Facebook did a study in 2012 to determine what type of content drives engagement on its brand pages. From the study:
“We examined four weeks of Page posts, across 23 brands and six industries and divided the posts into three types of content:
Messages about the product or service
- Travel brand example: Our new resort just opened! Book your trip today.
Messages related to the brand
- Travel brand example: I decided to go on my first cruise because______.
Messages unrelated to the brand
- Travel brand example: Hang in there everybody. Monday will be over before we know it!
Posts on topics related to the brand, but not specifically about the product or service, were the sole universally significant predictor of all types of engagement.”
The study also clarified that brand content related to the brand but not ABOUT the brand was the top driver of Shares, Likes and Comments for these brands.
Does this surprise you? It shouldn’t, people will engage with content that taps into the Bigger Idea behind a product or service. Nike figured this out 30 years ago with the iconic slogan Just Do It. It’s not about the shoes, it’s about what you do while WEARING the shoes. If you want to create more engaging content and marketing, think less about promoting yourself, and more about promoting the themes/beliefs/lifestyle that ties into your brand. Think about why people buy your product and how they use it. Create content that’s customer-centric instead of product-centric.
For example, check out this commercial from Nike. Nike’s content and marketing taps into the Bigger Idea about its products. The product itself is secondary to who its customers are, and why they buy its product. This COMMERCIAL has been viewed over 4 Million times.
What is Nike selling with this commercial?
https://youtu.be/KSPJkauND68
