When it comes to social media marketing, I tend to watch the strategies of teenagers more than real estate social media gurus. The gurus are great at what they do, training agents and firms on how to run successful campaigns and build authentic audiences. But the kids are where innovation comes from.

This summer our 15-year-old daughter, Alexandra @sparkleslund had the opportunity to intern with Capezio, one of the most celebrated brands in the dance industry. Capezio has been supplying professional dancers with shoes and dancewear since 1887. They turn to the kids to get social media advice.

Be Creative

My proud papa may be showing here. I have been monitoring my daughter’s Instagram and other social media accounts for years. I also stay connected to her friends, some of whom have become quite famous on social media with more than 2 Million followers. During her summer internship at Capezio in NYC, @sparkleslund did a three-post campaign to promote a new shoe that drove more than 3x the engagement of other posts that Capezio does on Instagram. She uses one of the Capezio influencers, a creative tease, a post that reveals the creative tease, and a third post that promotes a YouTube video that features the product.

In this series, the posts are intended to engage people who love dance first and promote the product second. There is also cross promotion on an influencer’s channel and a website home page take over.

First Post – The Tease

In this post, she engages their 417k followers with a question –

“Can you guess whose beautiful feet these are in the new #PureKnit jazz shoes? Comment below & let us know who you think it is! REVEAL at 3PM [ET] ・・・Link to shop the shoe in bio #PureKnit.

There were 137 comments and over 10,000 likes. Capezio posts get between 2000 and 3000 likes on average – so this post was a high performer.” Notice the use of hashtags?

Second Post – The Reveal

In this second post, Capezio reveals who the dancer is. None other than the winner of the Teen Dancer of the Year, Tate McRae. Here is the cool part, Tate has over 600k on Instagram.

She is one of the best dancers in the world and a great human too. This post racked up another 5000 likes. Again, about twice the normal engagement on Capezio’s Instagram posts. The post also got 12 comments, about twice the average Capezio post.

The caption for the post does not promote the shoes like the first post, it promotes the video that is dropping a few hours later.

“Who guessed it right? She’s a singer, songwriter, dancer, and choreographer. Her name is @tatemcrae and we can’t wait to share this collaboration with you – VIDEO DROPS TONIGHT @ 8PM [ET] #CompletelyCAPEZIO #HungUpOnYou #tateXcapezio #CapezioFAMILY.”

Third Post – The Video Promotion

In this third post, @sparkleslund teases out another reason for followers to engage. Capezio filmed a video of Tate dancing to one of her original songs that was released on YouTube. Sparkles grabbed footage from the full-length video and created then posted a snippet of the dance on Instagram. Remember, Tate is one of the best dancers in the world – so a video drop is a big deal to fans.

The video post received over 10,000 views and 28 comments, a strong performance for Capezio Instagram videos. It was about the same as many of their other top performing video posts, and about twice as good as some of the lower performing posts. In the video, Tate McRae is wearing the shoe that they are promoting and the hash tag for the shoe comes back into play.

Cross Promotion

As I mentioned, Tate McRae has a larger following on her Instagram account than Capezio does. Tate has over 600k and Capezio has just under 500k. Tate McRae is basically like the Kylie Jenner of dance. On her Instagram page, she puts a post about the video and points people to the Capezio Instagram account and the YouTube video in her bio.

In Tate’s post, there is a sense of urgency – “go to the Capezio Instagram in the next 5 minutes!”

There is also an e-commerce integration to the Capezio online store where using the TATE20 will allow dancers to get this new shoe for a discount.

Tate’s post got 48,000 likes! This level of engagement is outstanding, and you can see how influencer marketing gets far more pull than corporate marketing by Capezio even when it is well executed.

The Wall Design

This is pretty cool too. One of the things that you will notice is that when all three posts stack up on the @Capezio wall, they really stand out. Casual people who are looking at the wall will really take notice of these as they are very differentiated from the themes of their individual posts.

Website Tie-in

To fully take advantage of the promotion, Capezio updated their website home page to promote the shoe and the video!

As consumers go to Capezio.com, they are leveraging the creative assets of the video and the celebrity of Tate McRae to promote the new shoe launch. This is the home page take over.

All in all, this is a well-executed use of some great content that drove a significantly higher level of engagement than a simple post.

Engage Your Customers to Tell Your Story

Alexandra’s journey with Capezio started in 2015. She had just attended a dance convention where she bought some new gear and did a haul video. Haul videos and unboxing videos are pretty popular on YouTube. This video grabbed more than 20,000 views and caught the eye of Capezio’s CEO and Head of Marketing. They liked it so much that they signed her as their first brand ambassador and sent her a box of Capezio gear to wear and tag them in when she posted to Instagram. In the winter of 2016, she did a Capezio unboxing with the theme of what you give your dancer for Christmas – that video has over 51,000 views. She continues to be a brand ambassador for Capezio and was invited to show her marketing skills during her summer internship.

Engage Influencers To Tell Your Story

What Capezio learned is that consumers prefer to hear testimonials from other consumers more than they hear them from brands. Yes, Kylie Jenner does get paid $1 Million for a post on her Instagram account to reach her 113 million followers. It works. If there are influential mommy bloggers or social media folks in your market area, you may want to talk to them about being an ambassador for your brokerage.

I hope that this story inspires some new, creative social media marketing in your business.