With the rise of social media, brands have an alternative to traditional advertising: social media advertising. A brand that has used social media advertising particularly well is Build-A-Bear Workshop, while still engaging in traditional advertising.

Paid integration, or advertising, is any paid-for effort that helps spread a brand’s message to potential customers. For Build-A-Bear, their message is “the stuff you love,” which means they offer personalized bears that customers will love. Paid advertising usually includes things like TV commercials and social media ads.

At the same time, there is organic integration or advertising, which are free efforts, such as social media posts, that aim to build trust and engagement with potential customers. For example, a video posted on Instagram shows a new bear.

Not only do you still see commercials for Build-A-Bear on television, but they have a very strong social media presence on Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok. In tandem with its usual paid advertising, Build-A-Bear also runs organic campaigns by posting videos on its social media to draw viewers’ attention. Videos include everything from real customers building bears to silly videos featuring the bears. Though just making content isn’t enough to hold customers’ attention.

In the current state of social media advertising, brands compete for consumers’ attention, which is a finite resource (Yakob, 2022). This makes certain strategies more successful than others. Successful strategies require creative content that holds the viewer’s attention, as well as data-driven targeting that ensures the brand’s message reaches the right audience. A brand can ensure its organic advertising reaches the right audience by analyzing its social media metrics to see what is working and what is not.

According to the Marketing Campaign Playbook, a successful marketing campaign must start with a clearly defined goal. By analyzing Build-A-Bear’s Instagram metrics, I identified the metrics they prioritized in their social media strategy.

Using the Insta Track App, I found that Build-A-Bear’s Instagram page has a weekly engagement rate of 3.05%, 806,150 followers, an average of 4,852 likes, an average of 55 comments, and an average of 5 posts per week. The metrics they seem to prioritize are followers and likes, as they are their highest. This shows that these were the times when they successfully held their audience’s attention.

From their data, it seems they have more engagement when they increase the number of weekly posts above their average. For example, during the week of January 16th, they made 6 posts and reached their highest weekly engagement rate of 4.56%.

A possible improvement for Build-A-Bear’s social media strategy is increasing the number of weekly posts. This would drive up engagement and help to bring more followers to the account.

While engagement does not guarantee that those who engage with the content will buy the product, it at least puts it in potential customers’ minds, so that next time they are at the mall, they may stop in to Build-A-Bear.

REFERENCES:

Blanchard, O. (2011). Chapter 1: Creating the Social Company. In Social Media ROI: Managing and Measuring Social Media Efforts in Your Organization (pp. 3–11). essay, Que.

Thony, S. L. (2024). Chapter 1: The Digital Marketing Landscape. In The Marketing Campaign Playbook: A Step-by-Step Guide for Entrepreneurs, Marketers & Small Business Owners. essay, STK MTK Entertainment.

Yakob, F. (2022). Introduction. In Paid Attention: Innovative Advertising for a Digital World (2nd ed., pp. 2–10). essay.