I recently read this article on econsultancy about Lego’s social media strategy and what makes it so great. The problem with this however is that Lego is a huge profitable brand with bags of budget; something many of the organisations I work with simply don’t have. So what can we learn from Lego’s great strategy if we don’t have their budgets? What lessons can I pass on to the charities and smaller organisations I work with and teach my readers?

Engage with your audience

Back in 2012 Lego just weren’t doing this. They had great digital marketing across other areas, but their social media platforms were infrequently updated and felt disconnected from the rest of their marketing.

In 2014 this has all changed. They now regularly monitor and respond on their social feeds, engaging directly with the people that love and buy their products.

Even without large budgets, organisations can act on this but often this doesn’t happen because people don’t realise the value that engagement has.

So what is that value? Creating advocates for your organisation! This can be as simple as thanking someone for tweeting nice things about you. Engagement is key to building trust with your audience and building online relationships. This in turn can lead your audience to doing the things you want them to do, be it signing up for an event or putting their hand in their pocket.

It’s the message that matters

Lego only recently joined Vine and started experimenting with Instagram video. Yet the content they’ve produced so far has been received with great praise (take a look at this fantastic example).

Granted, there were likely big budgets behind this video but the same impact can be achieved with almost no budget at all. This is because it’s the story that is being told that is the crucial factor in creating a successful piece of content like this.

An example of a charity doing this is The Dogs Trust. They create regular Vines which are very simple but also incredibly powerful because they have a clear message.

Don’t be afraid of quality

Social media has thrown a big spanner in the works for many organisations because it’s a huge move away from what’s been done historically. By that I mean, no more getting sign off from the top on every piece of content (think: #nomakeupselfie or the #tubestrike hijack).

This quicker, more fast-paced content creation is often much more lo-fi than has previously been acceptable in the world of marketing. Lego held off creating video content like this and stuck with their high quality, big budget content. Yet lower quality content is incredibly charming which is why it’s so popular (like this user created piece of content featuring Lego).

Share your supports’ content

Time and resource are usually something smaller organisations and charities lack, which means creating unique, exciting content can be tough. But just like Lego, there’s a good chance your audience are creating strong, engaging content themselves which they’d be over the moon if you shared.

I particularly love it when charities get inventive and do this, and sometimes it can even result in staggering results like the #shakeformike campaign. The campaign was initially started by a woman determined to find a stem cell donor for her fiancé who needed a transplant within 60 days. Anthony Nolan shared and helped promote this. In the end, not only did the young chap find a donor but Anthony Nolan received 7k sign ups to become a donor – a 650% increase. All this from a piece of supporter content.

So there you have it – you might not have lego sized budgets, but there’s no reason why smaller organisations can’t make real impact on social media.

What do you think? What do you like about Lego’s social media campaign? What smaller organisations have you seen demonstrating this? I’d love to know.

P.S How great is the Oscar selfie replica that Lego did?!