Social Media Audit: Liquid Death
by Josalyn McMillan
Audit of Brand Accounts
The canned water brand “Liquid Death” has risen in popularity largely due to their company mission and humorous marketing strategy. I will be conducting an audit of the brand’s primary social media platforms to determine how they present themselves across channels, the type of content that is most successful, and ways they can improve.
The type of content that receives the most attention throughout Liquid Death’s social media leans heavily humorous. They specialize in satirical videos, collaborations, and audience interaction. Below is a chart detailing the type of content prominent on each social media, the most successful content, and some takeaways.
Overall, the content that is resonating most with audiences are collaborations with celebrities. Kylie Kelce in particular received a lot of praise for her collaborative promo video. Comments across platforms often praise the creativity and humor of the advertising team.
This is a SWOT Analysis of Liquid Death’s socials. SWOT measures a brand’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Overall, the company is doing a great job playing to their strengths.
Observation of Social Media Care
It is clear that Liquid Death’s PR team prefers not to interact with comments on most social media. The type of content they prioritize interaction with are funny fan made videos that enhance the brand’s image. I did not find many instances on social media of Liquid Death engaging with negative comments or posts. It seems that the brand wants to maintain focus on the positive and marketable aspects of their products. The most prominent interaction with their audience is through the reposting and engagement with fan-made videos.
However, X seemed to be the platform with the most audience engagement. Liquid Death responded to negative comments regarding their Amazon partnership with defensiveness. Their replies to hate comments were fairly crude, and they did not hold back with divisive language with lines such as, “'It's fucking delicious' is a solid tagline." They maintain their humorous image by clapping back with targeted comments. Another recent X reply read:
“We have proposition for you. We will pay to fly you to a studio and film you doing a blind taste test. If you can actually pick out water from European mountains from water from American mountains, we will give you $2500. But if you guess wrong, we get to taze you. DM us if you’re interested.”
That’s not something you hear every day from a nationally lauded brand.
Although, Liquid Death was on the ball when a customer needed assistance with a product defect, they responded on X with, “Definitely weird. Please reach out to info@liquiddeath.com and they'll be able to assist you.” This is a clever redirect of potential bad press off of public platforms.
Observation and Analysis of Social Media Comments
The content that resonates with audiences is evidenced by post interaction, likes, shares, and comments. The types of comments varied greatly across platform. The socials that tended to garner negative interaction were Facebook and TikTok, with many comments condemning the use of Stevia additives in Liquid Death’s drinks. The platforms with the most positive comments were Instagram, LinkedIn, and YouTube, with lots of praise for the quality of the products and the unique marketing content.
I also utilized Google Gemini to summarize customer comments about Liquid Death products using this prompt: “You are advising a social media strategist. Our goal is to uncover consumer-generated content ideas for social media. Please review and analyze Amazon Review comments about Liquid Death products. What are the top qualities of the products people mention? What ideas to go with the product do users suggest? Are there any other trends that you notice?”
Gemini came back with some valuable insights synthesized from Amazon purchasers. It found that some of the favorite product qualities were the light flavor, eco-friendly packaging, hydration, and alternative to sugary drinks.
The AI software also came up with some recommendations for future idea implementations such as a highlight of flavor profiles, an emphasis on sustainability and ‘death’ themed products, and promotion as a soda alternative.
Closing Analysis and Learnings
The main takeaway from Liquid Death’s social media audit is that the brand is great at staying relevant using successful marketing tactics.
The brand should continue to build their image using humor and interact with more fan content. Fans are more likely to create content involving the brand’s products if they think they have a chance at getting acknowledged by the brand. Another recommendation is the continuation of collaborative content. Collabs with popular public figures garner a lot of attention and expand the fanbase to that influencer’s following.
I think that Liquid Death would benefit from rolling back the defensiveness online when addressing hate comments. It is important to address problems when they arise on social media, but the manner in which a brand interacts with their audience could potentially alienate them.
A competitor brand of Liquid Death is the prebiotic soda company Poppi. Like Liquid Death, they advertise themselves as an alternative to traditional soda and focus on the health benefits of the products. They excel at this type of “alternative drink” advertising, and Liquid Death could emphasize that aspect of their brand more.
Poppi also has active social media accounts, but they don’t utilize collaborations and campaigns with high profile celebrities as much as they could. This could increase in time with company growth. Poppi also excels at brand imagery, and their product and brand design is very consistent and recognizable. A good opportunity for them would be branded merch that utilizes their unique design.