Our customers most respond to videos that highlight great skill or talent from people who use our products. They respond to things that wow them and make them laugh.
The best for brand messages
He’s found YouTube videos are the best way to share the braaap message that motocross is a fun and accessible sport for the whole family. “YouTube really gets people pumped. They can see what we do and how to use braaap products. It gives our brand emotion and attitude – and it’s a great way to communicate.”
Now with more than 1400 subscribers, braaaponline has videos for entertainment and also how-to videos for braaap university, the brand’s learn to ride program. Its most popular upload on YouTube has been watched more than 155,600 times to date.
Smith reckons that particular video has clocked up the views because it shows the brand’s raw personality. “Our customers most respond to videos that highlight great skill or talent from people who use our products. They respond to things that wow them and make them laugh.”
Facebook is also important. Braaap’s main page has more than 19,700 ‘likes’ and its own content schedule. “We have photo day, meme day, so we don’t post the same type of post over and over again. We do five contribution posts of something cool and funny – a meme or a photo, to one sales post – a 30 per cent off offer,” says Smith.
Follow your customers
Braaap’s social media strategy is to be wherever the customer is, so as more of braaap’s customers start using Instagram, the more Smith tries to feed their interest. After posting offers and memes on Instagram, he noticed customers were less likely to share ’grams with their friends, so the team has come up with a new strategy to build interactions.
The new plan is to share customer stories to show off the braaap lifestyle – an idea modelled off weight-loss programs and their transformation stories shown through before and after shots.
Smith is also trialling paid advertising and has spent about $200 so far on cost-per-click advertising on Facebook, Facebook offers and YouTube video ads. But although ‘likes’ and general engagement is up, Smith says he’s yet to see a noticeable sales return.
“I’m not sure if we’ve put in enough effort to try and make paid advertising on social media work. It hasn’t worked for us yet, but it’s an education and I think they will.”
His advice is to measure what content works best on social media, then tweak what you’re putting up based on customer engagement.
“The greatest lesson I’ve learned is that most people chuck in 500 bucks for a week of advertising and see how it goes at the end of the week. We measure it by the hour. If it’s working you can tell straight away. Between 6-8pm, Tuesday to Thursday are the best days for us. If we’re going to test, we’ll test it then.”
Braaap's social diary
- One tweet per day
- One or two Facebook uploads per day
- One or two Instagram posts per day
- One or two YouTube videos per month
