BBB has a long history of consumer protection and involvement in the community, but often that's not enough to keep a brand alive or relevant. The purpose of taking an older brand like BBB to Vine was to use a new platform that would push an older brand to be more innovative and creative. Eventually, this innovation and creativity would generate relevance and educate younger demographics on the free tools available to them through the Better Business Bureau. There were no measurable goals for this initiative.
Our strategy was simple. Whether we were promoting our Online Accredited Business Directory or our new Scam Tracker tool, we made sure that users would first enjoy our content. We did this by following trending topics, Vine memes, and our creativity to come up with engaging content to draw people to our services.
We often tried to sync up our content with current events and pop culture. Months like October we filmed horror movie-themed Vines aimed at informing people about scary scams and spooky unethical companies.
Led by our marketing team and media specialist, we created all content in house using employees as actors. None of our marketing budget went into the creation of our Vine content. Content was created at almost no cost, except work hours.
Our work was unique because we took a dry brand and tried to bring it to life for a new generation. Ee were the only BBB in the entire system of 113 locations that was implementing this Vine initiative. Now, there are several BBBs around the country trying their hand at Vine.
Although our numbers are small, we've tripled our Vine follower count from 33 to 100 in a year. We also nearly tripled our Vine loops in 2015 from 16,949 to 41,409. These numbers are meek compared to large firms, but these are significant for a nonprofit like us.
