Whether you’re a marketer or an individual looking to create your wedding invitations, you’ve probably heard of the intelligent visual communication platform: Canva. From ideation to templates to publishing, Canva is the online tool many of us use to bring our design ideas to life with little or no design experience.
Additionally, Canva is a brand that is fantastic at putting its tools and ideas in the hands of users in creative and strategic ways using social media.
Shameless Plug: I suggest taking a moment and listening to Jacky Barker’s episode on our Social Pros Podcast for the insights she shared in: How community, creativity and culture are driving Canva’s social networks
Jackie Barker, Canvas Social Lead shared with us what makes Canva so successful and popular with its followers. As Socal Pros moderators Anna Hrach and Daniel Lemin pointed out, Canva has such a passionate social fanbase of Canva lovers. So how can your brand create the same energy and moments as Canva? We address a few key takeaways.
Be on top of conversations
Canva aims to be at the forefront of online social conversations from the start.
Should you want to do the same? Of course, because you are able to increase:
- brand awareness
- customer retention
- reputation management
- Competitive advantage
To achieve this, you need to be very selective with your social media activities. Be on the cutting edge of connecting social insights and join the convo in the right places. When you educate your audience about what they are looking for and need, you gain a major competitive advantage.
How does Canva stay connected to social events? She lLook for cultural cues from the news and social platforms where they want to be a stakeholder. They dive into the daily news to keep up to date.
TikTok happens to be a big player as it dictates many cultural behaviors and trends. It’s a good idea to get several of your team members on board for this endeavor, as the For you page (FYP) is individually adapted to the person via the app. This gives you a better perspective and brings more ideas into the pot.
Most importantly, determine what your brand stands for and how you want it to be presented on social media. Where’s the right place to tap or share a voice? What suits your brand? Find those moments and make sure you have a perspective and an opinion to participate in this conversation.
The power of youth for social engagement
One of Canva’s greatest achievements has been the engagement of its social following.
If you haven’t heard Jay Baer’s coined term: “youthfulness“- It’s marketing that your customers actually want and value. It does this by providing useful information without a price tag. Canva offers educational resources like tutorials and webinars to help its customers use the platform effectively. Their social media team promotes these resources on social media and encourages customers to connect with them.
Canva offers a lot of youtility with its educational resources and guides. This has created an engaged social community, and fans have taken it a step further by sharing additional insider tips and tricks. Ah, the joy of authentic user-generated content!
Photo credit: YouTube
Don’t forget the value of 1-on-1 interactions
As marketers, it’s important that we don’t lose sight of the people we help. Canva has built a community of superfans by taking personal communication seriously. You can’t help but make people feel good and valued when you take the time to acknowledge them.
Canva provides personalized support and responds to comments and messages. This builds trust and increases overall customer satisfaction. They even went a step further by creating a graphic especially for a client or sending freebies. Imagine what that means for your customer and the chain effect it triggers. This gets people to share their experiences and keep supporting your brand online.
How do you create personalized one-on-one conversations with your followers? Click to tweet
The art of social connection
When building a social community, it’s important to ask yourself: Who do you want to connect with on social media to share your brand and content?
An important factor that Canva takes into account is that social channel. You can launch a paid campaign for the audiences you want to reach, but channel strategies should be carefully considered.
Check out who is on the channel you want to target for your social following. To increase brand awareness, you need to talk to people who are actually on those platforms so you can create useful and relevant content for them. It’s important that they want to share what you produce.
Let’s take a look at TikTok. First, remember that there are sub-niches in this community. Second, you need to decide what niche(s) you want to target there. In the case of Canva, they had to consider how to accommodate the workplace and the individual content creator. They understand that a person can become a fan and take it to their workplace, or vice versa, an agency can add it to their toolkit.
Just like Canva, you need to create different content for each of your audiences so you don’t miss their needs or future goals.
From a global level to a local level
To give your campaigns more specificity and impact, think local. Again, by addressing specific needs, you can build the passionate social community you aspire to.
Canva focuses on understanding the cultural nuances and business messages of each local market. They conduct thorough research to determine the specific needs and desires of the target audience.
This information is then packaged into a comprehensive approach that is shared with their teams. They even go so far as to outline the do’s and don’ts from their brand perspective and clarify their values ​​to create clear guidelines for their teams.
Because they value incorporating local cultural insights into social content, they are able to quickly scale their local efforts.
In addition, they use platforms like Pinterest that serve as visual search engines. By analyzing trending topics and search behavior, they are able to tailor their content strategy to align with what their users are actively searching for.
Your social fan base awaits you
Canva is about inspiring and informing its engaged audience with thoughtful, researched content. Being visually interesting is not a prerequisite for using social media effectively. When you focus on providing valuable and educational content that resonates with your social community, you gain big. Make it a priority to actively listen to your users’ feedback and preferences, and incorporate their desires and interests into both your product development and content strategy. By listening to the needs of your community and aligning your social strategy accordingly, you foster stronger connections between your brand and its customers.
Listen to the Social Pros episode with Jacky Barker.
Learn more about what Convince and Convert social media marketing consulting services have to offer..
