[Brand Analysis] Zoom’s Marketing Strategy: Fan-Centric Content Is the Key to Having an Engaging Social Community
These days, we've seen online concerts, shows, movie nights, or whatever events people get inventive in creating have become a thing in every person's lifestyle.
And this is all possible thanks to products and brands like Zoom, which have allowed people from all around the globe to connect in a matter of seconds.
Enhancing the digitalization process for working and socializing was a striking need all the more given the pandemic.
Which is a service that, along with a well-defined unique selling proposition boosted Zoom among the world's most used products and trusted brands.
That's why in this brand analysis case study, we'll go over Zoom’s marketing strategy, to provide some growth tips for brands that seek to improve their social media results.
Let's dive in!
Everything about Zoom's marketing strategy and social media tactics
1. Get to know the brand identity behind Zoom
Most people may know Zoom thanks to its main product, which is the audio-video online meeting app.
But not so many know the brand for its personality and core values, which are very important since every marketing endeavor must be in line with them at the end of the day.
Not to be cheesy but for Zoom, the social communities created around the brand matter a lot, being its main source of inspiration for most social media posts and marketing initiatives.
The brand is constantly preoccupied with learning the customer's needs and questions that the creative team can turn into helpful social pieces of content.
If the brand were to state its core value, that would be - without a doubt - helpfulness, as Melissa Francois, global social media manager at Zoom, told us in an episode of Insider Insights podcast.
Nonetheless, the brand knows very well targeted audiences and understands that people want to have fun at the end of the day.
Zoom positions itself as a brand close to the people, cool and casual, showing its creative side through fun content that can effortlessly drive engagement.
To quote Melissa shortly, "having fun is the best strategy"!
2. Zoom's content strategy
As mentioned earlier, Zoom needs to know what its social communities are talking about, whether it's directly related to the brand.
To understand its customer's concerns and needs, Zoom is very consistent in social listening.
As Melissa pointed out, keeping an eye on the trends is crucial for every social media manager since something of interest today in the social sphere may not be equally important - or not at all - tomorrow.
Zoom also takes community management very seriously, as the questions people ask on social are the main source of inspiration for the content created.
Having a fan-centric strategy has helped Zoom create valuable content for its audiences.
For creating the educational content the brand is so proud of, Zoom has integrated a lot of videos into its social media strategy.
And given that the tips and tricks type of content is one of the consumer's favorites and that video is seen to get more and more boost in generating engagement, Zoom's social media strategy seems to be the perfect combo.
Proactivity is also important if you want to build a strong relationship with your social audiences, which Zoom knows very well.
That's why understanding the marketing potential, combined with the good timing of the opportunity, Zoom has launched its TikTok account during the pandemic.
As much as joining the trending platform of the moment represents a big challenge, the brand seems to be rocking at it.
Also, for such bold moves, to create a bulletproof marketing strategy aligned to the business's strategy, many things need to be set in place, which emphasizes the importance of good internal communication, just like Melissa highlighted.
But all in all, let's have a brief look at the key takeaways from Zoom's social media strategy:
- do social listening regularly - daily if possible
- keep an eye on the trends
- create helpful and educational content for your audiences
- use videos
TIP: always be ready for a calendar shift!
3. Zoom’s social media channels
With a recent launch on TikTok, Zoom seems to have approached a 360' strategy, being actively present on all the important social media platforms.
Of course, as any experienced brand understands, creating content for the sake of content will end up being no good for business, but just more unpractical, expensive and unworthy.
The key to succeeding in social media is understanding each platform's audiences, features, and potential and creating specific content.
Seeing how Zoom approaches content for each social media platform should be a good indicator of how a well-thought social media strategy looks like and a reliable source of inspiration for any brand that wants to boost its marketing strategy.
Zoom on TikTok
We know TikTok is the social media platform of the moment, and a lot of brands are trying to join this hot network to reach a new audience and grow their businesses.
But the tricky thing with joining TikTok is that, to be honest - it's not a social media platform for all brands. Because it is a platform that authenticity matters most than anything.
Even if Zoom successfully created a bulletproof TikTok strategy when launching its channel, there's still the neverending challenge create engaging and original content constantly.
@zoom When daylight saving time hits 😬 #zoom #fyp #daylightsavings
♬ lol im famous - Trixisye
Adapting to the fun vibe of the social platform, Zoom posts a lot of funny tips and tricks on how to use the platform, content aligned to their overall social strategy.
In most of Zoom's TikTok posts, we'll see consistency in the songs used or the characters presented so that it becomes easy to recognize the brand among all the content posted on the platform.
Zoom on Instagram
As it appears on Instagram as well, the brand has a video-first strategy, as it would be only natural for the kind of business associated with the brand.
Fully embracing Instagram's video features, the brand usually posts a mix of short videos and Reels.
Compared to TikTok, on Instagram, Zoom has taken a more "professional vibe," having a regular post theme called "Pro Tip".
In these short episodes, the brand sort of explains - or rather shows - some "technical" solutions for different problems Zoom users have expressed in having when using the app.
Zoom on Facebook
Since among all the social media platforms, Facebook is the best one at driving traffic to a website, on this social network, Zoom has created a tailored Facebook content strategy more into that direction.
If we have a short peek at the content, we'll see that on Facebook, Zoom posts a mix of short-form videos, GIFs, and articles aimed to get Facebook metrics aligned with the platform's engagement benchmarks.
Just like in TikTok's case, on Facebook as well, Zoom aims at keeping its brand identity very clear, in this case through the visuals - which are created using the brand's colors primarily, are easily associated with the business.
Zoom on Twitter
Compared to the other social media platforms, Zoom's Twitter is the account where the brand has gathered most of its fanbase, having more than one million followers.
Zoom's Twitter account also presents a mix of short-form videos, GIFs, and articles in terms of strategy.
But the creatives are the ones that really make a difference.
Zoom's Twitter profile has the vibe of a perfect blend between fun and professional.
Zoom harmoniously repurposes content posted on TikTok, Instagram, or Facebook on this social platform, creating unity.
As well as regarding the platform's direction, of having more sporadic posts, depending on their news' importance, the Twitter strategy adopted by Zoom offers diversity and a sort of "fresh air" for Twitter users.
4. Zoom’s social media campaigns
Virtual Background Contest
When it comes to Zoom's social media campaigns, the first name that's on everyone's lips is for sure "Virtual Background Contest", a viral initiative that has won over online users in a heartbeat.
This particular social media campaign was probably the brand's most successful one so far.
Launched at a time when the whole world was accommodating with a new lifestyle due to the pandemic, Zoom got creative and seized the opportunity to increase its brand awareness with this user-generated social media campaign.
What is great about UGC's social media campaigns is their effectiveness in terms of reduced costs and trust consolidation, which the brand gained fully through the campaign's concept.
The challenge addressed to the communities was to share a picture or video using Zoom's virtual background feature. Three winners were awarded branded items as prizes announced on social media every month.
The contest had a dedicated landing page but promoted it on all Zoom's social media accounts.
Zoomtopia
Zoomtopia is Zoom's annual user conference designed to celebrate Zoom's worldwide users and everyone who shares an interest in the future of communications.
It is an online event where the hosting brand - Zoom, needless to say, announces and talks about a series of new products, features, and partnerships designed to empower and engage the modern workforce.
With this year's edition hosting more than 33K attendees, the event was promoted on all the brand's social media accounts, a big focus being the platform with the biggest fanbase - which we already know by now it's Twitter.
Relying on its classical mix of videos, GIFs, and pictures, Zoom tweeted massively during the 2-day event.
The videos related to the event's promotion raised thousands of views, but the most impactful one was by far the one featuring Ellen DeGeneres, a tweet that raised 22.6K views on its own.
Relying on its classical mix of videos, GIFs, and pictures, Zoom tweeted massively during the 2-day event.
The videos related to the event's promotion raised thousands of views, but the most impactful one was by far the one featuring Ellen DeGeneres, a tweet that raised 22.6K views on its own.
Influencer’s campaigns
Spoiler alert! The analysis that follows is not the standard influencer collaboration examination.
Because we're not going to talk about social media campaigns on which Zoom collaborated directly with influencers, as happens most of the time.
This time we'll talk about those initiatives when influencers became brand ambassadors for Zoom through different projects they started, on which Zoom is somehow put in the backend but still gaining massive brand awareness.
For example, Chriselle Lim, a lifestyle Instagram influencer who has more than one million followers on the platform, has developed Bümo Parent, a coworking space with licensed childcare, with a large emphasis on community.
It takes place - your guess was probably right - over Zoom, and so helping the brand gain great exposure, vouching for its usefulness and trustworthiness.
And of course, this is one example of the many more that are out there, since nowadays Zoom has become pretty much "a part of the family" for many influencers and their dear ones.
5. Zoom’s social media data performance
Of course, evaluating your numbers in social media is important, but truth be told, without the right context, they don't really mean that much.
This brings us to the importance of conducting regular social media competitive analysis.
Let's take Zoom's case, for example.
By performing a cross-channel analysis, evaluating the brand's performance on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter, we discovered that despite having its predominant fanbase on Twitter, its best performing social media channel in terms of engagement is actually Instagram, while Twitter is the least engaging one.
But are these numbers enough to outperform its competitors?
Despite having the best engagement levels on Instagram, by comparing Zoom's performance with other brands in the software - video conferencing solutions, like Cisco or Webex, we discovered that on Instagram, Webex, for example, receives double the organic engagement on its Instagram posts.
Which only leaves a place for improvement for Zoom nonetheless.
Of course, there is also some bright news for Zoom if we take a look at the average engagement rates for Facebook, where the brand is the leader by far.
On Twitter as well, the number seems to be on Webex's side, even though Zoom has the biggest following on this social platform between the three brands.
But, what may also be a determinant of Webex's higher engagement rates may be the strategy of posting more often, as it seems it also has the greatest number of average tweets per day - 3.35 compared to Zoom, which is 3.16.
Final thoughts
Starting with the pandemic, Zoom's growth went straight and fast like a rocket. And of course, to the general growth strategy, the importance of a good social media strategy for such an expansion is added.
As Zoom's social media following keeps increasing, it becomes very clear that social media channels are excellent means to increase its brand awareness, ultimately getting those great growth numbers to an even higher level.