It’s a Southern Thing is a lifestyle brand that serves up relatable humor, inspirational people, and fascinating stories that show the South as the culturally rich, diverse, down-home place it really is. Southerners often see themselves misrepresented in popular culture, and our goal is to change that. We bring people together with positive, funny, relatable content. That authenticity is what makes us different and what has helped us grow a social media following of more than 4.5 million across Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok and Twitter. Our core audience lives in the South, but our content has national and even international reach that includes people who are originally from the South and miss home and people who aren’t connected to the South but simply enjoy our relatable, family-friendly content.
Our fans continue to be at the core of everything we do. We listen to their feedback and ideas, and think of them first as we build new ideas.
Like so many others, our strategy shifted in 2020. As we worked through the COVID pandemic, our two main audience goals were to:
- Help connect people through highly engaging content and interactive experiences.
- Give people content to help brighten their days, through laughter and inspiration.
With our Facebook audience in mind, our team mined social media for inspirational stories throughout the South. Our video team shifted their production schedule to launch timely and relatable sketches. While people were sheltering in place, we produced daily Facebook live videos to engage the audience and help them feel connected, including trivia, scavenger hunts and game shows. We also launched videos that were focused on inspiration and human connection, including experimenting with ways to connect strangers via video chat.
We continued to utilize Facebook's shopping tools to promote our merchandise and as well as Facebook's monetization tools to drive revenue.
In 2020, we added nearly 500,000 new Facebook followers (from 2.97 million to 3.47), had 271 million Facebook video views and increased our watch time by 147% compared to the previous year. We also received overwhelmingly positive feedback from our followers for helping to lift their spirits during such a difficult time.
