My client is one of the UK’s top 5 hair care vendors, specialising in natural textured hair. One of the biggest parts of their brand is the relationship they have with the brands they carry, so when one of the brands approached my client with the idea of a social media collaboration, I stepped up.
This is an in depth look of how I worked with their team and my client to build a social media campaign that would build audience trust, enhance brand recognition and promote sales.
Project overview
Project goals
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Goal 1
Increase reach and exposure for both client and the brand with which they are collaborating.
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Goal 2
Drive engagement and connectivity throughout all content produced, from existing audience and non -followers.
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Goal 3
Drive social media based web traffic for client with an emphasis on featured brand.
The process
This collaboration would be the UK’s introduction to this brand, as they had never sold outside of the US before. So instead of just making a single post and sharing that would cross both the brand page and my clients page, we decided that it would be mutually beneficial to create a full campaign that would introduce UK audiences to the brand.
I contacted the clients with the idea of giving a launch sale using a specific code at the checkout - which would be shared on social media - and they agreed.
From there, I planned in coordination with the brand to create a range of promotional stories, informative feed content, and a live interview with their team (which I would conduct).
Planning
The brand sent me a full press packet (complete with static and video content), and gave me permission to use anything I needed to create and edit social media content. Additionally, the client sent me a few images of the bundled products.
I got to work researching the way our audience shops our content (scouring data to establish which pieces had higher conversion rates). This inspired a content strategy that would blend promotion with information and results.
Once I agreed a date for the sale and the live interview, I implemented a timeline where I would begin to promote the brand a week before the sale - this gave the audience time to get to know the brand before they officially arrived in store.
When designing the content, my aim was to blend the brand and the clients identities. I did this by maintaining my clients themes and fonts, with the brand’s images and UGC.
Content
Instagram story development
As Instagram stories are the perfect place to promote, I planned to use them to highlight the launch, the live interview and the brand sale.
Each story blended my clients branding with official images from the brand we were promoting. This enhanced brand recognition, making followers feel more confident in the launch.
Additionally, I made sure to tag the collaborating brand in each story so that we were able to share to multiple audiences at once.
Social media feed content
I designed two types of feed content.
The first addressed customer pain points and presented certain products as the solution.
The second highlighted exactly what each product does so that customers could pick and choose which ones would suit them.
Promotional reel content
Reel content was created to highlight specific collections from the brand, and show the products in action. To do this, I edited some of the footage that the brand had provided, that showed the products up close. I then overlayed this with information that would provide value to our target audience.
In order to show the products at work, I sourced UGC content from Instagram and asked for content permissions from the client. Making sure to tag the creator, I wrote an optimised caption that was fully searchable.
Both reels were posted after the sale had gone active, so included direct links, along with the sale code in the caption (which was removed when the sale ended).
Going live on Instagram
All in all, the live interview with a representative of the brand had contained three different steps.
As the host/interviewer, I wrote a range of questions that I knew my clients audience would have about the brand. This would include questions about their background, the formulas, and which hair types each range of products would suit. I sent these questions off to the brand, so that they could sign off on them and prepare answers.
Step one
I wrote an introduction for the live so that it would welcome in the clients audience and hype them up before the interview. This included a little information about the brand we were going to be chatting with, and a few personable anecdotes - I didn’t want the audience to be bored afterall.
Step two
Then there was the live itself. While we had a couple of technical issues in the beginning (it took a while for the brand to be able to join), but they were quickly ironed out. As the host, I led the conversation, leaving space for authentic conversation, and opened the chat to questions from the live audience in case there were questions I had missed
Step three
Project Metrics
The following graph indicates the metrics that my client had the week before this campaign went live, and the metrics that my client had at the end of the week of the campaign.
FAQs
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The skills I used in this project include:
Organisation & management
Teamwork
Project planning
Campaign development
Content creation & development
Presenting
Social media & community management -
If I were to undergo this project again, I would have clipped the chat for additional content. I would have also showcased the products in use, and launched the sale a little earlier.
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There were three components to the content that I used across this campaign.
First: I wanted to highlight the arrival of the brand. This was done with product shots that featured a ribbon that had my clients logo.
Second: It was important to align with the collaborator, so I asked for images that they were happy for us to use throughout this campaign. To best showcase their products, I chose to use modelled images.
Third: Consistency with messaging and imagery was vital, so I made sure to maintain my clients branding across all content. Furthermore, I chose to use the same model throughout all promotional stories, reinventing the way in which they were presented on a day to day basis.