This story has been reposted from Admiral Media’s blog from a recent interview between them and Mike from Stitcht
Justin Campbell from Admiral Media recently hosted a call with Mike Christensen, CEO and founder of a new consumer engagement and user-generated video platform called Stitcht. They discussed Stitcht’s vision to help brands humanise their marketing and give their communities a voice. That, and an interesting analogy about baked beans on Weetabix.
Service not a tool
Some of the biggest issues brands face is how to raise awareness for their brand, keep their communities engaged and develop a strong loyal following of brand advocates.
The Stitcht strategy is to humanise your brand and your interactions with your community to build a relationship with them.
Mike clarified Stitcht as a managed service, rather than a tool, that creates a more conversational interaction between a brand and their community - mirroring human interaction and bringing both the brand and their community to life. We work on the principle that speaking to your community in a human way, is a more relevant approach to existing on social media, more relatable to the audience and will trigger a more personal connection with their community. Through this approach we develop genuine interactions between a brand and their community that at the same time delivers authentic user generated video content - and thus humanise your marketing!
What does this mean in practice? Well the Stitcht approach is based around the concept of video threads. Remember forums? Used Reddit? Stitcht is the shiny, new video version. A Stitcht thread enables a brand to pose a question or a topic to their community which provokes a video reply into the thread from real people in their community. We don’t treat gathering opinions or experiences from a community as a transaction, it’s a conversation and so each thread must always have a video intro from a person from the brand - it brings that brand to life and gives them a human face… “Hi I’m Jess from Stitcht and we…”
Equally, every reply is visible to anyone viewing the thread, which further brings the brand’s community to life and encourages others to join the conversation.
In order to ensure success for their clients, Stitcht delves deep into understanding their client’s brand, their goals, and their consumers so that they can tailor the questions, topics and approach to engaging the client’s community in a way that is most optimal for the brand and will retrieve content that supports a brand’s marketing.
How does the thread actually work?
Getting back to basics, Justin asked how the consumers record their videos and if they have to set up an account in order to do so. He learned that a thread is hosted on Stitcht and accessible via a simple URL that can be promoted to a brand’s community in any number of ways. For example, a swipe up on Instagram Story, or a button on an app/ website. Each person that clicks on the link is taken to a web page where the thread is hosted, and they will see the intro video to the thread from the brand and all of the replies from real people.
Mike highlighted what a huge bonus this is for them when looking to give social proof to people viewing the thread, which inspires them to reply. If a person wants to reply they do so in two simple steps. Upload or record your video and tell us who you are.
There’s no need to set up a Stitcht account and it works on any platform and operating system. The Stitcht guys only ask for details on who you are such as email address and social handles so that they can delete a video if the owner requests it and the brand can shout out to people in their community who have replied.
How is Stitcht unique to its competitors?
But Justin inquired over the uniqueness of Stitcht. What exactly are its selling points, and things that separate it from the rest? ‘The uniqueness of Stitcht comes with exactly how we go out and facilitate those conversations. As touched on already, ‘when posing a question or a topic on a thread, a person from the brand must introduce it,’ Mike implored. ‘In doing so, you give a connection to the community via a human face to the brand. The key message that Mike put across is that humanisation is integral. The aim is to provoke an emotive response, delivering the questions or topics you pose to your consumers in a way that will resonate.
Ok, so Stitcht offers something different, something new. But, Justin asked, ‘does every single user have to engage with a video reply?’ ‘Our app is essentially a conversation with each other, so yes, videos uphold the humanisation element we promote.’ This approach has been incredibly powerful in showing a brand who their community is and showing people in the community that it is made up of real and genuine humans with a shared interest.
The future of Stitcht
The million-dollar question- Where do you see Stitcht going? So, in Mike’s words, ‘do you remember that baked beans on Weetabix post back in February?’ With a confused chuckle, Justin couldn’t recall it and asked for some sort of link to UGC. Well, the simple genius in that post was that, by doing something so preposterous as putting Baked Beans on Weetabix, it struck an emotional chord with the viewer. That, and it was also very funny. So much so, that the post went viral and so many brands replied to it, retweeted it, commented on it- to the point where it was completely inescapable from all user’s screens.
The NHS even retweeted that the tweet should come with a health warning. Nando’s joined in with the Twitter banter saying ‘You okay hun? DM’s are open if you need to talk <3’
The point is that the post received so much engagement over a seemingly trivial and mundane post (if not slightly wrong) because it had a human element to it; it made people feel something. And that’s what Stitcht wants to achieve. With over 21,000 comments causing it to headline the news, Stitcht sees themselves fitting in this space of natural, emotive, conversational, and human interaction- except we want to bring it to life by video.
Conclusion
And that brings an end to the call, and to the interesting company that is Stitcht. As an up-and-coming marketing tech company, Stitcht has a lot to offer, and it’s been delightful to get to know what makes them tick as well as their plans for the future.