The driving idea behind Nature Made's Instagram strategy was to redefine its presence by answering the question, "Why follow us?" The overarching goal was to amass 45,300 total followers, including 8,000 net new followers, and elevate the engagement rate to 0.30% by year-end. To achieve this, the approach involved a strategic shift focusing on making health accessible and enjoyable.
The core mission centered on conveying that "health" doesn't have to be daunting; it can be both accessible and enjoyable. NatureMade aimed to inspire followers to find joy in prioritizing their health, emphasizing simplicity and accessibility. Recognizing the saturated health and wellness content landscape, the strategy embraced NatureMade's unique position as the #1 Pharmacist Recommended brand with over fifty years of science-backed insights.
The content strategy was structured around three pillars: simplifying wellness with practical tips, injecting positivity with "feel-good" content, and fostering authenticity by putting a human face to the NatureMade brand. This approach aimed not only to achieve numerical objectives but also to cultivate a community grounded in simplicity, joy, and genuine care. By combining practical health advice with a positive and authentic brand persona, NatureMade sought to stand out in a crowded market and create a meaningful connection with its audience.
In reimagining our approach on social media, we aimed to go beyond the typical vitamin brand content. Recognizing that our audience cared about health and wellness, we reframed our account as a comprehensive wellness space. Our key formula for success involved creating engaging organic content, fostering community, and strategically using paid support, all based on insights from a social media audit.
Our content strategy underwent a significant transformation by diversifying content types. We incorporated trending recipes and practical wellness tips, moving away from the monotony of typical product images. Creating owned Instagram Reels and sourcing high-quality user-generated content, we positioned NatureMade as a trusted companion in the health and wellness landscape.
To increase engagement, we focused on trending topics and ingredients like pumpkin pie hummus and the viral frozen fruit trend. Additionally, we tapped into prevailing health trends, such as #GutHealth, incorporating healthy mocktails and innovative ways to integrate our products, like gut-friendly yogurt bark, expanding our recipe videos from two to four per week.
Embracing responsive content creation, we integrated our brand into viral moments, like the girl dinner trend, infusing them with the NatureMade flair. Feel-good videos, such as prairie dog yoga, became a weekly feature, aligning with NatureMade’s mantra to help foster the carefree enjoyment of life.
Authenticity became a priority with NatureMade's ‘playground’ content, offering a glimpse behind the scenes of the brand. The challenge arose in tying diverse content back to health and wellness, a task we accomplished by incorporating insightful health information into every post, regardless of the topic.
Once our organic content gained momentum, we implemented a "zero inbox theory" community management strategy, ensuring every comment, question, or tag received a timely response within our brand voice and tone. This transformed our community into an engaged platform for meaningful discourse.
Only after content met our organic engagement rate benchmark of 0.30% was it supported with paid ‘boosting’ via our Integrated Agency Team partner, which further leveraged our success.
Over the last six months, our feed evolved from a vitamin-centric approach to a hub for nutrition, enjoyment, and education. NatureMade is now positioned as a reliable source of joy, recipes, and insights into maintaining a healthy lifestyle. The transformation from a typical vitamin brand to a virtual wellness companion has reshaped the brand image, making NatureMade an integral part of our followers' journey toward a healthier life.
Our team's efforts unequivocally met and surpassed our objectives in elevating NatureMade’s Instagram presence. Initially aiming for 45,000 Instagram followers by year-end, we achieved an impressive milestone of 60,000 by the end of 2023. This success can be attributed to our strategic focus and our proven formula for growth: create engaging content, foster community, and then strategically use paid support to leverage organic efforts.
Our commitment to content excellence was validated by surpassing the benchmark of a 0.30% organic Engagement Rate/Followers for high-performing posts. Notably, an exceptional 68% of our posts over the past six months exceeded this benchmark, showcasing our team's agility in discerning effective content strategies. Our posts, overall, have maintained an outstanding average engagement rate of 0.96%.
A comparative analysis of metrics from the current period to the same timeframe last year underscores the effectiveness of our strategies. We observed a remarkable 46.5% increase in followers, a staggering 244.8% surge in engagements, and an impressive 347.1% rise in video views. These metrics not only validate our surpassing of the follower growth target but also highlight substantial improvements in engagement and content effectiveness. In essence, our Instagram presence has exhibited a positive trajectory, solidifying our efforts as an unmitigated success.