Twitter – Brand Nurturer

Since it exploded onto the social media scene back in 2006, Twitter has evolved into an invaluable haven for brand growth. Every day brands of all sizes and industries express a charming interest in areas their followers can identify and engage with, often leading and partaking in whimsical conversation, ranging from the trivial and humorous, to causing a competitive stir with rival brands (AKA trolling), to declaring their support towards topics society deems important.

There are plenty of brands exhibiting these brand-builiding traits on a daily basis and they’re only getting better with each passing tweet. They’ve taken note of the internet’s widespread meme culture, applying it to posts that speak directly to those who understand; the millennial youth and younger. They tailor their content to those who frequent social media in their day-to-day lives; those who understand the meme language and might just happen upon a funny, familiar brand with a clever message – just funny enough to make them think, ‘Hey, this brand DOES have a personality. Maybe they aren’t the big, looming corporation filled with suit-sporting, money-sucking vampires I thought they were. Plus they have fantastic memes and make me chuckle. Lovely’.

So they earn themselves a shiny new follower, who they’ll soon repay for the favour with all-new smart, consistent and relatable content – all of which amounts to low-cost advertising for them and a positive association with the brand for the audience. The brand now resides in the feeds of their followers, and with 326 million Twitter-heads logging in each month, that doesn’t seem like a bad place to be, especially when you consider the engagement options for their followers. Retweets, likes and replies all hold extraordinary value for the brand, due to the extended visibility it gives them. If the content is worth a retweet, your brand just reached your followers’ circle of followers, who may have never heard of you, but now have the chance to get involved and in the long run, consider your brand when it comes to making a purchase.

Now, obviously there are plenty of brands that don’t fit this mould. It would seem highly unnatural and perhaps a little ‘try-hard’ if a bank or your local council’s Twitter page started jabbing at competitors to give their followers a quick laugh. Not all brands lend themselves to meme culture or chatty banter and can’t simply throw away decades of hard-built brand personality for a shot at the Twitter ‘big time’.

So, without further ado, here’s 5 fun brands that have been demonstrating incredible personality, extremely relatable and engaging content and straight-up social media talent across the Twitterverse:

Wendy’s are annihilating the competition with their overwhelming confidence and downright irreverent sass. With 3.2M followers, only a mere 400,000 behind the infamous golden arches of McDonald’s, Wendy’s are true kings (queens?) of social media strategy. In between advertising their current promotions, returning fan favourites and fast food memes, Wendy’s indulge in an array of hot topics. Calling for fan involvement in their homemade creations on recently released video game, Super Mario Maker 2, for example, is a genius way of advertising their brand in a highly-engaging way – Twitter being the platform of choice to relay the message. Super Mario Maker 2 is a game in which every level is user-generated, so Wendy’s saw this as an opportunity to create a ‘Super Wendy’s World’ and tweet the level codes, so their fans can join them in playing, compete to hold the high score and lap up advertising for the price of a video game. They’ve even extended as far as live streaming on Twitch.tv. What a time to be alive. Amongst all of this, Wendy’s have truly found their voice and it comes in the form of ‘roasting’ their competitors. The internet loves memes. They also love a brutal roasting of a multimillion dollar fast food rival. Bring those things together and you have a recipe for incredible levels of user engagement.

Innocent Drinks are like that good friend you text whilst watching your favourite TV show, merrily tweeting along in real time and having a genuine laugh about it. This approachability and very human feel has been proven to work and generates a lot of engagement from their followers. As a British brand, they tweet very Britishly indeed, nodding towards other brands us Brits can relate to, with sarcasm and wit. Their social media team are very much office workers, which they incorporate into their tweets, asking fellow Twitterers opinions on the office issues we all face at some time in our lives like, is it okay to eat a jacket potato with tuna at your desk at 9:30 in the morning? This approachability is very on brand and it makes for a very entertaining, and well-engaged with, Twitter feed.

We all know KFC. 11 herbs and spices and finger lickin’ chicken. What you may not know if you don’t follow them on Twitter is that the’ve also expanded into video games, Pez dispensers, clothing accessories, clothing accessories for dogs, popular YouTube channels and an enormous amount of places a fried chicken brand has no business being involved in. And that’s exactly why it works. With witty banter and wacky product advertising brimming with personality on their feed, it’s no surprise KFC generates huge amounts of audience engagement. They not only know who their audience are and where they live, but they know exactly how to reach them. Also, fun fact. They follow 11 accounts. 6 people named Herb and each member of the Spice Girls. Okay KFC, you win.

Now you might be asking yourself, ‘What the hell is a crispy boy?’. That would be the unofficial name of the immensely popular beer brand, Bud Light, named as such by a their largely vocal community of avid beer drinkers. Bud Light have caught onto the meme and ran with it very, very far. In between joining in on the meme fun, advertising their product and expressing their love for the NHL, they call on their audience to engage in polls. Their followers are happy to oblige to these polls because they aren’t begging for legitimate feedback on their product like the stale ways of old, which means they’re doing it exactly right. Everything they do on Twitter relates in one way or another to a meme and if it doesn’t, it will more than likely become a meme eventually. Bud Light is another winner in the meme game and has made it very clear that they are not to be ignored with their ability to speak to their audience and keep them highly engaged and very loyal.

Now you might be asking yourself, ‘What the hell is a crispy boy?’. That would be the unofficial name of the immensely popular beer brand, Bud Light, named as such by a their largely vocal community of avid beer drinkers. Bud Light have caught onto the meme and ran with it very, very far. In between joining in on the meme fun, advertising their product and expressing their love for the NHL, they call on their audience to engage in polls. Their followers are happy to oblige to these polls because they aren’t begging for legitimate feedback on their product like the stale ways of old, which means they’re doing it exactly right. Everything they do on Twitter relates in one way or another to a meme and if it doesn’t, it will more than likely become a meme eventually. Bud Light is another winner in the meme game and has made it very clear that they are not to be ignored with their ability to speak to their audience and keep them highly engaged and very loyal.