Why The Honest Co. is honestly the best at social media

Co-founded by Jessica Alba in 2011, The Honest Company produces beautiful, stylish non-toxic household products and uses proceeds to support baby development and youth education. The founders describe the brand: "We tried to think of all the qualities we would want in a dream brand – savvy style, sustainability, and extraordinary service & convenience all wrapped in a passion for social goodness, tied with a bow of integrity and sprinkled with a little cheeky fun."

Communicating the many facets of complex brands can be difficult, but Honest executes an impressive social media strategy.

Like any good strategy, Honest begins with owned content. The company's blog, Honestly, is an attractive, engaging mix of health advice, recipes, design and style ideas, and inspirational tips on happily living life.

Each social channel pulls content from the blog, always driving back to the company's website. Content across channels includes inspirational quotes, product features, user generated content, and blog articles.

Honest's interaction with customers on Facebook is impressive. The brand recently improved their dish soap based on customer feedback - it is now more concentrated and less costly. Facebook fans loved the announcement post (700+ likes and 30,000+ views) and took the opportunity to become even more involved with the brand. 

Honest's Facebook strategy says to customers: We're listening. We care. We're in this for you.

The company's Instagram strategy is also notable. For some companies, eliciting user generated content may result in unusable content. Fans are usually not professional photographers, and some posts can damage the company's brand image. Honest, however, encourages great user content. Each Instagram post is visually appealing and showcases products in use. 

What can brand marketers learn from Honest? Let your product's style flow into your communication. Be appealing and engaging. Most of all, interact with your customers. Show them that you're in business for them. 

"Secret Garden" Social Success

With a focus on children's play, it is refreshing to consider adult pastimes that are nevertheless youthful and fun. Last week, Alexandra Alter of The New York Times featured Johanna Basford, illustrator of adult coloring books "Secret Garden" and "Enchanted Forest." (click for purchase)

Released two years ago, "Secret Garden" is now a global bestseller with a large following. Alter writes, "Like Play-Doh, jungle gyms and nursery rhymes, coloring books have always seemed best suited for the preschool set. So Ms. Basford and her publisher were surprised to learn that there was a robust — and lucrative — market for coloring books aimed at grown-ups."

The cautious first printing of 16,000 books is dwarfed by the total 1.4 million copies sold. 430,000 copies have been sold in South Korea alone, possibly due to pop star Kim Ki-bum's Instagram post of his colored page. 

The visual appeal of pages begs to be shared with friends. Other fans also use Instagram to showcase completed pages, almost definitely contributing to the hype.

Basford's second book, "Enchanted Forest," was published in February, and initial printing of almost 250,000 is close to selling out. On Facebook the illustrator promised new stock soon, and fans are anxiously waiting.

 
The success of "Secret Garden" and "Enchanted Forest" opens a new market for grown-up coloring books. More importantly, the books highlight the opportunity influencers and image-centric sites like Instagram offer to illustrators and publishers of books for all ages.