COLLABORATION: THE KEY TO SOCIAL MEDIA REACH
JUNE 23RD, 2022 | SOCIAL MEDIA, MARKETING, TRENDS
Of course, if you’re a large company with audiences that reach back decades (slice of Apple, anyone?) engagement looks pretty straightforward. But what about the rest of us?
Collaboration. No, we’re not talking about million dollar celebrity and athlete endorsements—that’s still Apple’s realm. We’re looking at our small to mid-sized neighbours, emerging artists, and new entrepreneurs struggling for brand awareness in an ocean of online logos. The great news is that even the Big Three have started looking at how they can support small-scale profiles getting their name out through collaboration.
We took a dive into the waters and found three emerging opportunities that just might work for you and your growing company.
These days you’re hard-pressed to find someone who doesn’t use either Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter (a.k.a. “the Big Three”).
Despite the enormous audience, companies, communities, and influencers have a lot of competition when it comes to capturing the attention of prospective customers. Moreover, the Big Three are constantly updating the user experience. Content creators need to be aware of the latest features so their strategies respond to the changing ways users interact with these platforms.
3 Collaborative Tools
Instagram: Instagram Collabs
In late 2021, Instagram unveiled a new feature called “Instagram Collabs.” This tool is accessible to all accounts and allows users to collaborate on a post or reel. The published content gains more exposure as it appears in the feeds of two Instagram profiles rather than just one.
A local example was Sport Calgary’s collaborative post with Chinook Blast, Calgary’s new winter festival. Sport Calgary filmed a reel of Chinook Blast’s activities during the festival’s opening weekend. After Chinook Blast’s Instagram account accepted their request for a collaborative post, the reel appeared on the feeds of both accounts, gaining a higher level of views and engagement compared to non-collaborative posts.
Alt text: A screenshot of a collaborative post with Sport Calgary and Chinook Blast. The photo is a group of skaters in Olympic Plaza.
Facebook: Collaborative Ads
Facebook’s Collaborative Ads work similarly to Instagram’s Collaborative Posts. Here, brands and retailers can partner up to streamline and optimise their promotions. From Facebook's website, “these ads allow brands to run performance marketing campaigns for their products, and in turn, these ads direct traffic to a retailer partner’s website, mobile app or store to complete the purchase.”
Both local brands and retailers benefit from this new tool due to cross exposure. Consider if one of Calgary's niche festivals opened a line of merchandise with a local retailer. With the use of Collaborative Ads, the festival could measure the effectiveness of its merchandise promotions and the retailer would, in turn, receive increased traffic.
Twitter: Twitter Spaces
Twitter Spaces is a relatively new tool that allows users to host live audio-only conversations on, well, Twitter. With this tool, any user can host and invite others to join and comment. It’s like a quick and easy podcast. The audio-only makes it on-the-go friendly because you don’t have to worry about blurring backgrounds or that bit of salad in your teeth.
Twitter Spaces is collaborative and provides brands and creators with a unique method of engagement. For the Chinook Blast festival, we had an enlightening discussion with our curator, Cowboy Smithx, on new media and the upcoming diverse programming that Chinook Blast had planned. The following recording was then available to the followers of Chinook Blast and Cowboy Smithx
Final Thoughts
Many creators think that it is necessary to purchase sponsored content in order to get their brand/company/festival out there. We’re not saying it’s a bad idea, but we recognize that a lot of people don’t have big budgets for this when they’re starting out. Consider using the collaborative tools that are already available on the Big Three social media platforms. Along with a bit of creative thinking, this can go a long way in increasing your profile’s reach and organic engagement.
On that note, curious to collaborate?