Building a Social Media Presence That Connects and Grows: How We Transformed a Brand’s Online Community

Feb 18

Social media can be a powerful tool for building a loyal audience—but only if it truly reflects what your brand stands for. When this client came to us, their social presence was falling short in many areas: low engagement, declining followers, and a lack of emotional connection. Here’s how we turned things around.

Understanding the Challenge

The Problem
When the client approached us, they were dealing with:

Low engagement and declining followers across their social media.
Content that lacked emotion and storytelling.
A graphic-heavy Instagram that didn’t resonate with their audience.
No TikTok presence, missing out on a younger audience.
Pinterest was outdated, without video content or content aligned to search trends.

The Solution

Creating a Strategy That Truly Resonates
We focused on building a strategy that would help the brand connect with their audience on a deeper level. The goal was to make content that felt authentic, approachable, and aligned with the brand's values. Here's how we did it:

Instagram:

Behind the Scenes (BTS): We highlighted the craftsmanship and the daily operations behind the products to humanize the brand.
How-To Tutorials: We shared practical, engaging tutorials on how to use and gift their products.
Fair Trade Storytelling: Showcased the brand's commitment to fair trade, appealing to conscious consumers.
Customer POV: We featured user-generated content to build community trust and showcase real experiences.

TikTok:

Focused on BTS, How-To tutorials, and Customer POV to create short, fun, and engaging content that captured attention in a relaxed, trend-driven format.

Pinterest:

Created content around BTS, How-To tutorials, and Seasonal Collections to inspire and drive traffic, while matching user search interests.

To ensure smooth and consistent content flow, we provided detailed weekly and monthly shot lists that guided the creative team, ensuring all visuals stayed aligned with the brand’s message.

The Process

We started with a comprehensive social media audit, analyzing existing platforms to pinpoint strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities.

Reviewed content performance, audience engagement, and branding consistency across Instagram, TikTok, and Pinterest.
Benchmarked against competitors to identify best practices.
Used insights to create a tailored strategy for each platform, ensuring the content felt authentic and aligned with their mission.

Additionally, we implemented a targeted paid media strategy on Meta to increase reach, awareness, and conversions. We focused on audience segmentation to reach those most likely to engage with their brand, like fair trade shoppers and gift buyers.

The Results

The results were clear:

📈 TikTok followers grew by an impressive 102%, significantly strengthening the community's presence on the platform.
📈 Cleaned up fake Instagram followers and achieved 1.1M organic impressions, enhancing authenticity and engagement.
📈 An average 4.81% engagement rate on Instagram Reels demonstrated highly engaging and shareable content.
📈 Pinterest drove 83k outbound clicks, thanks to visually appealing, seasonal content tailored to user search trends.
📈 Paid campaigns delivered 4.2M impressions, while the ROAS improved from 2.25 the previous year to 3.0 across Meta platforms.

This data highlights the power of a well-executed, multi-platform strategy that fosters genuine connections and delivers measurable growth.

As the client shared:

"Authentic is a pleasure to work with. They are collaborative and enthusiastic about our brand and mission while bringing so many new and inventive ideas to the table. They were instrumental in launching our TikTok Shop, boosting our ROAS on Meta, and increasing outbound clicks from Pinterest. Plus, they even cleaned up ghost followers on Instagram!"

The Takeaway

Strategy Matters
Having a clear, focused strategy for each platform ensures content resonates and is impactful.
Authenticity Builds Trust
Creating emotional connections with your audience makes your brand more relatable and engaging.
Consistency Is Key
Regular posting, strong visuals, and clear messaging help maintain an active presence that builds brand loyalty.

Transforming Social Media Into a Powerful Community

This case is a perfect example of how a strategic, authentic approach to social media can turn a struggling page into a thriving community. By focusing on their audience’s needs and telling stories that resonated, we helped this client build a stronger presence and drive real business results.

What’s your next step to connect with your audience in a meaningful way?

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