Presenting to you: The World’s Most Versatile Camera! Now, I’m sure that most of you here are familiar with GoPro – either because you own one of these GoPro cameras or you’ve seen those wonderfully-shot photos and/or videos by GoPro cameras on your friends’ social media accounts or even on Instagram’s Explore page. That’s why I chose to focus my research on GoPro.

Introduction

With an astounding social media fan-base – over 9.5 million Facebook fans, 8.5 million Instagram followers, and over 4.2 million YouTube subscribers across 5 channels  (as of 10^th April 2016) – GoPro has been able to leverage on its cameras’ ability to create exciting visual content and on social media’s purpose of creating and sharing content to engage its consumers. Through this, GoPro has also been able to promote its brand as the world’s top action-camera brand and its products as high-quality and desirable. GoPro would not have been able to achieve such brand recognition and high-level consumer engagement if not for its active social media usage on platforms like Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram. Thus, I’ve identified GoPro’s goals in using the three social media platforms:

• Facebook – To reach out to new “content producers” and to expand its audience of potential customers
• Instagram – To inspire powerful and creative storytelling through photos and videos so as to show an aspirational lifestyle for all
• YouTube – To share and feature exciting content produced by GoPro and it fans as well as to sieve out unique and appealing videos from the immense pool of user-generated content on YouTube which in turn can be used for GoPro’s marketing, licensing, and communications strategies

Research Question

As such, I will aim to answer my research question as follows:

How successful are these social media platforms – Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube – in generating new content for users, in engaging consumers as social participants, and in promoting its brand name.

Data Collection

I’ve analysed how GoPro uses Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube. And due to GoPro’s prominent social media presence, I was able to track its social media performance till as far back as 2014 through secondary sources like SocialBlade and Trackalytics.

Analysis & Findings

After thorough research and analysis, I came up with the following social media strengths and weaknesses that GoPro has:

Strength 1: High Level of User-Engagement

Strength 2: Successful Generation of the Word-of-Mouth Effect

Strength 3: Uniquely Integrated Marketing Communications Strategy

Weakness 1: Inadequate Social Media Exposure for GoPro’s Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Efforts

Weakness 2: Lack of Content from Asian Users Published by GoPro

Recommendations  

Based on the prior analysis and findings, I’ve came up with the following recommendations:

• Increasing Online Exposure for GoPro’s CSR Efforts
• Hashtag + CSR Campaign Strategy: #GoProForACause
• Target Audience: GoPro fans who care for social causes
• Key Benefits: Creating a successful word-of-mouth effect even by people who do not use GoPro cameras + Greater exposure for GoPro’s content, products, and brand

• Creating More Diverse & Representative Content
• To create a more representative image of GoPro’s users by incorporating diversity into its content
• Target Audience: GoPro fans from Asia
• Key Benefits: Engage its Asian users on a much higher level + Increase brand exposure in Asian markets

Conclusion

GoPro has undoubtedly created waves on social media platforms all over the world and is evidently effective in generating new content for users, in engaging consumers as social participants, and in promoting its brand name through its Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube accounts. Hence answering the research question that this paper aimed to answer.

However, what is more important for GoPro now is how to maintain or even improve its current social media strategies so as to continue to create value for its business and brand. Therefore, the recommendations: (1) Increasing Online Exposure for GoPro’s CSR Efforts – #GoProForACause; and (2) Creating More Diverse and Representative Content aim to provide solutions to GoPro’s weaknesses in its social media strategies.

All in all, GoPro has been extremely successful in leveraging on social media to promote its brand and to create intrinsic value for its business. Going social with GoPro is definitely something all companies aim to emulate, as proven by the immense growth and success that social media has brought about for GoPro.

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Hope you enjoyed the read!

Cheers,

Shermae (G1)