There’s been a lot of press about Lush’s decision to scaling back their social media presence. They say it’s because they’re tiredness of fighting algorithms and it’s their way to rebel against having to pay to appear in newsfeeds. It’s an interesting move that’s being watched by a lot of brands and marketing individuals, myself included.

Instead of writing a post that dives deep into a situation I’m not involved in (plenty of other people are doing that). I thought I’d use Lush’s announcement as a jumping off point to discuss social strategy.

A common social language.

Lush said they’re scaling back their social accounts to focus on actual interaction instead of chasing “Likes” and follows. As part of this promise, they’re promoting a new hashtag to help collect that interaction and bring their community together –  #LushCommunity.

Each social platform has unique features and functionalities that excite me and my team. While each platform is unique, the majority of them share a commonality — the #Hashtag.

Hashtags started on Twitter and are a way to organize content. Since their start, they spread to other platforms. Now, they transcend social media. I know some of you are shaking your head at this statement, but let’s be honest. The digital and physical worlds are becoming more intertwined, trends from both that are being reflected in each other. This means the task for brands and organizations is not to scoff at this but to capitalize on it.

Efficient and effective.

My mantra is that digital is simply the most effective and efficient communication tool available to any brand or individual.

This mentality is part of the reason Lush’s decision surprised me. Their claim of wanting to stop paying to appear in newsfeeds and chasing “Likes” is an interesting one because it captures a simple truth, people do have newsfeeds. Social media provides these natively and displays this information to them. It’s efficient and effective.

Over the past few weeks, my team and I have been working with a client to deal with a crisis. They have more than 250,000 members and needed a way to engage and share information with them. Their plan included both physical (postcards, phone calls, etc.) and digital communications (email, chat, video, etc.). They couldn’t temporarily scale enough to serve their members solely over the phone or in person, so they needed to enhance their digital experience to supplement the physical communication plan with a robust digital plan.

Getting the most out of each platform.

My team and I have been working with a membership organization to enhance their digital experience as part of a larger omnichannel approach.

As part of our approach, we created a list of what we like most about each platform and how content could be optimized and personalized for each. Our list was pretty extensive and included both established social platforms as well as emerging ones.

It’s as important for content creators to understand the delivery methods as it is to understand the audiences that will consume that content. It’s something successful brands (and their agencies) understand well.