How to Nail the Use of Facebook Live — Wearing Underwear

I’ve been a fan of MeUndies® since pretty much the moment of discovery. Happening across my field of vision a couple of years ago by way of a Facebook ad, I’ve since lost track of how much money I’ve spent on both their amazingly comfortable underwear.

When it comes to underwear, they’re not lying. They make a promise that they deliver on and their super comfy loungewear is perfect for gift-giving — both big wins in my book.

Even better than how I feel about their products, I’ve long been a fan of the marketing acumen that’s so obvious, the spot-on messaging that I see time and time again, the clever and creative ways this young company builds and engages an audience, how they use and encourage user-generated content, and so much more. And now, MeUndies® is nailing the use of Facebook Live in a way that is pretty impressive.

When it Comes to Your Brand Promise, Message Matters

Let’s back up and get up close and personal for a minute. Who can’t get excited about a company that’s passionate about comfortable underwear? Doesn’t everybody yearn for comfortable underwear? If you’re a woman, you’ve likely spent your entire life in search of underwear that’s not only nice-looking, but which does what you need it to do, when you need it. Don’t laugh men, no matter what you might think, this is no easy task. Unless you’re built like a 12-year-old boy or a Victoria’s Secret super model who largely exists on cigarettes and four carrots a day.

And messaging is something that this company does really well. See what I mean — what part of this doesn’t resonate with you?

Let’s be clear — a pair of great fitting, super comfortable underwear WILL change your life. It doesn’t matter what you’re doing, if your undergarments are in any way not working for you, life is miserable. it’s a problem. A big problem.

About the same time that MeUndies® surfaced, I started seeing other niche clothing companies appear on the horizon and paid attention because, well, I’m a marketer — that’s what I do. They were all using similar tactics, but some of the messaging worked and some of it didn’t. There was a men’s shorts company that irritated me to death, largely because their messaging was so brotastic, and so poorly executed, that I couldn’t wait to hit the “unsubscribe” button and divest myself of their incredibly annoying email messages. Bonus points if you happen to be able to name the company I’m talking about.

But I kept watching MeUndies® and they just kept getting better. Here’s another snippet of messaging from their website:

You can say this stuff all day long, that’s the easy part. But building a company who personifies these promises is an entirely different thing. From what I see, which admittedly is from the outside looking in, is that MeUndies® does a pretty good job of it. All of that makes me want to see them be successful. They are fun. And they are also passionate and bold and crazy — but they manage to do it, from a marketing standpoint anyway, in a way that doesn’t irritate. That’s something that’s not easy to pull off.

So What About What They’re Doing with Facebook Live?

I started writing this post because I saw what MeUndies® is doing with Facebook Live and I think there are some great lessons to be learned — for small companies and for very large ones.

But I couldn’t tell you about that without sharing some of the backstory, and why this is a brand worth paying attention to, especially if you want to learn something about how to do this for your company. So here’s how I discovered what they are doing using Facebook Live:

Email!!!! They sent me an email! I’m an existing customer. I’ve been buying for several years, but every now and then I slack off. But they keep staying connected to me, by way of the ever faithful channel — my email inbox.

Tell me one more time that email marketing is dead. Oh wait, that’s insane. Email is the most valuable marketing channel there is, especially once you’ve obtained a customer. How else do you keep communicating with them if you aren’t using email?

Look at that. A special event. One to which they sent me an invitation to SAVE MY SPOT. Who doesn’t want to do yoga on a Sunday morning? Especially with LA-based “it” Yogi, Miki Ash, she of the 114ishK Instagram followers and tons of more-than-a-little-sexy images shared on the regular. It’s okay. I totally get it if you need to go scroll through that IG feed for a minute — she shares some kind of hot photos.

Back to reality. Shake it off, dammit!

Okay, let’s regroup. A brand finds something that their audience might be interested in — like Yoga with a celebrity yogi. And then they create a special event that they invite you to, by way of multiple channels, but also by way of tried-and-true email.

Here’s a look at what the special event page looks like:

Episode 1: Namaste in MeUndies. Notice that the guest list wasn’t huge and that only 107 people actually “showed up.”

But that’s fine. Take a look at what happened when the event live-streamed:

15 thousand people viewed this live event. 15,000. That’s a shit-ton (a highly technical term, by the way). How many of those people do you think are current MeUndies® customers? I’m going to go out on a limb and say not many, certainly not 15,000. And that’s the beautiful thing. It’s their first event. It’s something new. Timed at the beginning of a new year, when every single person on the planet is focused on doing a better job of being fit. And by the creative use of Facebook Live, they reached a ton of people and likely made a pretty awesome impression.

One final note, and another nod to the marketing team at MeUndies® for totally understanding their target customer. The MeUndies ® audience is comprised of both women and men, and the brand didn’t leave men out of the imagery they used promoting this event — they included hot tattooed dude in his hot boxer briefs, too.

There’s a lot to learn from this brand. Whether you’re a gigantor company trying to do a stellar job of integrated marketing, or a small local business trying to stay alive. Know your audience, create messaging that will appeal to them, keep it real, don’t overlook the power of email marketing, and figure out how to use Facebook — whether it’s targeted advertising, special invitation events, or Facebook Live (or all three), to reach that target customer base. It works.

All photo credits: MeUndies®

This article was first published on V3B.