Social media has changed the way businesses connect and engage with their customers. No matter how large or small your business is, there are so many different ways to leverage social media channels to help improve your company’s marketing and customer relationships.
One business that caught our attention goes by the name Indeed Brewing. They are a beer brewing company located in the heart of Northeast Minneapolis, Minnesota. They have a huge social media following and are doing an excellent job engaging with their audience. We had the pleasure to interview Indeed’s Marketing Coordinator Kelly Moritz to get the scoop on how they have achieved social media success.
1. How are you currently using social media for your company?
At Indeed, we are active on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram; those are the main three, and the platforms on which we have the strongest audience base. As a craft brewery, it also makes sense for us to engage on apps like Untappd and websites like RateBeer and Beer Advocate.
2. How did you determine which channels you should be using?
For us, Twitter and Facebook were no-brainers based on their size and scope, and we created our Instagram account to showcase our company in a creatively visual way. An app like Untappd makes a lot of sense for us to spend time on because it’s a forum for people to start conversations about our beers. They can check in to the bar or restaurant where they’re drinking our beer, provide their own ratings for the beer, share photos of the beer, see what other people around them are drinking. It’s pretty low maintenance for us, and we mainly let the users dictate the conversation, but it’s also important for us to check in and make sure all of our beers are being accurately represented. There are plenty of apps and sites that we don’t use, because they aren’t relevant to our customers.
3. How did you get started and gain traction before you had a significant amount of people in your audience?
Cross-promotion of your accounts within your company is a good way to gain some traction. For example, if you’ve amassed a pretty strong following on Twitter based on your strategic use of posting, re-posting, following, and hash-tagging, then you can use Twitter to grow your Instagram following by linking back to that account in your posts. Facebook has become so large, I think the best way to gain a loyal following there is to restrict yourself to quality content, and to reciprocate positive attention. Share the love. If your good friend recommends a restaurant, or a hair salon, or a car wash, you’re more likely to go there than someplace else, right? I think it’s the same on social media, especially Facebook and Twitter. Likes and Shares for quality content are your customer’s way of recommending your brand and when that happens often enough it catches on.
4. What have you seen change in strategy or tactics between getting started and having a solid audience?
Keeping a solid audience is all about maintaining the momentum you had when you were launching off the ground. Again, quality content is the absolute key. After that, paying attention to how often you’re posting, and keep ’em coming. Staying engaged yourself will engage your audience. Don’t forget to follow up! If you’re fortunate enough to have folks commenting with enthusiasm, share that excitement with them. If people are responding to a post with questions or concerns, don’t leave them hanging. Social media can feel great, and can build community, or it can feel for your customers like their engagement with you goes into a black hole somewhere never to return if you don’t follow up.
5. How do you currently track and measure social media success?
Right now, we take advantage of the metrics tools available for Facebook and Twitter, and don’t do too much tracking beyond that. We keep tabs on our followers, the ‘reach’ of our Facebook posts, and how much attention our posts are getting.
6. What are your favorite tools for managing your social media accounts?
Hootsuite is a helpful tool for managing multiple accounts and scheduling content in bulk. Otherwise, we’re on our smartphones everywhere we go, so mobile apps are key!
7. In what ways have you seen social media benefited the company and help achieve true business goals? If there are numbers or metrics you can share, that would be great but we understand if you can’t share them.
Social media platforms are absolutely the best way for us to connect with our customers on their terms, in real time. So in that respect, using Facebook and Twitter, Instagram, and beer apps like Untappd have helped us achieve the goal of effectively connecting with the people who drink our beer and those who don’t yet but would be interested in our company. Specifically, we’ve used Facebook and Twitter to help market big events at the brewery, beer releases, and breaking news, among other things. We can get our message out quickly and authentically to the people who are most interested in it.
8. If you were to give one tip for companies getting started with social media, what would it be?
Follow the golden rule. Even (or especially) on behalf of a business, treat people on social media the way you want to be treated on social media. That’s a good start!
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