We talk a lot about how to master your B2B marketing. But we don’t always get to talk about how we help our clients master theirs. Today, we’re sharing the story of how we helped Happy Money reimagine their social presence, increase their reach by millions, and create a stronger community online. (Oh, and we’re also sharing our best tips to help you do it too.)
The Client
Happy Money is a financial company that develops and delivers affordable, accessible financial tools and services that empower people to use money as a tool for happiness. (Fun fact: Before they approached us, a C5er had already used their tools to pay off a loan, so we knew their brand was legit.)
The Challenge
Happy Money’s success relies on standing out from the competition, especially on social. They needed a partner who could quickly learn the brand, create unique social content, and scale their approach to content creation, so they asked our team to own their production process—and bring fresh ideas to help engage their growing community.
How We Tackled It
A successful social strategy is grounded in strong brand storytelling through consistent, quality content. But to do this well, you need the right planning and production capabilities.
To help Happy Money demonstrate their expertise and grow their audience, we started by building a monthly editorial calendar around key financial education and financial wellness topics. Of course, while thought leadership is crucial, the key to truly great social media is curating the right mix of interesting and engaging content within your expertise. For Happy Money, we determined that a mix of financial best practices, educational tidbits, and fun and humorous pieces would deliver the most value and put the brand’s personality front and center. We wanted to position the brand as a friendly and helpful financial resource that felt fun and relatable—distinctly different than the competition.
But to bring this content to life, we needed to refine Happy Money’s brand guidelines and establish a cohesive visual language that would grab attention (aka stop the scroll) and resonate with the right audience.
Inspired by the brand name, we worked to infuse a sense of joy and excitement into the visual branding via bold, bright colors. (These colors are not only eye-catching but also differentiate Happy Money from other fintech brands, who tend to use more “buttoned up” colors.) We also introduced more playful typography and illustration, allowing for more flexibility in design while still providing a sense of cohesion. With these guidelines established, we could create content that tells their brand story and preserves the brand’s integrity.
Next, we established a consistent publishing cadence to help Happy Money create a steady stream of engaging, on-brand content. Then, we worked to optimize their production process—and scale production. Over the course of several months, we worked in sprints to meet the right volume, producing a variety of dynamic content formats, including static and video, to create a rich, healthy grid. (Having never experimented with video before, the brand now has multiple animated video series, including If Your CC Could Text and Dr. Dunn Budget Tips.)
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One of the biggest keys to success was shifting from a two-week production calendar to a monthly calendar. This allows for thoughtful brainstorming far ahead of time (at least two months out) and allows us to build in accurate timelines to accommodate the variety of content being produced (e.g., static and video content). With this well-oiled machine, we have drastically increased the volume of content created, successfully filling Happy Money’s feed with highly engaging content that keeps the brand top of mind.
The Results
This approach has transformed Happy Money’s social presence from reactive to proactive, allowing them to create a holistic content ecosystem that’s richer (thanks to the addition of new formats like video), provides more value to their audience, and successfully hits key metrics.
Best of all, this approach generated impressive in the first month, including:
- 96% growth in IG impressions
- 6.9 million impressions on Facebook
- 19% increase in Twitter engagements
And over the last few months, we have continued to see ongoing improvements, including:
- 54% increase in impressions on Instagram; 15% increase on Facebook
- 36% increase in engagement on Facebook; 10% increase on Instagram
Beyond these stellar results, we’re especially grateful that the Happy Money team trusted us to take the wheel and overhaul their production process one piece of content at a time. We do our best work with a happy, collaborative partner—and Happy Money made us, well, very happy.
The Takeaways
So how can you replicate Happy Money’s success? It all comes down to strategic planning.
- Focus on the right channels. You don’t have to be everything to everyone. It’s always better to focus on a few channels that are most relevant, then expand from there. If you’re not sure where to start, here are a few tips to narrow your social focus.
- Create a strong editorial calendar. Consistency is the key to building relationships with your audience on social. Choose a manageable cadence, then—you guessed it—scale from there. Use our free editorial calendar if you’re ready to start planning your schedule.
- Optimize your production process. We’re no strangers to the challenge of content creation, but we also know what small and big things can derail a project at any stage. See our tips to improve your production process to work more efficiently.
Most importantly, choose the right partner if you need support in bringing your social strategy to life. See our tips to find the right agency for you, or hit us up. We’d love to help you have your own Happy Money moment.
