Here’s How Your Brand Can Stand out on Social Media through Lifestyle Marketing

What does Nike sell? Shoes, sporting gear?

It actually sells a lot more than that. Nike sells the idea of being fit, being on top of your game, the joy of discipline and the attitude of never giving up. This is part of the lifestyle marketing strategy of Nike, originally an American multinational footwear manufacturing company.

Having worked with lifestyle brands in India ranging from fashion, fitness and food, the team at Flora Fountain, a social media marketing agency in Ahmedabad, has come up with the definitive guide to developing an effective lifestyle marketing strategy.

BUT, HOW DO WE DEFINE A LIFESTYLE?

The way we live? Yes, exactly that.

Alright, let’s break it down.

Lifestyle is the interests, opinions and behaviours of an individual, group, or culture. And it grows and thrives when it influences the people around them.

Okay, let us take an example of ‘lifestyle’, that is closer to home. Remember when all of us wore baggy jeans, inspired by global hip-hop stars who looked fly dressed in baggy jeans, from grocery runs to red carpets?

This was after all the hip hop lifestyle.

WHERE DOES LIFESTYLE MARKETING COME IN?

Lifestyle marketing is a strategy that combines elements of traditional marketing and consumer psychology to create a unique connection between the brand and the consumer. When done right, lifestyle marketing can be incredibly effective as it allows the company to create an emotional connection with their target market. But it is important to approach it the right way.

Brands like Levi’s and Woodland cashed on the hip hop trend in the early 90s, and well into the mid-2000s, because they saw the opportunity and marketed a hip-hop lifestyle to their target audience.

WHY SHOULD BRANDS CONSIDER LIFESTYLE MARKETING?

Lifestyle marketing is the practice of creating a brand identity around the lifestyle of the customer base. It’s a powerful way of connecting with customers on a deeper level. With the right approach and strategy, lifestyle marketing can be a powerful tool for connecting with customers and achieving success.

HOW TO CREATE A LIFESTYLE MARKETING STRATEGY?

Don’t try to sell to everyone

You need to understand who your target market is and what type of lifestyle they lead. Knowing this will help you craft content that speaks to them and resonates with their interests and values. You should also consider the type of lifestyle marketing medium you want to use, whether it’s blogging, social media, video or other forms of marketing.

Engage with your audience

Social media is a good place to promote your products and engage with customers. Figure out where your audience spends its time socially and optimize your content for those channels to engage with your audience. You can join conversations related to your industry and address concerns through conversations. Taking it further, you can create relevant, mobile-friendly marketing to post on social media channels. That includes making specific ads for social media, as well as, boosting posts for increased visibility.

Develop trust

The goal is to develop a relationship of trust with your target audience, so it’s vital to maintain the same brand voice and story across these channels, as on your website. You want to maintain brand consistency so people going to your website will seamlessly make the transition, instead of being confused if the aesthetic styles don’t match.

Continue reading

5 Simple Steps to Master Customer Relations on Social Media.

“You are in queue, please wait.”

“Aap qatar mein hain, kripya pratiksha kijiye.”

If this makes you feel angry and helpless all at once, then congratulations, you too have experienced the good ol’ customer service of the 80s and 90s. An era when customer service was king and all the customer could do was wait and wait and then wait some more to finally be heard and sometimes maybe served.

Contrast this with 2022.

Airline lost your luggage? Tweet at them.

Your favourite tea brand did not live up to your expectations? Slide into their DMs.

Had a great customer experience at your local coffee shop? Make a reel on Instagram with your favourite barista as collaborator doing his moves to the latest Harry Styles song and tag the coffee shop so they can reshare it too.

As you might know, building a successful brand is about consistency. Small steps performed regularly to bring brand reality closer to brand goals. In the digital world, these steps often involve marketing to new eyeballs on social media, such as Instagram, Facebook, Youtube etc, and search engines such as Google and Bing. But one of the most important steps to ensure that these new eyeballs and customers stay is to build and nurture a lasting relationship with them with genuine and helpful customer service.

For customers and businesses alike, social media has become an easy and effective way to connect and engage with each other. Whether it is feedback received in-the-moment of the customer’s experience, the launch of a new line of products, the brand’s stand on a social issue or even engaging with other brands. Social media has made it easier for brands to become more human. By standing out and staying connected. But you might be wondering: how does one begin treading these social media waters as a brand? How much is too much? And what tone should a brand adopt?

The digital marketing mavericks from Flora Fountain, the top social media marketing agency in Ahmedabad have come up with some simple steps for brands to follow on social media to build customer relationships that last. Let’s

SOCIAL LISTENING

It is important for a brand to have its ear to the ground on the internet to know what people are talking about it online, what trends are being followed by its potential customers. This activity of monitoring various digital platforms, topics and keywords to identify important mentions of the brand and its related topics is called Social Listening.

Brands can modify and enhance their promotional campaigns and customer communications based on this information collated through social listening. While there are many paid online tools available to assist with this actively, the top digital marketing agency in Ahmedabad Flora Fountain does it the old school way, by regularly scouring through platforms like Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Reddit, etc. through targeted keywords, phrases and topics.

This way, the social media managers are able to assist their clients in resolving their issues by offering insightful responses to their inquiries, and make better educated selections.

TAKING FEEDBACK & ACTING ON IT

Feedback helps brands understand what their customers like, what are their pain points, evaluate how their target audience perceives them. With social media making communication between customers and businesses all the more direct, the cycle of feedback has become quicker and hence brands have to be all the more quicker in responding to them.

Show the customers that their inputs are valued by putting their suggestions and requirements into visible action. From launching new products, services or any interesting and useful feature, implementation of customer feedback received through DMs, reviews and other avenues can help brands gain their trust and loyalty. It shows that you hear their concerns and needs and you’re willing to act on it for their benefit.

Continue reading 5 Simple Steps to Master Customer Relations on Social Media.