Brands don’t have the power they once did on social media.

TikTok, and even Instagram, with its we-can-do-that-too Reels format, have turned once passive social users into active participants with a loud voice and engaged following — the type of stuff brands dream of.  

This shift has reaffirmed social media’s de facto power couple, ‘authenticity’ and ‘native’, and helped consumers become even wiser to brand ads. Thumbs have never scrolled past campaigns faster.

It begs the question... how do brands compete?

The answer: don’t compete—join in.

Reintroducing “Always-In” social media

Know this: consumers prefer to pull information from trusted sources (friends, family, influencers, etc.) versus having it pushed on them by brands. To succeed, brands need to find a balance between “always-on” social media and the underappreciated “always-in” social media.  

You’re probably familiar with “always-on” social — it’s that consistent drumbeat of brand-leaning content that you publish on your owned social channels.  

Well, “always-in” social is something you might do already, too —which is all about community engagement and comment section interactions that present themselves through social listening.  

Think about the last time you saw a brand you love jump in at precisely the right moment on a trending piece of content — with a comment or reply so good, it didn't even feel remotely like an ad.  

That’s “always-in” social.  

In it to win it.

Marketing Week recently partnered with TikTok in an article that tackled this conversation, and these three sound bites really stood out to me:

• “It’s about building trust through real connections, rather than this unhealthy obsession in our industry of grabbing attention through distraction tactics. You need to deliver entertaining content that people actually want to see, rather than advertising that they try to block out.” - Charlotte Parkes, TikTok Marketing Solutions
• “Community engagement can give brands a competitive advantage: it drives trust as well as brand performance. This is a step-change in brand communications. Being ‘always-in’ allows brands to be active, responsive and actually useful.” - Mark Lynch, head of marketing at Peugeot UK
• “A one-size-fits-all approach lacks meaningful participation in the conversations that really matter, where modern brands grow: within communities.” - CDuane Holland, TikTok Marketing Solutions Strategist

So, how can your brand adopt a modern social approach? It’s through being proactive, it’s by turning a moment into many, and it’s through third-party credibility, AKA, influencers.

Being proactive

It’s about listening.  

Here at BAM, we listen with Sprout Social, which allows us to identify conversations that live within our clients’ target audiences. These conversations reveal themes, patterns and insights, which we turn into actionable next steps.  

These next steps often take form in real-time social content that provides a consumer with value-added content. Nothing gets a consumer’s attention like a post that feels like it was designed specifically for them, and we consistently see this content performing 3x better than traditional, always-on content.

One moment into many

There might be one other attention-grabbing tactic that has the same impact — and that’s turning consumer comments into content.  

We work with our clients to build content that drives connections. Sure, a comment is nice, but a conversation is magic.  

The secret to that magic is a community engagement lead who cares — and careiosity is in our DNA here at BAM. They ask questions, they share their own experience and they have the consumer feeling like they’re talking to another person. A real person.  

People connect with people. If you’re a brand and you're not allowing your community engagement lead to leave a little bit of themselves in their interactions, you’re missing out on building moments that lead to advocacy.

Calling all influencers

Speaking of advocacy, that’s exactly what influencers build their empires on. And here at BAM, we believe in baking influencers directly into strategies.  

That often looks like co-authored Instagram posts that directly connect their audience with your brand. Then you sprinkle in a bit of the previous thinking, and let your community engagement team build relationships through conversation.  

We’ll also identify potential influencer partners and monitor their content and comments, looking for narratives that we can join in on. This helps us build stronger relationships with them when we do finally partner, and it allows us to craft content that we know a similar type of audience is already engaging with.

Push versus pull

A lot of brands push and push their messaging on consumers.  

They’d benefit a lot from taking a quick break to actually listen.  

At BAM Strategy, we help our clients understand the conversations their consumers are having — because once that happens, we actually help them join in.  

Why scream something from the rooftop when you can knock on their door, shake their hand, and have a real conversation?