Audiences see right through the trying-too-hard, “look at me” telegraphically planned manner in which brands try to connect with followers. It’s unrealistic to expect anyone to pay attention to a well-crafted piece of broadcasting that doesn’t feel very social, given our unrelenting news and hype cycles. Yet brands see themselves as “human” with “relatable” characteristics and want to be perceived more as a “lifestyle” than just a product or property.

Slim Jim built a brand where the audience is the star of the narrative and in control of the storytelling, with the mission of crushing everyday boredom. Our social engagement approach listens to our communities and activates in authentic, unexpected ways. Slim Jim is the anti-brand, defying the conventional, inauthentic approach to social marketing by rallying an audience built around memes and connection: the Long Boi Gang, a REAL community that transcends product - not just a bunch of followers.

Always be engaging. Transform all of Instagram into the Long Boi Gang’s playground, a living demonstration of wit, cultural savviness, humor and agility. Every time Slim Jim shows up, it’s a calling card to have fun, expect the unexpected and most importantly, an open invitation to join the Gang.

We use social listening powered by custom segmentation, Reddit mining and thousands of daily interactions with the audience to create bespoke meme content that feels unlike any other branded page. The brand shows up like a parody account of itself, with the most progressive takes on trending themes and formats.

We bake in easter eggs and subliminal narratives to encourage both newcomers to appreciate the surface of the brand and long-timers to go deeper down the rabbit hole - then close the loop with relentless in-feed and adjacent-account responding in a voice customized for maximum comment traction and deeper audience engagement.

After conducting a robust audience segmentation we identified that a large portion of Slim Jim’s target Gen Z “hype/pop culture” social audience and aspirational audience were in a funk, looking for acknowledgement and permission to laugh. We hypothesized that the brand could solve this pain point with a brutally authentic approach to meme content and an equally important commitment to audience commentary and community building.

Our strategic framework was straightforward - always be credible and use the platform the way a real memer would. Content and commentary felt native to the meme world - it wasn’t about selling meat sticks, it was a love letter to what mattered to the community. Slim Jim planted meme seeds across its owned page and IG at large to pique the curiosity and excitement of an always-expanding audience, knowing that they would keep returning to our very unique garden for content and connection.

Our early memes in 2019 were engineered for interactivity and fan commentary that we fastidiously responded to. 20 comments per post eventually became 2000 per post, celebrating fans who engaged. Our CM’s shepherded a unique community vernacular which became a shared identity called the Long Boi Gang (their slang term for Slim Jims) which developed lore of its own with unique narratives, characters and catchphrases, where all were welcome to add to the mythology.

Fans looking to join the Gang tagged us in posts 200 times a day, usually around moments of product consumption - even though we don’t talk about product or purchase - all celebrated as UGC in stories. We showed fans love for their content and scoured Instagram for lookalike audiences to bring into the fold with quick-witted, aspirational commentary. 500-2000 additional comments a day yielded hundreds of millions of organic impressions and 1 million new followers.

Slim Jim’s Instagram community surpassed 1MM followers in April 2020 (from 50K in April of 2019), less than 12 months from adopting this new approach and voice. As a result, Slim Jim’s Instagram account is the standard-bearer for how to successfully engage with an audience and grow it organically. Beyond the thousands of comments Slim Jim creates with unprecedented comedic voice and agility, virtually ensuring a top comment on every post and the real estate that comes with it, Slim Jim’s own posts average between 15% and 20% engagement rate, far surpassing the Instagram median engagement rate of 1.6%. The page generates over 35 Million organic impressions a month.

Unsurprisingly, Slim Jim’s Instagram ubiquity has fueled some staggering sales figures, with 14% increase in retail sales in 2020 versus prior year, exceeding over $712MM in retail sales - 2.3x more than its closest competitor in the same period.