915750781871996/3161560873957631/
2. Go Pro
https://sproutsocial.com/insights/social-spotlight-gopro/ UGC
A social media network is all about the people and their connections, interactions, and conversations. That was the intended purpose. Go Pro, the professional action camera knows exactly how to leverage this. Its consumers are huge fans of the brand. Social networks like Facebook and Instagram are image driven and this means Go Pro consumers are actively participating in social chatter.
Go Pro built its entire social media marketing strategy entirely on User Generated Content (UGC). The entire social media feed is complete in stunning imagery and videos. People living the action and loving their travels and adventures in real -time.
The brand’s popularity picked up in 2013, when they announced the #GoProMillionDollarChallenge
Since then, social media platforms, are filled with one image and video better than the next. From underwater videos of marine life to action packed adventures and nature in all its beauty. The challenge on Instagram has close to 17500 posts alone. Its GoProAwards is another digital property that highlights the brand’s products and variety of uses. Prizes to gear, social sharing, and cash, the brand pulls out all stops.
The brand offers users tips on how to shoot with the product features.
Special days on social media too are celebrated in the same vein with user generated content.
From promoting products through their users’ visuals to sharing in-depth knowledge and showcasing its user’s fantastic photography capabilities – Go Pro wins social media on UGC.
Go Pro worked social sharing into the product and brand that compelled its users to share actively on social media. UGC is a great tool to drive brand loyalty and Go Pro does it so well digitally.
3. Duolingo
Duo Lingo seems to have taken the social media world by storm. Not just the Meta social channels, but also Tik Tok. Duolingo has built wide success on Tik Tok and could probably count as one of the most popular brands on the handle.
Duolingo’s social media strategy is re-evaluated every quarter. They work on promoting diversity among users to educate users and inform them about new product launches and more. The brand started by taking its Owl and other characters from the edtech app online to social media networks. This consistent branding with educative, engaging and informative content consistently on their social media networks has built its millions of followers.
Their content strategy involved creating series such as Dear Duolingo – an advice column for language learners with insights from Senior Learning Scientist Dr. Cindy Blanco.
The brand leverages UGC by sharing fan art from various users as well as its users’ achievements.
A year ago I was stuck in lockdown in Warsaw, so I started @duolingo again to work on my German.
— Ghassan Finge 🇪🇺 (@MiloshTheMedic) March 27, 2022
1 year later and I’ve stuck through it, kept up with practice and have been holding in Diamond League for over 3 months!
Not bad for an educational pass time 🙂 pic.twitter.com/6aLJDPtWLJ
The brand actively promotes its apps with fun entertaining posts that engage its users, even during special days.
The brand also shares world views and topical content through its content.
Every day, millions of refugees have to learn a new language. This #WorldRefugeeDay, let’s learn a few words for them. #SayWelcome 👇 pic.twitter.com/dKTdRP2eAx
— Duolingo (@duolingo) June 20, 2021
Its’ Tik Tok strategy though is on another level altogether. Of course, they transferred the app benefits to Tik Tok with “how-to” videos in multiple languages. The brand also participated in several trends such as the NBA trade offer trends. The brand quickly understood that funny and entertainment value is what drives engagement among Tik Tok users. With almost 7 million likes on their content, Duo – the owl has indeed become a huge hit.
4. Slack
A freemium enterprise messaging tool, Slack has grown its app’s popularity to 8 million users in a short time frame. The product by itself is a fantastic tool that many approve. But there are lessons to learn and tips for your brand that Slack could share. Slack is present on all the large social media channels as part of their social media strategy.
However, they chose Twitter as their primary platform to talk to the audience. why? The app itself is a collaboration tool, and which better platform than Twitter to collaborate more efficiently. And customers sure show their love for the app through Slack Love Tweets and Slack Wall of Love
Shout out to @SlackHQ for not only an incredible platform that made GBH Global possible and houses the GBH Community. Shoutout to service rep Mackayla for being so responsive and understanding! Great partners + great tech make the world go round ✨ pic.twitter.com/cekzNWy4Wt
— GiveBackHack (@GiveBackHack) November 18, 2020
“We bet heavily on Twitter. Even if someone is incredibly enthusiastic about a product, literal word-of-mouth will only get to a handful of people — but if someone tweets about us, it can be seen by hundreds, even thousands.”
Stewart Butterfield, CEO and founder
Early on the brand understood, enterprise solutions catering to corporates or not, people are central to the app. So, the brand focused on its customer and their needs to deliver vibrant brand colours and relevant content across demographics and social networks. Slack’s content strategy ensures content is customised to each social network, with a few shared original posts.
They educate their audience about new product features, research reports, ‘how to’ features and the tools available. Above all they do it in a fun manner, despite being a B2B brand.
They segmented their audience from leadership of the company to executive, from large enterprises to SMB’s. Each demographic has social media goals to achieve such as brand awareness, customer feedback, conversations, and more. Slack targeted each demographic through social media marketing and excellent content strategy. Productivity hacks, famous quotes, and more importantly focusing on customer conversations across platforms.
5. Zomato
Food delivery app Zomato, while popular for its quick service and the iconic red t-shirt blazing team, has an incredible social media marketing strategy. So much so, they’ve become a benchmark of sorts in India for their tone of voice and meme marketing. The social media team at Zomato are social listeners, trend reporters, conversationalists and more.
The Meme Marketing game at Zomato is strong!
Zomato has defined its set of audiences. They have vast pools of data that explain to them who is ordering, when, and what. They have also mapped this data to social media networks and thus, customise their communications across channels. They leverage data to create content that is relatable and social media ads that build recall and drive volume of orders. Social Media share of Traffic: 0.73% of Zomato’s traffic
Zomato’s content is topical, fun, educative, trendy and snackable. Often their content moves out of the social media platforms through other chat mediums.
if only there was an app to deliver good tweet ideas in 10 minutes
— zomato (@zomato) March 22, 2022
It doesn’t just end with great content built by their own teams. Zomato often collaborates with influencers in every genre to drive buzz around their campaigns. Often influencers create content around Zomato’s news too. Like the Zomato IPO and Zomato 10-min delivery updates was fodder for many content creators.
Their contests drive a lot of creativity among their audience, like the #Zomatoloot contest which was born out of social listening. Their audience complained about their ads playing on YouTube on loop. So, the brand offered its consumers a chance to win Rs.25 lakhs by making ads for Zomato ads – their version of a Zomato ad. This user-generated ad would then be released as Ad by Zomato on YouTube.
6. Sephora
Sephora does not just have our hearts for their beauty products. This beauty brand surely knows how to run an omni channel retail strategy and a large part of it is digital. They were one of the first brands to run automated chat bots on their website to create amazing customer experiences. To that effect, the brand has an active social media presence across Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Tiktok.
“We partnered with Assi.st to develop a Facebook Messenger bot that is being used to book makeup appointments. The service is completely powered by AI, no humans are involved. The reservation bot launched in 2016 and, as a result, we’ve seen an 11% increase in bookings.” Deborah Yeh, SVP of Marketing & Brand at Sephora
They’re digitally so active on all platforms that not a single conversation goes past them.
We recommend signing up for the email alert on the product page, so you are notified once these items are available again.
— Sephora (@Sephora) March 29, 2022
To break down their content strategy, Sephora is a fun brand, while being all about luxury. The tone of voice is confident, yet premium. Since the brand continuously launches products and its loyal audience awaits the new launches – this is one major category of content. The rest of the content aims at brand awareness through education and information while keeping the customer in focus.
Sephora beauty ensures that the product is the hero in all their social media communication. The videos are high-end quality and content educative.
The brand also focuses on current trends while making it all about makeup and beauty. Like this #oddlysatisfying video
Even on special days the brand ensures that they speak the brand values.
Another social media strategy that Sephora follows is Influencer marketing. They collaborate with beauty influencers to create videos that are informative, light and quick to consume.
Sephora knew early on that an influencer will play a large part in the marketing strategy, so they launched the #SephoraSquad. Every year they call for entries from everyone – content creators, influencers, people. Anyone can apply. Then the brand opens up a world of beauty and makeup to the squad. Followers who get access to the squad, enjoy a bunch of free products, network within the industry, get featured on Sephora’s social network and more.
Here’s an influencer story on getting on to the squad :
With Sephora it is all about building a community – a social community who are interested in makeup, skincare and beauty.
7. Nike
For years, we loved the tagline – Just Do It. The emotion behind it and the thought behind it drove millions to own a pair of Nike. Nike takes this brand emotion, popularity and brand name to social media networks. Some may argue that Nike already had a large brand presence. But, to continue dominating that social media marketing space, Nike has a solid social media marketing strategy in place.
Nike drives all its focus on athletes. Athletes embody the spirit of Nike. The passion and hard work athletes put into their talent and performance are all qualities that are the Nike product too. To perform well, athletes also need the right gear – and that’s why Nike’s social media marketing revolves around showcasing real people rather than their products. This content strategy works exceedingly well on Instagram. Nike has built a community of sport-driven, fashionable sneakerheads on Instagram and their content caters to them.
On Twitter the brand keeps it more functional. Their series on This week in Sneakers shifts the focus on to products.
Upcoming Drops.
— Nike.com (@nikestore) February 28, 2022
The Women’s Air Max 90 SE and more.
Check out what’s dropping soon 🇺🇸 https://t.co/6nu4TQ4oMU pic.twitter.com/ts6x6VxBqY
The brand does not shy away from speaking up on real-life topics that affect the world. From inclusivity content to supporting the BLM movement, Nike makes a noise.
Sprout Social’s 2019 #BrandsGetReal survey states that 70% of consumers want brands to take a stand on social and political issues. It further adds that 88% consumers identify brands that have social good campaigns as part of their marketing strategy. Consumers are not easily fooled. They want to align themselves with brands that do better and don’t mind paying a price for it. Nike clearly has won the hearts of the audience showcasing real life customer stories.
8. AirBnb
AirBnb disrupted and transformed the space of travel and hospitality with its unique service. Through social media and digital marketing, the brand wanted to capture people who required rooms on rent and people who wanted to rent their homes out for a short, specific period of time.
So, the brand focused on beautiful spaces instead of promoting their app and website. They focused on making living in a home away from home cool. Their social media is full of gorgeous living spaces across the world. Travellers share their stories of living in some places, hosts talk about how wonderful it is to meet and host new people.
where people would otherwise choose hotels to live in through their travels, they now turn to gorgeous spaces, locations and experiences on Airbnb.
They do this with UGC and leverage the reviews on their website. Travellers leave reviews for hosts and share their experiences. Airbnb brings those experiences to social media and shares them with the world.
Booking a stay involves people, and customers need support. So, besides the other country-specific Airbnb handles the brand operates, they also have the AirBnb help. This is an exclusive handle for customer support that offers quick responses on issues.
https://twitter.com/AirbnbHelp/with_replies
9. Starbucks
The Starbucks tagline states “To inspire and nurture the human spirit – one person, one cup, and one neighborhood at a time.” This tagline reflects completely in their social media marketing strategy. They understand that coffee is personal, delicious and social all at the same time. The brand translates the physical coffee experience online through their content, social media campaigns and contests. Like their #whatsyourname campaign that leverages the Stabucks experience of having your name written on the cup. Through this campaign, Starbucks wants to build a more inclusive community and they demonstrate how they do.
Read more about the campaign.
The brand talks about its team, its products, the experience and listens to its customers. The fact that Starbucks sells coffee merchandise and good looking merchandise, makes it even more a reason for people to choose the brand.
They focus aesthetically on creativity for special days, making all conversations about coffee and barista style food.
Check out this cool topical content they created with the trending OTT show of the season.
— Starbucks Coffee (@Starbucks) March 28, 2022
Starbucks also brings the fun element in their content with interactive gamification.
Happy first day of spring! Whether you take things easy breezy or at full speed, good things are ahead this season. 🌸🌿 pic.twitter.com/yh1HDHWZAU
— Starbucks Coffee (@Starbucks) March 20, 2022
The brand also takes their customers very seriously on social media. Their UGC game across all channels is strong.
Along with UGC, Starbucks also loves driving conversations. Check out their Twitter replies
https://twitter.com/Starbucks/with_replies
Online Reputation Management (ORM) is a great way to build relationships with customers. Customers leave their feedback, appreciation, complaints and enquiries on threads like these. Customizing responses to each of them or simply acknowledging them makes a huge difference to your followers. Repost an interesting image, retweet, and reshare customer stories. This is what social media networks were created for.
Key social media strategy tips from the 9 best brands on social media
- Understand your target audience. Define your target audience and keep your customer in the centre of social media marketing efforts.
- Focus your social media marketing on your customer. Listening to your customers on social media is crucial to build real brand relationships. Learn how brands measure customer satisfaction.
- Content is the key to success on social media marketing platforms. Build good, simple, yet interesting content that caters to each target audience on social media. Content distribution is equally important as content creation to drive real success.
- Paid ads really do pay off on social media to grow your brand. It is however a step -by- step procedure that needs meticulous attention. We offer social media marketing services in Mumbai to help your brand reach across platforms and build a social presence.
- Keep your content, ideas fresh and stay in touch with trends. Experiment with content ideas, social network platforms, paid ads and more. Of course, not without thorough planning.
- Not every social media network may cater to your target audience, and its perfectly fine to only have a mere brand presence on some or customize content from other social networks.
- Influencer marketing can be a game changer and help build a strong loyal community for your brand. However, it must be done effectively keeping the tone of the brand in perspective.
- User Generated Content (UGC) and ORM together can be a powerful social media marketing strategy. Brands are built solely on UGC and great consumer conversations. Consumers are inclined to believe real stories, interactions, and recommendations from real users far more than a regular post.
- Analytic tools like Google Analytics, Facebook Business Manager and the likes are important to divulge the secrets of audience behaviour. You and the social media team must regularly check analytics like a hawk. As a digital marketing agency in Mumbai, our media teams are experts at building in-detail reports, sharing analysis and insights on digital brand performance.
Happy to help you build an active social media presence for your brand and drive social media marketing efforts across all channels. Give us a shout at aniketh@mindstorm.in