How Social Media Messaging Builds Your Brand

1. HOW SOCIAL MEDIA MESSAGING
BUILDS YOUR BRAND
7 Strategies to keep your consumers
coming back for more

2. Whitepaper | How Social Media Messaging Builds Your Brand
When it comes to posting on your brand’s social pages, you have a wide choice of content
types, including photos, updates, video, and links. Each has its own strengths—and a
proper place in your arsenal. Regardless of what type of content you post, there are certain
messaging strategies that consistently prove to increase fan engagement across social
networks. We’ve repeatedly seen specific content strategies work over many different brand
pages—both to trigger instant engagement and to inspire fans to keep coming back for
more. In this paper, we take a look at these seven strategies, using real life examples from
companies that do a fantastic job of engaging their fan communities.
Tap into fan passions
You already know what your fans are passionate about, so make your social pages the perfect
platform for them to express their passions. If you market for a fashion brand, talk about
design, style, and haute couture. If you’re a food brand, ask for favorite recipes and opinions
on food trends. Focus on the unique personality of your fans to determine what type of
messaging or content they’ll respond to best. Here are some examples of brand pages that
excel at engaging their followers on a personal and emotional level.
Benefit Cosmetics
Benefit Cosmetics shares regular updates with
its community about its makeup products:
news about upcoming product lines, pictures of
makeup, and tips and tricks. In addition to being
product centric, however, Benefit injects a healthy
dose of personality-driven appeals to its fan
community— for example,
in recognition of the
fact that everyone has
“down days,” Benefit
prompts users to let
them know when
that feeling happens,
so that the brand
can respond with
an instant “Beauty
Boost” compliment to
brighten users’ days.
2

3. HM
HM understands its fans love for fashion. Instead of trying to replicate the experience of
shopping in the store or on the website, its page supplies a steady stream of interactive
content tailored specifically to its social audiences. On Google+, HM publishes a range of
follower-only exclusive
collection previews,
contests, and behind-
the-scenes footage, like
that of a Vogue editor
preparing for an HM
photo shoot. Their
most popular posts
are the ones for their
top collections with
Beckham, Versace
and Marni.
Tip
Photos or video media are incredibly engaging when attached to messaging updates.
In just the first 100 days of the network, over 3.4 billion photos had already been
shared on Google+1. On Facebook, posts including a photo album, a picture or a
video generate about 180%, 120%, and 100% more engagement than the average
text post, respectively 2.
Ask Simple, Closed Questions
Would you rather do a task that’s quick and easy, or one that takes time and effort? It depends
on the reward, right? Day-to-day interactions on social networks don’t really offer fans much
reward other than taking part in a community, so make sure your messaging is easy to interact
with. One strategy to ensure engagement is to ask followers questions that are a breeze to
answer. Asking open-ended questions requires fans to consider and write out their answers.
However, nothing is easier than stating an opinion to a “Yes” or “No” question. The barrier to
typing a one-word response, or simply clicking “Like,” is very low, so more users respond. Let’s
look at some examples of brands that make it easy for users to engage.
1 Google, Q3 2011 earnings call
2 Facebook, “Best Practices for your Page and Media Strategy,” 2012
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4. Whitepaper | How Social Media Messaging Builds Your Brand
VEVO
VEVO, a top music video website,
shares a lot of videos and artist
news with its followers. Every
once in a while, however, to
shake things up and keep the
messaging light and fun, it
balances the dialogue with a
simple question. In the example
below, VEVO welcomes the
weekend by sharing a funny
e-card image with the prompt,
“TGIF! What’s your weekend jam?”
TIMBERLAND
Timberland, the outdoor clothing,
hiking boots, and active sports
product company, incorporates
images of its product line into
the majority of posts. To freshen
the mix of messaging tied to
the product images, Timberland
regularly includes style or image
related “closed” questions. These
messages pack a double punch—
the products still get featured
visually in a way that is relevant to
the messaging, and the question
prompts a response.
3 Facebook, “Best Practices for your Page and Media Strategy,” 2012
4

5. Tip
Question posts and fill in the blank posts generate about 90% more engagement
than the average text post 3.
Tell Users What You Want from Them
Use instructive language in your posts to make it crystal clear what you want fans to do. Believe
it or not, ending a post with the instruction to “Like” or “+1” this post usually results in a markedly
higher number of those actions! We found a perfect example on Wildfire’s own fan page.
The two screenshots below show content that we posted on Wildfire’s Facebook Timeline. The
content was very similar, was published within one month, both posts showcased interesting
pictures, and both had a similar number of impressions. But the post with the instruction
to “Click LIKE if you’re as thrilled as we are,” got nearly four times as many Likes as the post
without the instruction. This result is consistent with the results our clients get on their pages
as well. The lesson: Never leave the next step up to interpretation—tell fans exactly what you
want them to do.
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6. Whitepaper | How Social Media Messaging Builds Your Brand
Steve Madden
Steve Madden tweets its
followers a variety of fashion-
fabulous content, but when it
has a specific action it wants
readers to take, the instruction
to “watch” couldn’t be clearer.
Treat Your Fans Like They’re VIPS
Do you have exclusive information that you haven’t shared or posted to your website yet?
Do you have internal photographs of your team, or videos of a company event that you won’t
be sharing any other way?
According to the research firm Razorfish, the #1 reason fans “Like” or “Follow” a brand on
social networks is to get access to exclusive content, promotions, and deals. So, give your fans
privileged content that makes them feel special. Coupons, giveaways, and sweepstakes get
the highest amount of entries on average. If it suits your brand, you can even give your fan
community a special name like Lady Gaga does with her “Little Monsters.”
6

7. The Washington Redskins
The Washington Redskins regularly gives its fans opportunities to engage in VIP, exclusive
events. For example, the Redskins host a monthly live Google+ Hangout on Air with a rotating
selection of players. Every
month the Redskins give fans
the opportunity to be one
of the nine live attendees of
the hangout (while the rest
of the community watches
the video stream live, and
later via recording.) The
Redskins get their social
communities excited about
upcoming Hangouts via an
active messaging schedule,
alerting fans to the next
athletes scheduled to appear
in hangouts and how fans
can sign up to
be one of the
exclusive nine
that get to chat
with them live.
Dunkin’ Donuts
Dunkin’ Donuts does a great job using the Facebook VIP strategy. Every week, the company
encourages its fans to submit photos of themselves with Dunkin’ Donuts products. And each
week, one lucky fan is chosen
as the “Fan of the Week,” an
honor which includes having
their picture featured on the
Dunkin’ Donuts Facebook
page. For giving fans a chance
at Facebook fame, Dunkin’
receives week after week of
quality engagement.
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8. Whitepaper | How Social Media Messaging Builds Your Brand
Tip
Be seasonable and timely with the content you’re posting. Fans are more likely to
engage with topics that are already top of mind, such as current events, holidays
or news. For example, posts mentioning Independence Day on July 4th generated
about 90% more engagement than all posts published on that day.4
Invite One-on-One Interactions
Even if you have a great connection with your brand’s social follower base, you can take the
relationship to a new level when you respond to them personally. Address your fans by name
whenever possible, and respond to their comments one-on-one. Many followers express
pleasant surprise when they receive this personal touch, because it proves that you’re listening
and are receptive to their comments and feedback. And they’ll be more likely to keep posting.
Annie’s Homegrown
Annie’s Homegrown takes the time to respond to every customer post with helpful
information, gratitude for the fan’s loyalty or, at the very least, a “like”. Annie’s often uses
the fan’s name in
replies to personalize
the conversation
and make the fan
feel heard and
appreciated, like in the
tweet and Facebook
post depicted here.
3 Facebook, “Best Practices for your Page and Media Strategy,” 2012
8

9. Timberland
Timberland again demonstrates a high
attention to fan engagement by celebrating
individual fan photo uploads. Each photo
uploaded by a fan is a visual endorsement,
not to mention valuable earned media, so
there is a high value to encouraging fan photo
uploads. For example, Timberland posted an
update informing the
community that, in
celebration of its page
reaching over one
million fans, it would
collect and re-post
favorite fan photos,
giving each chosen
fan the enticement of
boosted exposure.
Take Your Relationship to the Next Level
It is important to not just sit back and wait for a chance to engage. Actively invite personal
conversation with your community by soliciting their opinions on relevant topics or asking
them what types of content they want to see. Then act on their suggestions. The Wildfire
Facebook fan page is one example of this approach working very successfully. Our fan page is
an ongoing initiative to build engagement with a community of marketers, business owners,
and social media managers interested in sharing knowledge about social media in general
(and Wildfire in particular).
We’ve found that our most engaging posts—those that get the most feedback from our fans—
are consistently the ones that invite people to post any question they have about social media,
or to have their pages reviewed by social media professionals. The key to success is that we
actually answer all the questions that are raised. Because of our reliable—and personal—
follow-up, our brand is trusted as one that responds. Our “Social Media Hour” has become a
popular fixture, and commenters frequently leave feedback about how helpful they find it.
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10. Whitepaper | How Social Media Messaging Builds Your Brand
Here is an example of fan feedback we
received after posting that we would
review any fan page that left its link in the
comments of a message. We promised just
a simple 10-second test, but we delivered
for every single fan page that participated.
Many fans were pleasantly surprised and
grateful—and they let us know about it.
Humanize Your Brand
We don’t know what it is, but people get undeniably excited about a glimpse behind the scenes.
It works for DVD and Blu-ray sales, and it works on social profile pages too. Followers respond to
VIP content, and what’s more exclusive than a look inside the workings of your company?
Any messaging that humanizes your
brand, adds depth to its personality,
or colors its character will go over well
with fans. This strategy can even add a
positive new dimension to your brand,
changing its image from untouchable
to relatable with a few thoughtful posts.
Our own social profile pages regularly
displays posts that share the spirit of
Wildfire with our fans. In the sample post
below, we let Facebook fans in on the fun
tradition of ringing a cowbell to signify
the launch of a new customer campaign.
This post received 50 Likes within an
hour of its publication.
10

11. The same is true of the post to our
Google+ community on the right, which
showed an amusing effort by some
women at Wildfire to join in on Men’s
Health Awareness Month activities by
donning mustaches for “Movember.”
The follow-up commentary from readers
demonstrates their appreciation for the
levity and entertainment value of the post.
Upping the Ante: Promoting your Messages as Paid Media
Many marketers aren’t aware that an active social presence, no matter how consistently
engaging, doesn’t guarantee them visibility in their fans’ and followers’ news feeds. In fact, most
of a brand’s social audience never sees its page posts. According to one study, a brand’s posts
on Facebook typically reach just 16% of its fans.5 So while publishing a steady stream of content
is a very necessary part of engagement strategy, it is not sufficient as a stand-alone strategy.
Organic reach alone will not get the message out to your communities at the broadest scale.
Brands can reach and engage a larger percentage of users by running paid social ads. Social
ads drive engagement by tapping into the viral characteristics of social sites and broadcasting
brand messages: ads generate Likes and shares, which increase visibility in the news feed.
And since more than a quarter of social network users are likely to pay attention to a social ad
posted by a friend6, that news feed visibility has the potential to be quite impactful.
This extended visibility won’t just suit your brand within the walls of the social network it
originated in, either— paid social advertising on Google+ extends the influence of social signals
into search and the rest of the web as well. In fact, advertisers that activate the social extensions
feature within their AdWords account see a 5-10% uplift in click-through rates on average7.
Stay tuned for an upcoming Wildfire report that offers tips and best practices for engaging
your audience and amplifying your brand message.
5 Bannon, Deirdre, “State of the Media: The Social Media Report 2012,” http://www.nielsen.com/us/en/
insights/reports-downloads/2012/state-of-the-media-the-social-media-report-2012.html
6 Rao, Leena, “Most of the Page Views on Facebook Contain Social Ad Formats,” http://techcrunch.
com/2011/09/14/most-of-the-page-views-on-facebook-contain-social-ad-formats/
7 Google Ads, “Social Extensions” http://www.google.com/ads/innovations/socialextensions.html 11

12. Putting it all together
As you’ve seen from our examples, the subject matter for your social profile posts is limited
only by your imagination. But if you want to make sure you and your followers are getting the
most out of every message, keep a few simple guidelines in mind:
• First, humanize your brand by being personal, friendly, and unafraid to tap into the shared
passions that brought you together in the first place
• Always make your fans feel special and appreciated by giving them one-on-one or VIP treatment
whenever possible—even if it’s just a personal thank you or a peek behind the scenes
• And finally, keep things as simple as possible by making it easy for fans to respond to your
posts, and by letting them know exactly what it is you’d like them to do next
So, now that you’re armed with seven actionable strategies for improving engagement, be sure
to explore and test which strategies work best for your brand’s various social communities.
Mountain View Wildfire is a powerful, easy-to-use social marketing platform that enables brands
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Wildfire, a division of Google | 323 Fairchild Drive, Mountain View, CA 94043 | 888.274.0929 | www.wildfireapp.com | wildfire@google.com 01/13