Candy brand Fini Brazil knew it needed to change its brand strategy.

As a gummy candy with bubble lettering on its packaging, the brand knew it appealed to children and had a juvenile feel to it. Advertising to children in Brazil had become more regulated, so Fini decided to “grow up” with its consumers, Luiz Henrique Ferreira, manager of communication at Fini Brazil told Internet Retailer at the Socialbakers Engage conference in Prague in May.

Now, Fini is going after consumers who are 18-24 and a “geek audience,” Henrique Ferreira said. Fini classifies the “geek consumer” as a consumer who plays video games, watches Netflix or goes out to the movies.

The brand already knew that this audience liked its candy, so it got a booth at a Comic Con show in Brazil in 2016 to promote its brand. While at the show, Fini realized that its brand was more popular with this crowd than it expected, and it decided to fully target the “geek” consumer, Henrique Ferreira said.

Fini sells online, has 50 of its own franchise stores and sells its products wholesale to many retailers across Brazil. Sales across all of its channels have increased a double-digit percentage every year for the past three years, Henrique Ferreira said.

The candy brand uses social media and influencers to communicate with shoppers as it allows the brand to have two-way communication with its customers, and it is cheaper than offline marketing such as TV, outdoor advertising and public relations, Henrique Ferreira said. “It’s cheaper, you can measure your results, its close contact to the audience and you select the audience. These are all the benefits the digital gives us every day,” Henrique Ferreira said.

Fini posts on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram once per day. Each post is different as “each audience speaks a different language,” Henrique Ferreira said. For example, Instagram is the most visual so Fini ensures it has a large image on those posts, whereas Fini encourages more commenting on Facebook.

The goal when Fini posts on its social media accounts is to generate engagement, such as a like or comment, with consumers on that platform, Henrique Ferreira said. Fini tries to post social media content that resonates with its audiences, not just about its candy, he said. For example, on International Women’s Day in March, Fini posted portraits of women made with pieces of its candy, or Fini will create candy images of Netflix characters when a popular show’s season is recently released.

The brand also tries to listen to consumers who comment on its posts. For example, several consumers asked Fini why it doesn’t make emoji-shaped candy, and so the brand decided that emoji gummies would fit into its brand. A year later, Fini developed the candy and sent it to those consumers who suggested it. Fini is releasing the emoji gummies later this quarter, he said.

Fini works to get the most organic reach out of its Facebook posts as possible before putting money behind them. Fini uses Socialbakers’ platform to analyze and rate its content. For example, once Fini creates a post, Socialbakers will assign it a letter grade such as “C” or “A,” which evaluates how the post is performing in terms of organic reach compared with the brand’s other posts. Once the letter grade reaches “A+,” Fini knows that post achieved the most organic reach that it could get, and then will start to pay to promote the post. This way, Fini is not wasting dollars serving the ad to a consumer who would have seen the post organically, Henrique Ferreira said.

In February 2017, one of Fini’s posts had the most impressions of any other brand post on Facebook during the month, with more than 1 million impressions and reactions (such as likes), beating a post from McDonald’s, which had fewer impressions and reactions, Henrique Ferreira said.

In October 2017, Fini went to another gaming fair in Brazil called BGS to promote its brand, and this year it was prepared with an even flashier booth. Fini hired four influencers to pass through its booth and post about it on their social media accounts. At the show, more than 1,600 people traveled through its booth, including 40 influencers who posted about it. Fini wound up gaining 1,300 followers on its social media accounts from the five-day event, he said.

Overall, however, Henrique Ferreira does not have any specific social media metrics he is looking to achieve. To show success, he points to a 2018 survey of 2,000 Brazilian consumers conducted by research group Mosaiclab, in which consumers select Fini as the most loved candy brand in Brazil.