Taking social media lessons from America’s fastest growing companies

7 minute read

Inc has recently released its annual list of the fastest growing companies in America. The top 10 spots are filled with everyone from digital advertising companies to food brands.

So, what is it that these businesses are doing so right?

Freestar, the company at the number one spot, suggests that the ability to not be phased by mistakes has played a key role in its success.

The owner of LadyBoss – number four on Inc’s list – says passion and teamwork contributed to her company’s accomplishments.

In reading about these companies, the tsoHost blog team couldn’t help but notice that more than one of them are on their A game when it comes to social media marketing, too.

In this article, we’ll reveal some of the ways these world-leading companies are succeeding on social.

They use mirroring

Research suggests that when brands use the same level of vocabulary and similar words as their customers, they achieve higher levels of brand loyalty, which in turn leads to sales and recommendations.

The marketing company Nom has perfected speaking to its audience in a peer to peer way. On the company’s Facebook feed, you’ll find sentences such as ‘We made this fancy video so that our parents can finally stop asking us what we do at NOM’ and ‘As #Drake would say, started from the bottom, now we here!’.

They communicate shared values

In one study 64 per cent of consumers said they were more likely to trust a company and want to have a brand relationship with the business if they felt like they shared values with that organisation.

In turn, Price Waterhouse Cooper has found that consumers are more like to buy from a company if they trust it.

Chomps, a meat snack company from Inc’s list, fills its Facebook feed with shared values. It did its consumer research first, finding that 80 per cent of its customers were female. Then it built its social media content around empowering women, dispelling myths about women’s weaknesses, and basically championing women as superheroes.

Many use humour

Psychological studies have revealed that the use of humour in messaging can help improve the viewer’s memory of the content of that message.

Cece’s Veggie Co. – the business in Inc’s number three slot – has perfected the use of humour in its social media communications.

Firstly, it uses amusing plays on words. For example, a recent Facebook post on the benefits of green vegetables was headed up ‘Broccstar’, while a post about a taco recipe began with the words ‘Let’s taco-bout Southwestern Chicken Tacos’.

Secondly, Cece’s’ posts funny images such as a cartoon on National Avocado Day called Avocado Toast, which showed an avocado clinking a glass of Champagne with a broccoli and a sweet potato.

Of course, the use of humour in social media marketing isn’t going to work for everyone. A will-writing company, for example, is not going to benefit from making jokes.

They invest in imagery

Countless studies indicate how powerful images can be on social media. For example, tweets with images have been shown to receive 150 per cent more retweets that tweets that just contain words alone.

Plus, Facebook posts with images have been found to garner 2.3 times more engagement than those without graphics.

Nutpods, the plant-based creamer company that sits at 13 in Inc’s list invests serious time in creating its social media visuals.

It makes its images stand out even further from the crowd by regularly using cinemographs – these are still images that feature a slight and repeated animation, such as an unravelling bow on a still life present.

They use social proof

In case you’ve never heard of social proof before, it’s a psychological phenomenon that means people are often likely to assume that the actions of others are the correct behaviours to follow and mimic.

The phenomenon is hardwired into humans and can be traced back to the times when conformity was essential to the survival of early human tribes.

Today, social proof impacts people’s shopping decisions. Studies have repeatedly shown that social proofs like social community recommendations and testimonials can significantly influence a consumer’s decision to buy a product.

Bear Mattress, the company at Inc’s number seven spot, excels at featuring social proof on its website.

It regularly features posts that show quoted recommendations from elite sportspeople like American Ninja Warrior Travis Brewer and J.T. Realmuto, catcher for the Philadelphia Phillies baseball team.

Their quotes often mention how a good night’s sleep on a Bear Mattress helps them recharge for a day of physical activity.

Skinny Dipped Almonds also uses social proof. The snack brand often features images of influencers enjoying their product on their feeds. Plus, the company screenshots reviews and positive comments from satisfied customers and reshares them on their social sites.

Most allow you behind the scenes

Many of the companies on Inc’s list including Nom, Chomps and Nutpods use their social media channels to give customers an insight into what goes on behind the scenes of their companies.

Nom, for example, recently showed its employees in the photobooth at an awards ceremony for start-up of the year, celebrating at another awards ceremony, and sitting studiously at their desks at a creativity awayday.

Displaying company culture and camaraderie on social media is a key part of storytelling, a technique which has been shown to boost engagement and sales.

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