Social Media Marketing: Why Patagonia is in a League of its Own
Social media has become the number one marketing platform for a variety of different brands. As consumers are spending an increasing amount of time on social media, brands have become committed to discovering new and creative ways to reach their online audiences. When it comes to social media marketing, Patagonia is in a league of its own. The brand continues to successfully utilize their platform in a way that communicates their values to their customers, participates in social justice movements, and provides followers with a wide variety of creative content.
As social justice advocacy becomes increasingly important to young consumers, many brands have come to understand the value in showing their support in the fight for equality. As someone who cares deeply about social justice issues, I put a lot of thought into which brands I purchase from. However, while I think that it is great to see different brands participating in social justice advocacy, I become very turned off when I feel as though a brand is being performative or exploitative of justice movements in their advertising methods.
So, what’s the difference between performative activism, and genuine activism and how can brands show more of a commitment to supporting social justice movements? In order to understand the difference between a brand that is truly committed to fighting for equality, and a brand that is performative, let’s compare Patagonia’s social media content to the content of another popular outdoor sports brand, Columbia. When looking at Columbia’s Instagram, rarely did I find activist related content. However, during the incident of George Floyd’s death, Columbia released a simple statement about their “support” for the fight against racial injustice. Of course, once the momentum had passed, the company no longer vocalized their support for social justice initiatives. In contrast to Columbia’s actions, Patagonia’s Instagram content made me feel confident in believing that they are genuine when it comes to their activism. What’s unique about Patagonia’s social media strategy is that the majority of the company’s content revolves around important causes such as environmental activism, Indigenous rights, animal rights, etc. I was especially pleased to see this post from Patagonia, which promoted their election day initiative which involves giving their employees a paid day off of work, in order to encourage them to go and vote in the U.S. election. After coming across the post, I took a look at the comments section to get a general sense of their followers’ reactions. The response to this post was extremely positive and some of the comments include: “Patagonia is amazing” and “This is why we buy Patagonia!”
Another reason that I admire Patagonia’s social media strategy is because their page continues to provide followers with a large variety of creative content. When looking at sportswear companies like Columbia, something I noticed was that a majority of their social media content focuses on self-promotion. While brand promotion is an essential component of social media marketing, it can also become boring and repetitive. As a frequent social media user, I begin to lose interest in a brand’s account when their content is overly promotional and will most likely hit the unfollow button. This is because when using social media, I feel as though I am constantly being bombarded with advertisements. Therefore, if I can reduce the number of ads I consume each day, I will. Patagonia on the other hand provides its followers with content that revolves around community building and storytelling. This post is one of my personal favorites, as it effectively communicates Patagonia’s values, such as unity and perseverance. As well, the post provides followers with a story about the snowboarding/skiing experience. When it comes to visual content, Patagonia uses a variety of creative mediums such as videos, motion graphics, still graphics and photographs. The video and photo content posted by Patagonia mostly involve aesthetically pleasing outdoor visuals, which works well with Patagonia’s theme as an outdoor sports gear brand.
While Patagonia has certainly caught my attention as a consumer and social media user, there are improvements that can be made. As I mentioned previously, Patagonia’s ability to create social media content that focuses on topics beyond its promotion, effectively communicates the message to its followers that it is more than just a sportswear brand. However, with that being said, I do believe that the company would benefit from increasing their product promotion content on their platforms. This is because those who have not heard of Patagonia before might be confused as to what the company actually is when viewing their Instagram page. While their Facebook account communicates that they are a clothing brand in the page description, their Instagram account does not. Therefore, because Patagonia’s Instagram content mostly revolves around activism, new followers might confuse the clothing brand with being an activist page. While posting more brand/product related content would help to resolve this issue, it would also be beneficial for Patagonia to add a description of their company in their Instagram bio.
