THE ASK
Afterpay is a digital payment method that powers the buy now, pay later option on thousands of retail sites. Founded in Australia, the service launched in the U.S. in May 2018. That November, Townhouse Digital was tasked with rapidly increasing follower count by 150% in two months and to make sure this was a community of super fans. We exceeded that goal and built a passionate community of brand advocates in the process.
While Afterpay is now available globally across five regions, they came to Townhouse in need of an engaging, relevant brand voice and identity. In addition to strategy, reporting, organic social content and 24/7 community management, we also set Afterpay up with a full branding strategy through eye-catching color schemes, engaging fonts, unique graphic treatments, and original memes that played off pop culture and trending topics (that went viral and were adopted by their other regional accounts).
CRAFTING AN IDENTITY
In the finance sector, there's not much to go viral about. Banks, credit, payments can be dull topics offline, let alone on social media—and the numbers prove it: 45% of banks say their biggest challenge is building engagement and growing followers. And of the 87% of banks who are active on social media, only 48% of them use Instagram. We saw an opportunity here to shake up the conversations around finance and how the brands engage with their audience online. So we did some research—who was killing it on social? Not surprisingly, fashion, beauty and meme accounts. We decided Afterpay would be a cocktail of all three. We formulated: A color scheme that spoke across generations and genders: Millennial pink included, yes, but also complementary and eye-catching tones of bright yellow and deep blue. The vibrant color scheme stood out among the neutral blues and grays of legacy finance brands. Embodying the fact that Afterpay as a service was different than traditional payment forms (i.e. credit cards).
Tone of voice that was young, exciting, engaging and ever-adapting to cultural and social references. For one original meme, we put a twist on a just-released (at the time) Ariana Grande song lyric to her Grammy-nominated hit "7 Rings": I see it, I like it, I want it, I Afterpay it. This post received over 57K+ likes and was posted with similarly staggering results on the Afterpay Australia Instagram page.
System of community management to ensure questions and comments were responded to around the clock, with original messages (not canned customer service responses) to build trust and repertoire with our fans. Some have gone on to launch and manage their own Afterpay-focused Facebook groups, and we still refer to them by first name when they reach out to ask a question or provide genuine feedback. We engaged both fans and retail partners by regramming social-proofed content and community chatter, which only encouraged them to share, post and engage with us further. So much so, that fans actually started driving business development. Armed with hundreds of requests from real fans, Afterpay's business development team shows these requests to prospective retail partners to show validity that sales for them very well could increase if they choose to offer Afterpay.
THE RESULT
2,456% increase in followers (From 3.9K to 99.7K+ followers on Instagram, and 234.4K+ combined followers across social (currently: 271K followers on Instagram)
400% increase in engagement (From 2% average engagement rate to up to 10% on high performing organic posts)
868% increase in impressions per post (From 6.3K average impressions per post to 61K. Weekly impressions exceed 12M with 37.4K+ weekly profile visits)
While Afterpay USA's brand identity has evolved since our strategy in 2018, we succeeded in building a strong foundation for them to grow in follower count, reach and meaningful connections with real fans. Townhouse remains the powerhouse behind their robust community management efforts, encouraging conversations, feedback and bridging the gap between the social platforms and their customer service team.