Everyone online has different ways they like to interact with social media, so being a little bit of something to everyone with different avenues of media can be a helpful piece of advice to maximize coverage while still adding value to a consumer’s day with your content.
“You need to make sure that you are becoming attractive to your demographic,” said Dave Cicotte.
The Director of Marketing for Batch Brewing, Cicotte spoke at the 2024 Michigan Brewers Guild annual conference in a session and explained how the Detroit brewery has looked to create that value to consumers outside of just promoting the brewery online.
“It’s extremely important to develop a strong relatable and consistent brand voice,” Cicotte said. “We’re consistent with our beer. You have to approach the marketing and branding site the same exact way. If you’re not consistent, people get very confused and who you are or who you think you are if you don’t stay true to that brand.”
So Cicotte broke down what the brewery does with what he explained as the 40/40/20 rule.
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Diverse media is crucial for effective communication. As a former high school English teacher, Cicotte stressed the importance of catering to different learning styles. So, to engage your audience effectively, it’s not enough to rely solely on images or links. People learn through audio, video, images, and articles. He said a well-rounded media strategy is essential to reach a broader audience and accommodate various learning preferences.
“You need a good balance of content to add value to your followers feeds. Nobody’s going to want to follow or engage with any content that you’re doing if you’re not adding value,” he said. “Not everything is going to add value to everyone else. But if you’re adding value to something or somebody else, no matter what that size group is, then you’re doing alright.”
Using these three ideas across multiple platforms can be a benefit. It also means understanding that not everything is about just your brand when it comes to organic content creation.
The first 40% is about your brand
“It’s your accolades, news articles, things you have going on in the taproom and events, that’s the first 40% that you should focus on,” Cicotte said. “The second 40% is industry related.”
That first 40%, he explained as he showed a post about the hiring of a new employee at the company encapsulates something about the brewery, but he then showed how the brewery shared a post by fellow brewery Loaded Dice and the announcement of the opening of a new facility.
“There was not a collaboration,” Cicotte said. “It was not a request from Jef Smith from Loaded Dice for us to put this out there. It’s a part of what this strategy is. We take his content … and we say congratulations, and let everybody know, this is a very big thing for Michigan beer, our industry.
“Now we’re playing nice, it’s not about us all the time. It’s about our industry, the bigger our industry grows, the more light that’s shed on everybody else is great. It’s a good thing.”
The last 20%, after you have gained a consumer’s trust and loyalty, because you’ve added value to feed is the final part of the equation where you can sell your brand.
“Come into our tap room, buy our merchandise, spend your money at our place,” Cicotte said. “That way, it’s not just you always talking about yourself, you’re actually adding value by telling them about the industry, you’re telling them about other places that they can go and spend their money. And they don’t see you as selfish and just money-hungry. It’s very important.
“We talk about the community and we’re always great with each other, we have each other’s backs. They see us congratulating each other. That’s a great thing to have. There aren’t too many industries that will do that or are willing to sacrifice their content to make sure everybody knows about what the heck’s going on at somebody else’s place.”
Even in promoting a new beer, Cicotte said that syntax can place something from your 20% pot into your first 40%.
“If you’re telling them this is a new release, I would probably go underneath 40%, he said. “Now if you’re like hey, come in and get this,’ that’s different, right. That’s it’s all syntax at that point.”
A hidden benefit of sharing other people’s posts or even mentioning them is that you’re showing up in their feed and the eyes of new consumers as well.
“I think when you’re sharing other people’s stuff, you’re actually showing up and the other breweries fans’ feeds, or whoever visits them,” Cicotte said. “They start to see who you are as well. So it works on so many different ways. And it’s just so unselfish and people like to see that stuff.”
Photo courtesy Batch Brewing
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