VITAL PROTEINS

I started with Vital Proteins in July of 2022 as Associate Director of Social Media & Influencer Marketing, U.S.; Vital Proteins was acquired by Nestle Health Science & fully transitioned to the Nestle business on December 25th, 2023. I was very fortunate to stay with the company, accepting a NHSc Senior Manager role, where I now oversee all organic social media channels for @vitalproteins. Current growth priority channels are Instagram & TikTok.

Welcome to a sneak peek of a few of my favorite things for Vital Proteins organic social that I have lead and managed over the last two years.

Project Evergreen

The ask: Create a collection of still photography & stop-motions that spotlight what we sell (collagen peptides) in our brand aesthetic; include a variety of portrait & lifestyle landscapes & how it can be consumed.

The result: Increase in brand awareness on our Instagram page + increase in traffic to site + improved customer sentiment through collagen conversations both in DMs and comments.

Pep & Tide

The ask: Allocate a portion of our 2023 budget to invest in brand mascots to increase brand awareness via social media and experiential marketing; create authenticity/relatability through entertainment & edutainment in a social-forward way consumers are craving.

The result: Pep & Tide content made up 3 of our top 10 posts of 2023 on Instagram and helped us grow from 1k to 30k on TikTok.

OG CP ASMR

The ask: Build brand awareness of Vital Proteins Original Collagen Peptides, incorporating the ASMR trend.

The result: The ASMR post of Original Collagen Peptides was our top-performing post of 2023, and hit our performance goal x3. The ASMR of Chocolate Collagen Peptides was one of our TikTok top performers in 2023.

COLLAGEN RECIPES

The ask: Partner with our rostered influencers in the food & beverage, chef, and nutritionist categories to create recipes including a daily dosage of collagen peptides. Spotlight how simple and easy it is to add collagen to pre-established everyday routines in a variety of foods and beverages.

The result: Influencer recipe content made up 70% of our top-performing social content across various platforms (IG, FB, TikTok, & Pinterest) over the last two years. Collab content helped double our reach YoY.

“DANA WITH A SIGN” SERIES

The ask: Tap into the “on the street” / “dude with a sign” trends using our updated tone and voice and play on “it’s time to take collagen if you remember XX” to appeal to the 30+ demo.

The result: This series–consisting of just 4 posts–garnered 300k combined impressions and landed in our top 12 of the year for both Reach + ER.

BRAND COLLABS

The ask: Partner with other brands in the health & wellness space to increase our brand awareness within our niche and beyond; grow our following and increase consideration.

The result: Partnering with the “it brand” of 2024, Stanley, led to our #1 top-performer by video views, #1 by reach, #2 by engagements, and #4 by ER.

EVERYBODY WITH A BODY CAMPAIGN

The ask: Create a mix of short-form and long form videos and captions for Instagram & TikTok that bring the campaign messaging to life in a relatable way: that collagen is for everybody with a body. Educate consumers on why they need collagen in an entertaining way that stops a mindless doom scroll.

The result: The campaign launch video was one of our top-performing posts by video views of 2023.

JENNIFER ANISTON PARTNERSHIP

The ask: Partner with JA’s team to receive content for her own IG page as well as the VP brand IG to build credibility and brand awareness of our collagen peptides and JA protein bars + increase conversions.

The result: JA content was collectively the top-performers across multiple pages; on days JA content went live, web traffic saw a x10 boost.

2023 Highlight Reel / Biggest Wins

Exclusive Content Views

  • In 2023, we garnered a total of 6.8M video views; of that, nearly 50% (4.3M) were exclusive content briefs, ideation + execution. When using influencers in this way (as UGC), the branded content in our feed is seen as more authentic and trustworthy. UGC is one of the best ways to cultivate and engage with our community and foster brand loyalty, and in this case, it worked.

Vital Proteins x Stanley Sweepstakes

  • Partnering with a hot brand (no pun intended, this sweepstakes went live the day before the viral car on fire video) led to our #1 top performer of the YEAR; garnering the highest video views (221K) and highest reach (273K). Stanley was “THE IT BRAND of 2023”, and partnering with that momentum—in a way that spotlighted the ease of usage around coffee/tea and collagen through both brands’ products—led to success.

Pep & Tide

  • They garnered a combined ER of 2.6% and reached over 136.6K accounts. Brand mascots were a trend in 2023 and continue to build momentum into 2024 (Bloom’s has entered the chat). They helped humanize our brand without using a “face of the brand” (or an employee or a model) in a playful, relatable way that made consumers smile and see another side of our buttoned-up aesthetic. Pep & Tide are an effective way for us to create a visual identity outside of the studio, make an emotional connection with consumers, increase engagement, and communicate brand values in a way people want to watch, listen—and keep watching and listening.

4/20 “Different Kind of Joint” Assets

  • With our new brand tone/voice, we knew we couldn’t pass up the opportunity to have a little fun on this culturally popular day – especially given the benefits of our product and how they tie into joint health. This post garnered a 2% ER, 31.5k total impressions, and 620 engagements. While it may not have landed in the top 10-–or even top 20–this was an important moment for how we finally integrated our brand x product benefits x cultural moment in a way that was within our niche, making it our own in a way that messaging made sense.

Turning 30 moments

  • In 2023, we had new data from the brand and legal teams that we needed to focus collagen consumption on a new demographic: 30 years of age+. We tested diving into the turning-30-scene/”you know you need collagen when XX” lingo. Whether it was integrated in the form of an Unflavored CP blue tub birthday cake or as graphics, this new messaging was a success. We were able to communicate usage recommendations, benefits, and tie into cultural moments and trends for the almost 30/30/30+ demo. The “is it cake” 30th birthday reel we repurposed to organic from a paid asset hit the #6 spot in 2H 2023 by engagements and led to a really great CM moment in comments for collagen FAQs, building trust with our community.

Dana w/ a Sign Series

  • This series–consisting of just 4 posts–garnered a total of 260.7K combined impressions, 1.7% ER and landed in our top 12 of the year for both Reach + ER. Jumping into the trending “on the street” social content popularity paired with the brand personality (and education)coming through in a playful, relatable, approachable way, proved successful.

Trends

  • From Barbie to cottage cheese—and everything in between–trends took up a lot of real estate in the 2023 social calendar because they worked, and continued to work. Allowing space to 1) flag trends 2) brief trends to our in-house creative agency, Kolla 3) push trends live kept people engaged, coming to our feed, and sticking around for more.

  • The key to successfully using trends for our brand is relevance and focusing on trends within our niche communities (health/wellness/collagen). The trends we jumped on were successful because we got creative with making the trend our own, didn’t overproduce, and kept things casual. The more people get exposed to a trend, the more popular it gets until eventually, it goes viral. Participating in social media trends helps us leverage this effect and can therefore lead to a boost in our reach and engagement and overall channel success/health. Staying on top of the latest viral memes and conversations while mixing in evergreen trend formats will keep our social content-–and feeds–feeling fresh, engaging, and on-brand.

  1. Stanley partnership = #1 top performing posts of 2023 (236k impressions) via a giveaway spotlighting collective usage of coffee/tea x collagen on-the-go.

  2. Dry January – #4 top-performing post of the year (146k impressions) via a collab with @bevsbybev featuring Original Collagen Peptides.

  3. The “mom-mosa” = #5 top performing posts of the year and #2 recipe post of the year.

  4. ”For the protein girlies” // cottage cheese, aka the VIP food of 2023; we went live with a collab recipe, a chocolate protein dip, which landed at the #7 top performing post of the year and #3 recipe of 2023. By jumping on a recipe ft. an ingredient that spiked in popularity (that people were actually buying and consuming and was most likely was already in the fridge), led to a big boost in our reach and spike in traffic to site.

  5. ”Guy with a sign” // Dana on the Streets was a series of four posts; one landed the #10 top performing post of the year.

  6. April fools mock VP ”new” SKU – CPG world lives for April Fools Day and consumer engagement; this was our top #13 post.

  7. “basic bb szn” // fall hype timed with a new product launch – top #14 post.

  8. ASMR editing style tied to our OG “blue tub” – top #15 post.

  9. “POV….” text trend tied to daily collagen usage – top #16 post.

  10. If you remember XX, it’s time for collagen – 90s nostalgia made a comeback in 2023; tying it to when one needs collagen usage led to our top #19 post.

  11. Air fryer lemon garlic wings – air fryers were still an appliance star; tying in their usage with Lemon CP’s relaunch led to high impressions and increase in conversion.

  12. Barbie took over the year. Barbie content collectively led to some of our top impressions of the year.