The Power of Social Media – Weetabix and Beans!?


March 2, 2021 BY Chloe Read - Get free updates of new posts HERE

It’s no secret that social media presence nowadays can have a phenomenal impact on a company. In the last few years especially, there have been numerous start-up companies that have grown their business purely using the power of social media to gain sales and improve their customer retention.

But just how powerful is it? And should you have a presence?

At the start of 2020 Facebook had 2.6 billion monthly active users, Instagram had 1 billion, Twitter had 68 million, Pinterest had 332 million, and TikTok, founded only in September 2016, now has a whopping 800 million users.

So, it’s plain to see how the use of social media can open up an audience in a way that postal, phone calls and perhaps even email now cannot – but just because the users are there, doesn’t mean that they’re so easy to reach.

 

The most recent and bizarre viral social media triumph was a simple tweet from Weetabix

By sharing a controversial image of their most well-known product, the classic Weetabix topped with Heinz baked beans, Weetabix opened up a social media storm. This incited responses from brands such as Specsavers, Tesco, the NHS, KFC, Nando’s, Superdrug, Papa John’s; the list goes on!

This response was noted by individuals and news sources alike, gaining coverage from the likes of Sky News and BBC amongst others. But further gaining coverage from the public with ‘blind reactions’ from TikTok users to the hysterical social media conversation thread that followed the tweet.

With just one tweet, Weetabix gained 106.5K retweets, 134.1K likes and 22.3K comments (and rising).

To put things into perspective their average tweet seems to gain no more than 500 likes, 50 retweets and 50 comments. In their likes alone that’s a percentage increase of 26720% – for one tweet.

The follow up tweet however, from the same day using Innocent Smoothie as a partner gained only 612 retweets, 5.4k likes and 361 comments. A huge decrease, showing just how fickle and unpredictable that social media limelight can be.

Further success stories include collaborations, for example clothing brand InTheStyle, who frequently collaborate with TV reality stars turned influencers on collections such as Dani Dyer, Emily Atack, Jacqueline Jossa and more. Another example is a paid partnership option like that of Hello Fresh with influencers such as Giovanna Fletcher and Rosie Ramsay using affiliate referrals – the list of brand partnerships goes on and on. Depending on the age and lifestyle demographic of the influencer, there are several partnership success stories to note, though none quite as quirky as Weetabix and Heinz’s not so little hurrah.

 

The likelihood of small businesses reaching these heights on social media is quite slim, but that’s not to say it’s impossible. You could utilise influencers or posting in appropriate groups to further your brand reach, often through affiliate marketing! Or simply fall a little lucky with who you get an interaction out of. Either can really help boost your following. And whilst it may not be in the same volumes that Weetabix achieved (fluke or not), the method of partnering up can prove to be very effective indeed.

So, as a business, should you have social accounts? The best thing you can do for your social presence is put a knowledgeable individual at the helm and monitor your performance stats as you would with an affiliate campaign – and keep at it! It’s a marathon, not a sprint. Though nothing looks more unprofessional than a social media account that hasn’t been used since 2017 – if you don’t have the time to keep it up to date, you may be better not having it!

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Written by Chloe Read
Publisher Manager