It’s been happening for years…
Little by little, the social networks all started to steal from one another and adopt similar functionality until all the platforms allowed you to share the same types of content. This just encouraged brands to share the same content across all the platforms (with slightly different pixel dimensions if they were really making an effort).
But it wasn’t just the platforms. The things users were posting became suspiciously similar too. I’m sure you all remember this article from a couple of years back about how similar Instagram posts were becoming.
And it’s not just influencers. Over the last year I’ve worked with a variety of alcohol brands and run social listening projects for all of them. I became really discouraged by the sheer amount of bottle shots on Instagram.
I understand that brands are proud of their bottle designs and labels and rightly so, they are an incredibly important part of the brand experience.
BUT! What if not all the content on the internet looked the same?
What if you took a chance and crafted a strong brand tone of voice and social identity that wasn’t just ‘honest and friendly’ and the same as what everyone else was doing.
As social media becomes ever more overpopulated with the same style of copy and posts from so many brands – it offers up a perfect opportunity for your brand to stand out.
Sure, all the beautifully curated shots are getting reasonable engagement, but are they delivering on actual objectives?
Consider MoonPie
MoonPie were included in almost every agency case study in 2017 for having such a strong brand personality and really generating the kinds of organic engagement people just weren’t seeing anymore. Fast forward 3 years to 2020 and they are still at it. Going from strength to strength:
The MoonPie example wasn’t just about generating engagement though, this was reflected in sales. Within the first year, they had increased sales by 17% just by using Twitter. They currently have over 320k Twitter followers and only post about once a fortnight. That is some good ROI!
Good social media strategy always starts with a strong brand strategy – but it’s only really great when brands are brave enough to do something a little bit different.
(This is where a good social listening project comes in! Being able to identify who your online audience is, where they live, their different interest clusters, how they behave on different platforms, etc. This ‘real people’ insight allows you to craft a social media strategy with real personality and content that will actually resonate with your target audience on the right platforms for you – get in touch if you want to talk about how I can help you achieve this)
Something to add?