How Canon Maintains Its Global Position With Social Media

Canon is highly regarded by photography aficionados as one of the ‘big guns’ in the industry.

Originating in Tokyo, Japan, Canon now has a global presence.

Canon is most renowned for its digital SLR cameras. It creates products for a diverse range of users, from the entry-level user to the professional photographer.

Canon is also an industry leader for compact digital cameras, printers, camera lenses, and associated accessories.

In a digital age where every smartphone user is empowered to become a photographer, Canon has surprisingly managed to keep itself and the products it offers relevant.

Canon employs an impressive social media marketing strategy that has helped to cultivate brand awareness and to entrench its position as the industry leader.

Let us find out more about Canon’s approach.

1. Curated local content and regular photo contests on Facebook, engaging and celebrating photographers

Canon has a Facebook page created for each country it has a considerable presence in.

The Canon UK page for instance has more than 126,000 likes, the Canon Singapore page has garnered more than 244,000 likes, and the Canon India page has amassed an impressive 1.4 million likes.

The advantage of a decentralised, country-specific approach to its Facebook page is that content can be made to be more immediately relevant to its target audience.

This also allows Canon to launch photo contests in keeping with the local festive calendar or to repost inspirational pictures featuring local scenery that the audience can relate to, taken by photography enthusiasts.

For instance, Canon Singapore reposted a collection of majestic lightning shots taken by local community storm chasers, asking users to contribute tips for lightning photography.

In celebration of Father’s Day, Canon India launched a photo contest asking users to contribute photographs capturing the fun-loving side of their fathers, for the chance to win exclusive prizes.

Canon social media managers are also active on the Facebook page, interacting with customers and replying to the occasional query with helpful information.

Word-of-mouth tip: Canon’s Facebook presence is strong and incredibly well-managed. By posting content that is relevant to the local community, Canon actively socialises the interaction between brand and consumer, and between consumers.

2. Creative content on Youtube across multiple categories – How To's, DIYs and inspiring stories

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FtS39XS513I

Canon has also adopted a localised approach to its Youtube channel, with official accounts for CanonAsia, Canon Europe, and Canon USA to name a few.

The Canon Youtube channel is a place where customers can learn about how to get full use out of their new camera or lens, pick up new tips and tricks from professionals, and be inspired.

Canon’s video content is neatly categorised into playlists, featuring a “Help and How To’s” section, a “DIY and Crafting” one as well as a “Commercials and Promos” to name but a few.

One of Canon USA’s most successful video campaigns to date has been the “See Impossible” series, with each video in the five part series garnering more than a million views each.

The See Impossible campaign has the famous tagline “There are no limits to what an image can do.”

The campaign thus seeks to “drive innovation across businesses” by showing customers that Canon products can help individuals to achieve their dreams in an whole spectrum of careers.

How Canon did this was to focus on capturing human experiences that the average consumer could relate to, rather than on selling a product.

Word-of-mouth tip: By constantly putting out creative content on Youtube, Canon has built a platform for more active engagement with its customers, increasing its positive brand image and thereby generating sales for the company.

3. Active engagement with customers on Twitter, sharing fan submissions to a larger audience

Canon regularly updates its @CanonUSAimaging handle on Twitter with beautiful shots paired with inspirational quotes or cute call-to-actions.

These tweets are well-received by followers, with many of them retweeting these posts or sending in an @reply.

Canon also retweets its favorite fan submissions, allowing fan work to be published to a much larger audience.

Canon Twitter managers carefully read through the @mentions it receives, replying these tweets with encouraging comments, helpful advice or recommendations, depending on the subject.

Canon also likes its customers tweets, many of which have been brought to Canon’s attention through the use of the hashtag #Canon.

Word-of-mouth tip: In a digital age where customers have a whole range of brands available to them on demand, it is important to add that personal human touch, to empower customers and to show them that you are listening. By interacting with customers with everything from @replies to likes and retweets, Canon is playing the Twitter game incredibly well.

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