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Summer is in full swing, and with the temperatures rising, people are looking for ways to cool down. If you’re a beverage company, that means an audience that’s primed to be even more receptive to your message. To really take advantage of the opportunity to share the story behind your brand during this time of year, we’ve put together the following tips to tap into insights and reach consumers who are ready to raise a glass.

Tip #1: Pick an Actionable Hashtag for Endless User-Generated Content

If you have a popular beverage business or extra Instagram-worthy can or bottle, your customers may already be sharing your product across social media, so it only makes sense to capitalize on this user-generated content with a branded hashtag. If they’re not already sharing images of your product, a social media campaign that incentivizes them to do so could be the perfect solution.

Promoting a branded hashtag and UGC not only gives you access to an unlimited supply of images and content, but it gives your audience a reason to interact with you on social media. A noteworthy example is the Sparkling Ice campaign that invited people to cast their vote on a mystery flavor for the chance to win prizes, including a VIP trip to a music festival. Coca-Cola’s #ShareACoke is another great retail and social media campaign example of a branded hashtag campaign that was an extremely successful extension of a larger brand campaign.

Whichever hashtag you choose, be sure to consider your audience’s lifestyle and existing behavior online, make sure the hashtag is actionable and choose a hashtag that includes your brand’s name.

Tip #2: Utilize Facebook Networks and Sponsorships To Engage a Captive Audience

Beverage brands are also going beyond ideas for retail and POS marketing campaigns to create content specifically for social media. This may take the form of leveraging existing relationships and sponsorships. If your beverage brand sponsors or partners with another brand in another industry, consider ways to rethink your beverage or packaging to engage another customer base.

For example, to support Liverpool FC, beer company Carlsberg created a special red beer to match the team. To promote the campaign, Carlsberg leveraged the power of global fan Facebook groups to generate excitement for the new beer. As noted by the Digital Marketing Institute, this type of collaboration can be very effective in keeping a brand front of mind long after the campaign ends.

Tip #3: Capitalize on the Senses with Instagram Reels

You already know that as the most visual social media platform, Instagram is the perfect fit for your brand, but don’t forget to explore the potential of Instagram Reels. With Reels, you can really drive home the sensory experience associated with your product like pouring, drinking, bubbling, brewing and more. Reels will also help boost your engagement and you can repost them elsewhere across social media, like TikTok. Overall, leveraging the short-format style of Instagram Reels can be an effective way to promote your beverage brand.

For more inspiration on the types of content to create, we have a few helpful tips on how to boost engagement using photography and short videos here. You can also check out ongoing work we’ve created for brands here. And don’t hesitate to reach out to see how we can help take your beverage brand to the next level. Cheers!

By Jim Brothers, Studio Manager, Push.

Have you been playing around getting comfortable in Adobe Photoshop and you’re ready to up your game? Maybe even make some cheddar on the side doing freelance graphic design? Forget Fiverr—here are five things to know in Adobe Photoshop CC that will set you apart from the amateurs.

Set up your file correctly from the start.

The first thing you need to know is whether the file is for print or digital. When starting a new document, there are presets along the top of the dialog box to get you going as far as units of measure and color profile. But really what’s important here is starting at the correct resolution. If the file is for print, the resolution needs to be at 300 dpi. It’s always better to size a file down than up.

If you have to size a file up, make sure to check Resample and select Preserve Detail 2.0 from the dropdown next to it in the Image Resize window.

Use artboards instead of multiple files.

Gone are the days of needing 10 Photoshop files for 10 different size web banners. Now you can have them all in one file using artboards. There’s a checkbox for this in the New File dialog box or you can get there from the Layer menu. You can set options for your artboards in the Properties panel and move, duplicate and resize your artboards using the Artboards Tool.

Generate Image Assets.

You may have noticed that Save for Web doesn’t work so well now that we’re using artboards. No worries. Properly naming your layers is not just good practice for efficiency and organization, but now you can set up your file to export jpgs, pngs and gifs…(pause for effect)…automatically.

The first thing you need to do is add .jpg, .png, or .gif to the end of your layer names or artboard names. (i.e. Web_Banner_300x250.jpg). Next, click File>Generate>Image Assets. That’s it! Go to where your .psd is saved and you’ll see that a new assets folder has been created, and inside that folder are all the files you’re exporting. Any changes you make in the file now will be updated automatically in that folder. And this is just scratching the surface. Click here to see how to save multiple sizes from one layer, change the export quality and more.

Be smart. Use smart objects.

Using smart objects allow us to work nondestructively. This is key. There’s nothing you can do once you’ve flattened all your layers or rasterized vector graphics if you need to make changes or enlarge the image. Smart objects don’t get chopped off if the image is cropped. Also, adding filters to a smart object, such as Gaussian Blur, create smart filters that allow us to go back and tweak it until it’s right or change it later.

Keep in mind that if you’re duplicating smart objects within your file, you’re creating instances of the original smart object. This means, if you replace or make changes to one of the smart objects, they will all change. If you want to duplicate a smart object that is not an instance of the rest, right-click the layer and select New Smart Object via Copy.

Master the Pen Tool.

The Pen Tool is mightier than the…er…Sword Tool.

Ok, there’s no Sword Tool, but it’s definitely mightier than the Lasso Tool when we’re clipping out images. Stop wasting your time trying to clean up the edges of a selection using the Lasso or quick select tools. This is what the pros call a dirty selection. Grab your Pen Tool and start tracing what you want to clip just inside the edge of the object. Click to make points, click and drag in the direction you’re tracing to make the curves. It takes some practice, but this is how you get to the next level.

After your path is complete, you can either use a selection of your path to mask and fine-tune the edges of your object or, using the Path Selection Tool, cut your path from the Paths panel and paste it directly on your layer to create a vector mask. You can even take it a step further and feather the edges of your mask just a hair in the Layer Mask properties to help it blend nicer into its new background.

Look at you lookin’ like a pro! And these are just a few features. For instance, did you know you can do math in the transform controls, select the sky with a single click and easily straighten an object in perspective or visa versa? Check back to learn more about useful tools like these. And as soon as Adobe creates the Sword Tool, we’ll master that one too.