INCREASING
BRAND AWARENESS
BACKGROUND & CHALLENGE
HICA Swimwear is committed to providing affordable, high quality, and sustainable swimwear that celebrates women empowerment and body positivity.
As a yet relatively new entrant into the swimwear market, the challenge was to increase public awareness of the HICA brand, specifically via social media marketing.
RESEARCH
The research objective was to better understand what factors lead to greater reach and engagement on social media platforms, and in turn develop a strategy for improving overall brand awareness.
Initial Insights & Defining the Scope
Preliminary analyses of HICA’s Shopify data suggested that most new customers were learning of HICA through Instagram. Specifically, these analyses revealed that – apart from website traffic and sales resulting from those directly accessing the HICA website or finding the website via a search engine – most of HICA’s website traffic and sales could be attributed to Instagram, as opposed to other third-party platforms like Facebook.
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Therefore, the current research focused primarily on identifying ways to increase brand awareness via social media marketing on Instagram.
Content Analyses & Instagram Analytics
I conducted content analyses of HICA’s previous social media marketing efforts and analyzed Instagram data to investigate which factors contribute to greater reach, engagement, and ultimately purchases.
Sample Insights
When examining marketing posts that featured only the products, compared against posts that featured a person wearing the products, there was a notable difference in the level of reach and engagement each type of post generated.
Unsurprisingly, I found that posts featuring a person wearing the products generated greater engagement than posts featuring only the products. What was less intuitive was the finding that these posts featuring a person were also more likely to reach Instagram users in the first place when compared with posts featuring only the products.
Market Trends & Competitive Analyses
I also researched broader market trends in the swimwear industry and conducted competitive analyses to identify commonalities and differences in competitors’ marketing campaigns.
A/B Testing
Lastly, I conducted pilot tests to further verify the insights discovered and to investigate the validity of the recommendations developed. It is worth noting that these were informal studies with smaller sample sizes given resource constraints. Where feasible, I would recommend conducting A/B tests with larger sample sizes in order to be able to draw more reliable conclusions. Nonetheless, these pilot tests provided additional support for what types of social media marketing efforts would generate greater reach and engagement.
RECOMMENDATIONS
Based on the insights and trends identified, I developed various recommendations. These included solutions as simple as making greater use of video content (i.e., Instagram reels), hashtags, and location tags to increase reach. They also included more dynamic solutions like featuring real customers and involving consumers in the company journey in order to increase engagement, brand loyalty, and in turn the likelihood of customers recommending HICA to others.
Sample Deliverable
IMPACT
Upon implementing the recommendations, we found on average:
28.20%
increase in reach
19.77%
increase in engagement