INCREASING SOCIAL ENGAGEMENT DURING LOCKDOWN
With the arrival of a global pandemic and lockdown in March 2020, social media saw a massive rise in screen time.
But during this increasingly terrible and uncertain situation, what did people want from brands ?
Enter social listeninG…
THE INSIGHT
We were seeing encouraging signs for brands on the whole:
Daily SOCIAL MEDIA usage ROCKETED ACROSS ALL PLATFORMS
92% of the UK population wanted brands to keep advertising DURING LOCKDOWN
People were hungry for authentic and useful content
Building on this, we conducted social listening across the wider whisky landscape to better understand audience feeling and expectations in the sector.
It was clear there was a huge opportunity for whisky brands to be connecting with their audience on a deeper, more meaningful level while maintaining perspective and remaining sensitive to the ever-changing situation.
We explored this further with two brands in particular: Royal Salute and Aberlour.
INNOVATION & INTERACTIVITY with Royal Salute
Our social listening showed that people wanted more from Royal Salute as a brand; they wanted innovative & interactive formats, playful content and authentic, educational brand pieces.
Behind the Kingdom Doors, was formed on this basis, and aspired to engage and educate our current followers while drawing in others.
Instagram IGTV Livestreams
Promoted by omni-channel teaser posts and paid support on Facebook Events,
A Cocktails At Home Instagram Story Series
Encouraging people to engage with the brand & product at home.
A brand building educational Story Series
Focusing on the evolution of the Royal Salute flagon.
A LIVE q&A
With previous Royal Salute artist, Kristjana S. Williams.
The Impact
The reactive content resonated extremely well with the audience, particularly across organic channels.
Despite low paid support, Royal Salute saw an increase in impressions of 25% from the previous month, and saw a considerable MoM increase of 92% in Instagram followers, highlighting the engaging nature of the reactive content and suggesting that our use of previously unexplored formats like Instagram’s IGTV paid off considerably.
Importantly, producing content based on what we were seeing within social listening ensured that we were maximising the brands personality and connecting with people on a deeper level.
MORE FOLLOWERS
MORE IMPRESSIONS
MORE PERSONALITY
A PLAYFUL PALETTE with ABERLOUR
Our social listening highlighted a desire for brands to be more playful within their social presence.
We pushed this to support Aberlour in creating a variety of highly engaging, on-trend pieces of content for Instagram and Facebook feed.
Alongside traditional feed posts, we conducted an interview with Aberlour Master Distiller, Graeme Cruickshank, utilising IGTV – a format previously unexplored by the brand.
A 5 whisky ideas from home SERIES
To engage people with the product at home via Instagram stories.
Refreshed in-feed content
Based on trending lockdown memes and topics.
An ambassador partnership
With Scottish whisky expert Lucy Miller, showcasing ‘at-home’ Aberlour recipe content.
A live IGTV interview WITH AN ABERLOUR MASTER DISTILLER
With Aberlour Master Distiller, Graeme Cruickshank.
The Impact
The response to the reactive pieces was significant in terms of organic engagement.
Our first post, ‘Which house would be your go to?’, delivered over 330 organic comments at an engagement rate of over 7.5%.
Instagram followers grew 106% since the previous month. To further maximise impact, we used paid support for a number of posts, delivering a new type of high quality content to a wider audience of prospecting followers.