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Each month here at IDG Advertising, we spotlight one company that we believe has an enviable social media game. Social media has quickly become one of the most important components of a good advertising strategy, and some brands have identified how to speak to their demographic and bring in new customers at a level that few others have yet to achieve. Bud Light, with its strong branding and playful tone, is one such company.
What is Bud Light?
Bud Light is a type of light beer brewed by Anheuser-Busch under the Budweiser brand. It was first introduced in 1982 as an answer to Miller’s 1975 Miller Lite, and it saw immediate popularity around the country. Today, it is the #1 selling beer in the United States, and it’s enjoyed by millions of Americans every day. There have been several variations of Bud Light, such as Bud Light Lime and Bud Light Platinum, but the original is still one of the best selling beers in the world.
How did we discover Bud Light?
The Bud Light brand has always been familiar, but we discovered their strong social presence thanks to their iconic marketing campaigns, like the famous Bud Knight. Collaborating with major artists like Post Malone and culture icons like Game of Thrones has restored their brand relevance and drawn all eyes to their marketing department in recent years.
How well does Bud Light know their audience?
When you’re the number one beer brand in America, your audience is inevitably large and extremely varied. However, Bud Light does an exceptional job at creating a feed that is both curated yet appeals to the masses. It targets the younger demographic, with playful captions, obvious social awareness, and plenty of photos of active twenty-somethings enjoying the product. However, they never push the edgy nature of their content too far, opting for innocently playful content that is unlikely to offend followers of any age or demographic.
What can you take from Bud Light?
With hundreds of thousands of social media followers and one of the best selling beverages in the world, Bud Light is a marketing powerhouse. Here are a few things Bud Light does well that you can utilize to strengthen your social media strategy going forward.
- Utilize what makes you different. Bud Light has most recently seen success with its transparent ingredient list campaign. Bud Light, unlike many other competitors, does not use corn syrup in its beer. They created a campaign based around this fact in order to set themselves apart from the competition. However, this new campaign isn’t all about preaching health; they’ve also found a way to make it fun and playful. Their Twitter regularly posts pictures of mock-up ingredient labels for things such as “fireworks” or “leaving work at 2pm” with clever ingredients and serving sizes that the reader can relate to. Find what makes you different from (and better than) your competitors, and utilize this to its fullest across your social media. Creating a clever marketing campaign based around it is a great way to organically engage your followers while clearly establishing your product’s superiority in the marketplace.
- Hit them over the head with branding. When it comes to branding, subtlety is not the way to go. Make your branding prominent and constant throughout your social media, whether that’s through logos, signature colors, or product placement. Bud Light is a great example of this, as every single post on their Instagram includes either their logo or their product somewhere in the shot. Many of their posts prominently feature their signature blue color as well, so there’s no doubt when you see a Bud Light photo that it is a Bud Light photo. Familiarizing users with your branding will result in an increase in sales, so don’t be afraid to prominently feature your product in all of your social media content.
- Target the lifestyle you want to market to. Find your target audience and create content that specifically caters to them. Does your target customer lead an active lifestyle? Post content of your product being enjoyed by athletes. Is your product enjoyed by partiers and concertgoers? Post photos of your target demographic using your product in those scenarios. If your product is most likely to be purchased by middle-aged suburban moms, don’t primarily create content featuring partying 20-somethings. Spend time identifying your target demographic – the more specific it is, the better – and utilize this when creating content.
Identifying your target market is always the first step in creating a successful marketing plan. But how do you curate your content to cater to tens of millions of Americans from all walks of life? Bud Light has managed to achieve this balance of careful curation and mass appeal through expert social media strategy and brilliant content creation. Taking a page out of Bud Light’s social branding playbook is guaranteed to help you boost your social media game, even if you’re not the best selling beer brand in the country.
Stay tuned every month for another social shoutout. Is there a company you think excels at social content? Let us know, and you may see them featured here next month!
