A Purr-fect example of social audience: Neko Cat Cafe

I love cats.

I love pretty much all animals in fact, but I (currently) only have a pet cat. As a cat enthusiast, I love visiting cat cafes and the glory of online cat content is mostly what I spend hours scrolling through Instagram giggling at.

I stumbled across Neko, a cat cafe, through the Instagram discover feed. Immediately I loved their approach to content and how they engaged with the audience. And the longer I’ve followed them, the more I’ve seen how they understand, engage with, and enjoy the content they produce.

So I’ve broken down their approach to social audience (and cats of course).

The Basic Info

Neko is a cat cafe where you can get drinks and snacks, and of course, play with the cats. They have permanent residents as well as adoptable cats, and work with local rescue organisations to help cats find homes.

Neko has two locations in Washington state, USA — one in Bellingham, and one in Seattle. The Instagram account has 139,000 followers, with TikTok over three times that at 429,000 followers.

As the content is used across both platforms I’ll primarily be focussing this breakdown through their Instagram account. From what I can tell, the social media channels are run by staff who work in the cat cafes.

Regularly Scheduled Content

Although on first browse the content might seem to be a random mis-match of videos and stills, after following them for a while I’ve spotted regular features that give structure to the feed. This includes:

• Toe Bean Tuesday. Usually featured via Instagram stories, pictures of various cat feet are shared.
• Resident of the month. Each month a different permanent resident is featured as a collectable enamel pin and more prominently on the feed.
• Merchandise. The cafe sells a range of merchandise which is regularly featured on the feed.
• Special events. Events such as study sessions, cat yoga, beer tastings, and meeting adoptable cats are regular features.

Example of everyday tone of voice.

A Meow-gical Approach to Audience

First and foremost, the content shared by the channels is fun. It feels genuine and enthusiastic — you can see it’s made by cat lovers, for cat lovers. I get the impression that even if the staff weren’t running a social media channel, they’d still be taking these pictures and videos because they love the cats that much.

Admittedly, cats make for excellent content. Cute when sleeping, and often hilarious when awake, the beloved patrons of online content are an easy win. But the Internet is full is cats, so how do you make yourself stand out?

Tone of Voice

The staff behind the social posts have a very clear tone of voice. It’s extremely silly and light-hearted, uses a lot of humour and Internet culture references and language — and is never salesy or promotional.

Written captions and video voice-overs both follow this. It demonstrates a clear understanding of what the audience wants from the content — a laugh, an escape, a cute distraction. Again, most of this is likely intuitive thanks to the digital natives/Gen Z staff (statistically most likely to be running the social channels).

Content Focus

Cats are the primary content focus. Guests are almost never shown, and staff appear infrequently, usually to help with modelling merchandise. This allows the cats to be front and centre of the content, which is exactly what the audience is after.

Candid-style content is the most common type here. Videos of the cats in their environment — playing, sleeping, cuddling, getting up to mischief — never feel staged and always feel authentic. This candid moment-capture content is hard to fake and always resonates well with audiences.

Videos outperform stills in general — something common across all social content platforms thanks to the way algorithms work. All the content is quite high quality — possibly shot using a professional camera, certainly using a top-end smartphone camera. The cafe background against which all the content is shot also maintains a theme and brand-feeling so the content feels connected.

The understanding that the cats are never harmed or stressed is also clear. The Neko cats are generally tolerant, and you can tell the cats enjoy the silliness and engagement as much as the humans do. As anyone who has ever owned a cat will tell you, you can’t make them do something they don’t want to.

Community Engagement

From the comment sections, you can see how active the channel is in engaging with the audience. Whether it’s small responses agreeing on something, or responding to a comment about an adoptable cat, the account is active in conversation with the followers. the same light-hearted tone of voice and internet culture language also remains front and centre, reinforcing the approach.

Paw-sitive Results

The Neko cat cafe social channels are truly a great example of how letting people do social in the same way they consume social will:

• Draw a like-minded audience and community
• Allow for greater authenticity (in content and communications)
• Give space for creativity and fun without stiff restrictions
• Allow content to flourish and stand out in a crowded online space

Although I can’t comment on if they’ve used any paid social tactics to help grow their online audience, my gut instinct would be a hard no. The social channels exist to promote two physical locations, with a side e-commerce element.

A slow-growth, organic and community-based approach to social is more beneficial than a hard-and-fast paid campaign for these kinds of businesses. The community aspect is what they’re looking for, to drive repeat in-person visitors and also people who feel connected enough to purchase through the online shop.

I can only speak for myself, but having followed their channels for around six months now, I definitely would be up for taking a trip to the cafe if I ever found myself in Washington state!