The Kardashians' Social Media Marketing Strategy

Kardashians (Social Media Marketing Geniuses)

Love ’em or hate ’em you can’t deny the success of those Kardashians when it comes to creating a killer social media marketing strategy.

Granted, they have a secret business weapon in the form of their formidable mother Kris Jenner, but I have the sneaky feeling some of those girls would have been a rip-roaring success, even left to their own devices. They seem to have an instinctive feel for how to do social media well. So here are the…

Top 7 Tips From The Kardashians Social Media Marketing Strategy

1. Get Really Comfy In Front Of The Camera

From the very first moment Kim Kardashian was thrust into the spotlight following the publication of “that” video, there’s been no let up in the numbers of international camera lenses pointing at the Kardashians. While they occasionally bemoan the fact that they can’t have ANY private moments (especially when trying to get to grips with yet another cheating man), all the Kardashians know they owe their fame and most of their fortunes to the general public and their fans.

They now embrace the camera lenses and even have their own reality TV show “Keeping Up With The Kardashians” and now their Disney+ show The Kardashians.

Now what a genius bit of content marketing that is, to have your own primetime television show! They are all regularly seen ‘sans make-up’ and you can learn to tough it out ‘au natural’ too. A year or so ago, I realised that it was too hot to be putting makeup on through most of the summer in Greece, where I spend a lot of time. I started to go barefaced in my weekly vzine and now I hardly ever wear makeup now. It’s been VERY liberating. From someone who used to get up an hour early when my babies were small to blow dry my hair (another thing that’s not possible, out here!) and put my face on, I can now get ready in less than half an hour total.

I have also kept it up because I’m trying to encourage my mentoring clients to get comfy in front of the camera, to stop fretting about every little detail, to stop aiming for perfection and to get their expert content out there. I have to lead by example so you’ll often see me sweating gently out and about in Stoupa, sharing my pearls of online marketing wisdom direct to camera.

2. Specialise On One Platform, Be Prolific With Your Output & Have Fun!

Those Kardashian girls can make a social media marketing post out of just about anything! Listening to music in a car, hanging out in a private plane, backstage at a fashion show or photoshoot or even just putting fun ears and noses on their babies. They intersperse purely promotional posts with lots of backstage glimpses of the life of the rich and famous and boy! are we hooked! Those babies are adorable!

As of today, Kim Kardashian-West has 135 million followers on Instagram, Khloe Kardashian has 91.9 million followers. Kourtney Kardashian has 76.8 million (she’s been busy having babies), Kylie Jenner has 142 million followers. Even the baby of the family Kendall Jenner has 108 million followers. Their only male sibling, Robert Kardashian has an on-off relationship with social media. He isn’t on Instagram, but has clocked up a mighty 7.4 million followers on Twitter. Mum and Business Manager Kris Jenner is presumably too busy doing deals for all her family, but even she’s got 23 million followers on Instagram.

It’s not just the follower numbers that can astonish. When Kris shared the fabulous picture used on this post on her Insty account, it got nearly three-quarters of a million likes!

So what can we learn from all this? I think the first thing is that they have picked a favourite social media marketing platform (Instagram), use it often it lots of different ways and just dominate it. Pictures are quick and easy, you can get creative with filters and layovers and the introduction of Instagram stories has only helped.

All of the girls post regularly on their accounts. They also indulge in long Instagram stories. They may each only have between 3500 and 6,000 posts each, but the pictures are either beautiful, aspirational or funny.

Behind the scenes type social media content really works.

Another winner is showing people how you do things in your business.

Just look at Dr Marten’s “how they are made” video. Although only moderately successful on YouTube, it went completely viral when uploaded to Facebook. It clocked up millions of views within days.

How could you integrate that ‘behind the scenes’ or ‘how it’s made’ strategy into your business’ social media marketing?

3. Stand For Something In Your Social Media Marketing

As time has gone on, each of the girls has got involved with a cause, either personally or something directly related to their business,

First of all, there came Khloe with her “Good American” clothing brand aimed at offering great leisurewear for the more curvy ladies among us. With her business partner Emma Grede, they stand by their guns and their brand sells only in stores that commit to carrying a full range of sizes from 00 – 24. Then they noticed that sizes 14 and 16 were being returned twice as much as the other sizes. So they investigated and created a brand new size, 15, which suits many more people.

Kim Kardashian got involved with facilitating the amnesty of Alice Marie Johnston. She went to the White House herself to talk to President Trump. Alice Marie Johnson has been behind bars for more than two decades for a first-time drug offence. Read the full story here at the BBC website.

Kourtney looked like she was solely focused on being a mum for a while. She is very keen on interiors, clean eating and no-chemicals in the home. In March 2019 a new venture @Poosh launched. This is set to be the Kardashian’s lifestyle and e-commerce website. It will curate content on non-toxic beauty alternatives, advice for busy moms, healthy recipes, affordable home decor ideas, workout hacks, style tips and more in the form of interviews, tutorials and lessons from experts.

Collectively they are involved in fundraising and promoting the UCLA Robert G. Kardashian Center for Eesophageal Health, in loving homage to their Dad, who died of cancer in 2003. The Center will be focusing on holistic, patient-centered treatment, research and education related to disorders of the oesophagus. So don’t be afraid to stand for something online. Ricky Gervais is notoriously outspoken on Twitter about all the causes he believes in and we love him for it! (If you click that link, be aware of my strong language alert!)

4. Don’t Be Afraid To Offend

This brings me neatly onto the fact that those Kardashian girls can almost out-swear Ricky the swear-meister himself! They just don’t care and let rip on TV, especially when they are mad with each other. I suspect that this is not so much so on social media but that is more because they are posting pics and not writing blog posts or Facebook posts.

No, the crown for offending on social, particularly with his liberal use of the F-word, has to go to Gary Vaynerchuk of VaynerMedia. I personally find it very funny and not at all offensive. However, Gary knows full well that he limits his speaking gigs potential particularly by his language online. I doubt people would decide not to hire his firm’s services because the boss swears a bit.

Now, while I do swear occasionally in conversation there are certain words I never say (well, one!) and I made a conscious decision not to swear on social media MOST OF THE TIME.

This was because I wanted to set a good example for my pre-teen children. It seemed to take a long time for it to sink in that they might be limiting their professional futures if they swear and share personal details online. Thinking about it, most of my digital marketing mentoring clients are rather well spoken and might well have hesitated to hire me, if I swore like a navvy.

I reserve the right to let rip as much as I like, in future social media marketing.

You must make your own decisions about this; it’s a matter of personal style and of thinking carefully about your ideal client or customer.

What would you do in a business meeting? You’re probably pretty safe to do that online!

5. Work As A Team & Complement Each Other

One of the things that has really helped each Kardashian sibling grow their social media following rapidly is inter-family collaborations (or ‘colabs’ as they are called now).

By travelling in ever-changing packs and sharing fun events online with each of their personal followings, they enabled their family members, makeup artists, fashion stylists, shop assistants and even life partners, fleeting though they may be, to grow their followings fast too.

How could you create a team of complementary and non-competing people who could like, comment and share each other’s work online?

I’ve noticed several people online who do this really well. There’s Shannon Page, a model from Brighton who meticulously credits everyone involved in her photo shoots.

I first noticed Shannon because my daughter Phoebe did a “behind the scenes” video shoot – another brilliant idea to create content, by the way. Crediting each other is not only really laudable but just sound common social media sense. I hope they do the same for her too.

6. Have Something To Sell That You Are Proud Of

We are getting down to the nitty-gritty now. What is all this sharing and promotion on social media in aid of?

Sales, that’s what!

You want to be selling something and it had better be something you are proud of, because in order to make a tiny dent in the social media universe, you’ll need to be mentioning it often.

Aim for twenty times as often as you feel comfortable and you won’t go far wrong.

You can see how important it is to believe in your product?

Kim Kardashian has her KKW Beauty makeup range. What a lovely site that is, if you like natural and nearly nude colours. There’s a stunning picture of three generations of Kardashian beauties on the front too, from Kris’s mum MJ, through Kris to Kim.

Khloe has her Good American clothing range while Kendall Jenner is a globally successful catwalk model. She doesn’t need to sell herself or any product, because Kendall is represented by Elite Model Management and in 2017, became the World’s Highest-Paid Model on the Forbes top-earning models list. She doesn’t even have a website link on her Instagram account but you can bet her ideal customers know where to find and book her.

Kylie Jenner has a makeup brand, Kylie Cosmetics, that is a runaway success – I even bought a Christmas Edition double package for my daughter Phoebe, when they first came out. Phoebe was doing a lot of makeup videos on YouTube at the time. You can watch her initially unboxing it here. We can never keep present secrets in our family and Phoebe ALWAYS guesses her presents (strong language alert!). Here’s a full review of the contents with Phoebe actually using them on camera.

As I said earlier, Kourtney was floundering for a bit to find her niche, even when she decided she wanted her own business. However, with the social media might of the Kardashian clan behind her and her own personal good taste in full effect, I’m sure @Poosh, the new lifestyle and e-commerce website, will be a success.

7. Make It Obvious What To Do Next, Make It Easy To Buy Something!

Now, I hate to stated the obvious but it’s so easy to overlook. Left to herself, one of my clients recently forgot to put a date and a “book now” link on a Facebook Post that got a lot of positive engagement.

So, don’t forget to include the link to buy, for heaven’s sake!

While Instagram only allows one link in your profile, you can use LinkTree to expand that one link to include links to a free offer, a link to your website and/or a link to your Amazon, Etsy, Shopify or Ebay store.

There are ‘swipe up to buy’ options on Instagram now and even Facebook makes it easy to set up a shop on your Business Page, so investigate those options quickly and master the basics.

I don’t have an e-commerce store but I’ve secured simple, easy to remember, domain names so that I can direct people to my various offers from the description in any social media posts. I own BeEverywhereOnline.com, OwnItThePodcast.com and TheMoneyGym.com (to get a free copy of my very first book, still popular today.

I even own NicolasBooks.com which re-directs to my book page on my website. I’ll admit it’s grammatically hideous as you can’t get an apostrophe in a domain but it’s simple and effective. I sold over 60 copies of my new book in one hour after putting that URL on a slide in my presentation for a recent speaking engagement.

I hope you’ve enjoyed the Top 7 things I’ve learned about social media marketing from those Kardashian girls! I’m a big fan as you may have gathered, so if you have something constructive to add about how you’ve observed them crushing it online, do feel free to add a comment below. If you want to share or reproduce this article, do feel free but please, credit me and link back to my website, specifically this post, using the URL in the top bar