What These Viral Bengals Posts Can Teach You About Social Media Marketing
It is no secret that the Cincinnati Bengals dominate the football world this season, both on and off the field. While their recent popularity can be attributed to an impeccable lineup that includes star quarterback Joe Burrow and legendary kicker Evan McPherson, you have to credit the marketing team for their fandom explosion. Taking the meaning of “WHO DEY” to a whole new level, the Bengals have not been afraid to hype up their fans on social media and make a name for “Wincinnati.” Below are some of the top posts we’ve found leading up to the big game, and some surprising ways you can apply their success to your own business:
- Using Twitter to connect with your audience and create a language of your own
If you had not been following football this season, you might look at this post and have no idea what it means, but that is precisely the beauty of it. As the old saying goes, “If you’re selling to everyone, you’re selling to no one.” This season, the Cincinnati Bengals have mastered the art of creating their own language and making fans feel like they are a part of something special. You can see that coming to life in this tweet with the play on words of star Quarterback Joe Burrow’s nickname.
If you try to create your own unique language with your audience, you might be surprised to find that you don’t have to be an NFL sports team to make it work. It all comes down to having a personal brand that your audience can relate to and get excited about. Once you establish this, you might find yourself being more authentic on your social media accounts and attracting an audience that genuinely feels passionate about your business.
- Using Instagram to humanize your team and create cohesion between your platforms
When you visit the Instagram page for the Cincinnati Bengals, you might notice a series of unique, playful spotlights on each of the players. By drawing attention to the personality of their players, they are humanizing them to their fans. Connecting with your target audience is one of the most critical aspects of digital marketing, so those “spotlight posts” should certainly be noted. Still, the Bengals have taken a different angle with the post above. On a basic level, the post is taking advantage of the popularity of Instagram video. A video on Instagram generates more than double the amount of comments that a standard photo would, according to the Instagram Engagement Report published on Mention. This is why it is so important to diversify the types of content you expose your audience to, being sure to include both photo and video.
If you listen to the video, you will hear that the “Mic’d Up” series gives fans access to what the players are saying in their most intense moments on the field. This takes humanizing the players a step further than a typical photo would and lets the fans put themselves in the players’ shoes. There is also a golden piece of wisdom to be found in the caption of this video. As you can see, the Bengals kept their caption short and sweet, while still managing to draw attention to another one of their platforms. Creating content that is cohesive and can be explored across multiple platforms will allow you to reach a wider audience, cater to their content preferences, and establish widespread credibility. The concept of spreading your content across platforms and leading your audience to each can be accomplished with any business, not just an NFL football team.
- Expanding Facebook audiences through paid partnerships and ad targeting
One of the best parts about Facebook for business is the opportunity it brings to target a specific audience and to use paid partnerships to expand that audience. As you can see above, the Bengals have partnered with “On Location,” the only source for official tickets to the game. Partnerships like this are mutually beneficial because both pages get to expose the post to each other’s audiences. To top it all off, the team has invested in quality photography and editing, which increases the likelihood that fans will share the post and reach an even wider audience.
If you do not want to do a paid partnership or do not feel it is appropriate for your business, there are plenty of ways you can use Facebook’s targeting capabilities to your advantage. For starters, simply tagging your business in a specific location like the Bengals have done here can expand your potential for engagement in that area. When it comes to Facebook ad targeting, if carried out effectively, it will increase your conversion rate and lower the cost per conversion. Even though Facebook will organically show your posts and ads to those who are likely to find it relevant, you also have the option to “boost” them to a specific demographic and gain a bit of extra traction. You can choose to engage with new audiences based on criteria like age and interests, get in touch with those who have engaged with your business previously, and reach new audiences that are similar to your best customers.
Facebook is unique in the sense that it offers so many customization options to help businesses reach their target demographic, but all the popular social media platforms can be used to get your audience excited about your business, which the Cincinnati Bengals have demonstrated this season.
For more advice on how to use social media and other digital marketing platforms to grow your business and expand your audience, feel free to reach out to the team at Scorpion.
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