On the right-hand side of the Facebook page – in the ‘timeline’ – the brand cleverly takes the reader back to 1790 when the company was founded, then on to the 1800s, 1900s and so on. In other words, it uses mini-stories to tell its overall brand story, but produces it in such a way so people can discover it in their own time.
The brand is more active on Twitter than most companies (it has tweeted more than 5500 times and boasts 14,000+ followers). Extending to another social network, 124,000 people have placed King Arthur in their Google+ ‘circles’ while on YouTube, the company’s 70+ educational and storytelling-based videos have had more than 700,000 views.
King Arthur Flour also publishes a glossy hard-copy bimonthly newsletter (which it sells) as well as an award-winning cookbook series.
And to cap everything off, King Arthur features on its website a forum-based community area where consumers and B2B customers can ask questions, share recipes and start discussions around baking and running a bakery business.
Does all this mean King Arthur Flour doesn’t promote its products?
Not at all, but the brand is adept at earning the attention of its customers and adding value to their lives in interesting, relevant and respectful ways. This way, its ‘sales pitch’ can be deliberately low-key and still be effective because consumers have already bought into the brand and its story.
This is marketing today: telling authentic stories with passion and enthusiasm. It educates customers by creating relevant and meaty content and distributing it across different media formats.
Connecting with the marketplace and building a sense of community via multiple social networking platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Google+.
And finally, understanding that it’s not all about online communication and that face-to-face and event-based activity is the, ahem, icing on the marketing cake.
Trevor Young is a communications strategist and adviser specialising in ‘content-driven social PR’.
