In a previous article of mine here on Social Media Today, I made it abundantly clear that I'm a farm boy who went and got himself a fancy city boy job. With that grower's mentality firmly in mind, I came across a hilarious series of videos that show the glamour of being a farmer.
Well, actually, they show the inanity of being a farmer, but in a way that will make anyone laugh. I bring you Nature's Care Organic Soil's exceptional YouTube content campaign - and their dismal social media marketing campaign.
What is Nature's Care Organic Soil's YouTube campaign?
Get ready for the best commercials about dirt that you've ever seen! Nature's Care show that great video content marketing is possible for any brand in any industry. You can't help but laugh at how boring and sincere this is:
How perfectly cheeky. And I'm not embarrassed at all to say that in the past, I've stood around a field having conversations just like that with farmers. We like to talk slow and low, if you follow my drift.
For more videos, stop by the parent company's channel, Miracle-Gro, and be fascinated by how good that dirt is!
What I like about Nature's Care Organic Soil's YouTube campaign
The joy of this ad series is how simple it is: two guys and a pile of dirt. They have a simple script, but they interpret it so perfectly. Seriously, I want these two actors to get more work or an award or something. Without their perfectly subtle performances, this would have fallen apart.
Nature's Care are also sure to carry this theme over to their website. Check out this above-the-fold shot of the video on their homepage:
Clicking on that image takes you directly to the video page on YouTube. This can help those who find them via their website to grow an attachment to their brand. Anyone who makes dirt and wants to entertain me like that is ok in my book.
Unfortunately, the videos only have less than 3000 views at best. Why that is will be explained below.
What I don't like about Nature's Care Organic Soil's YouTube campaign
This video content marketing campaign falls apart for many reasons. First among them is how little work they've put into pushing these videos over social media at all. Take a look at every tweet that has been sent by the Nature's Care Twitter account:
Two. One has the video embedded in it, the other has a half-hearted comic with the characters from the video. Their poor build up to the video's release, the absence of any sort of promotion on any social channel, and their lack of a hashtag has crippled this content campaign. I so badly want it to be a winner, but it never will be with this strategy.
But okay, that's a strike out on Twitter marketing and hashtags. Their Facebook strategy is making up for it, right? Well...what Facebook strategy? They don't even have a Facebook Page.
All they have besides two tweets is a depressing Pinterest page with five pins*, and an equally sad Instagram page with one picture. Why would you even have these live? There's nothing but disappointment for fans with these empty accounts. They'd be better off building them up more and not taking them live than having next to no content on them.
Now you may have read closely up above and seen where I mentioned that the parent company is Miracle-Gro. Did they help advertise the product they're selling? You can take a look on their Twitter account, but I'll tell you the answer is no. If that's not enough, give their Facebook account a look over. Nothing.
They're sitting on great content and not using it anywhere near its potential. What I would have done is this:
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Start using the Twitter account before the launch of the video.
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Start using a hashtag like #gooddirt that encourages gardeners and farmers to talk about their growing experiences, plans for what they're going to grow, and anything else related to their gardens.
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Push all of this out over the Facebook account of Miracle-Gro. Why wouldn't they want to have fun talking about dirt with their fans? The longer I write this, the angrier I'm getting with their marketing team.
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Before uploading the video, write a better description and encourage commenting on gardening.
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Push, push, push each video when it's released. Use the hashtag, ask for shares, and ask for comments.
Nature's Care had the hard part taken care of - they had great video content. All they had to do was push it on social media, use their accounts seriously, and maybe we'd all be talking about good dirt already!
*Update: They added three new images after I wrote this. I hope they keep building, but I stand by my comment that it was better blank than that empty.
Content Marketing Minds is an exclusive Social Media Today column written by Matthew Yeoman every other Wednesday.