If there’s any model that understands the ability of the comeback, it’s Crocs. Its most recognizable product—light-weight, perforated clogs—had been a style staple within the early to mid-2000s. Nonetheless, the fallout from the 2008 world recession paired with overproduction left the American footwear enterprise in a precarious state.
However almost 20 years later, Crocs has emerged stronger than ever.
With the assistance of a brand new government staff and a refreshed advertising technique (together with social media advertising), Crocs elevated its annual world income from $1.2 billion in 2014 to $4.1 billion in 2024.
The variety of Crocs shops worldwide additionally hit its highest level in seven years as of 2024, with a complete of 390 shops. Though the US has the best proportion of Crocs storefronts, the model has expanded globally, with most of its worldwide retail outlets in South Korea (95), China (51) and Japan (21).
Crocs’ revival is undeniably spectacular, and its social technique has been a driving pressure in its general advertising success.
On this information, we’ll break down Crocs’ strategy to social media and what you may study from it.
Crocs’ advertising technique is embedded of their model ethos
Though its model may be polarizing, Crocs is unapologetic about its daring and unmistakable model identification. As a substitute of making an attempt to please everybody, it leans into its distinct aesthetic and makes use of social advertising to attach with individuals who additionally worth self-expression.
Certainly one of Crocs’ core values is optimism, with the model trying on the brilliant and colourful aspect of life. This philosophy is mirrored in its rainbow-hued merchandise and showcased throughout its social profiles. On networks like Instagram, TikTok and Fb, the model incorporates a vibrant kaleidoscope of colours, from butter yellow to vivid orange to sky blue.
Crocs can also be self-described as “delightfully democratic”, believing that everybody ought to be capable of specific their distinctive sense of favor by way of their footwear—another excuse for the wide range in its product line.
Past the colorscape, the social content material itself additionally upholds Crocs’ dedication to positivity and individuality. The model typically jumps onto enjoyable developments—comparable to month-to-month horoscopes—and makes use of a tongue-in-cheek tone in its captions.
Posts like these are a playful and efficient reminder that:
- With Crocs, the chances for self-expression are countless.
- Lighthearted and laid-back, the model is comfy with its identification—simply as you need to be with yours.
Glocalization, not globalization
To interrupt into worldwide markets, Crocs knew its model ethos couldn’t be one-size-fits-all. As a substitute, they strategically tailored it for native contexts to have interaction world audiences and usher them into the Crocs neighborhood.
So, how is Crocs regionally customizing its content material?
One tactic has been creating devoted native social media accounts. For example, on Instagram, there are accounts for the UK & Europe, Indonesia, Japan and Mexico, to call just a few. Whereas all of the accounts prioritize product-led, colourful visuals, every feed is customized to the regional tradition, that includes unique carousels, Reels and highlights.
Language is one other technique of social media personalization for Crocs. The model typically posts multilingual content material, making it extra accessible and fascinating for world shoppers.
For instance, the Fb submit under was a part of a profitable Brazilian marketing campaign, during which the model posted content material in Portuguese.
Crocs additionally blends world developments with native expertise, collaborating with influencers and celebrities who’re particularly beloved in particular areas.
Buzz across the collaboration with Ok-pop group Le Sserafim started early, with Sprout Listening knowledge displaying over 4,000 messages from followers sharing posts about their excited anticipation earlier than the launch to rejoicing in getting a pair afterwards between September 28 and November 19, 2025. Leaning into the group’s fanbase, Crocs’ was in a position to embed itself in an current neighborhood of extremely engaged clients by making a design that replicate’s the group’s daring and fearless model.
Crocs’ partnership with Chinese language singer, dancer and producer, Xin Liu, is one other good instance. Having risen to fame on the fact present Youth With You 2, Liu has over two million followers on Instagram. Along with sharing her music along with her viewers, she spotlights her private model, with outfits together with every part from orange tassels to pink rhinestones.
Given her signature model, she was the best companion for Crocs, collaborating with the model in honor of Lunar New 12 months (particularly, the 12 months of the Snake).
By spotlighting a regional vacation and teaming up with a related superstar who champions individuality, Crocs upheld its dedication to self-expression and bolstered its world identification in a culturally related means.
How Crocs makes use of collaborations to create cultural moments
Crocs has mastered the artwork of turning collaborations with influencers, celebrities and different manufacturers into unforgettable cultural moments. The model expertly selects the creators it companions with, selecting figures who’re already real Crocs followers. Consequently, the content material feels extra genuine, which is the highest trait social customers search for in branded social content material, per The 2025 Sprout Social Index™.
From limited-edition collections to customized collaborations with a few of the world’s most related celebrities, Crocs drives urgency and pleasure in its social content material.
Right here’s a breakdown of a few of the model’s most original and unforgettable partnerships thus far, and the way it used these collaborations to be part of on-line (and offline) tradition.
Nostalgia with Massive Cozy Sofa
Nostalgia advertising may be extraordinarily efficient in driving gross sales and buyer loyalty.
Per a 2025 UserTesting survey, 71% of Individuals, 62% of Australians and 63% of Brits say they’re likelier to purchase from manufacturers they affiliate with their childhoods. On common, shoppers from these areas additionally mentioned they’d be prepared to pay as much as 27% extra for nostalgic comebacks, comparable to iPods and Recreation Boys.
Crocs noticed this want for nostalgia and grabbed maintain of it in one in all their latest TikTok collaborations, partnering with the beloved characters from the ’90s youngsters’s present, The Massive Cozy Sofa.
In a single video, Loonette the Clown performs her signature “clock stretch” however as a substitute of mendacity on a clock rug, she lies atop a Croc print on the ground—remodeling the train right into a “Croc stretch”.
In one other, Loonette reads a singular story to her good friend, Molly Dolly, that seamlessly integrates Crocs into the plot.
The 2 posts peaked Crocs’ social media engagement, garnering almost 200K interactions mixed, in response to Newswhip by Sprout Social knowledge. Many customers expressed delight on the nostalgic nature of the partnership, leaving feedback like “STOPPP IM AN ADULT NOW AND IM STILL OBSESSED. TAKE ALL MY MONEY” and “I missed this diva!!!”
Weaving their product seamlessly into an previous favourite was Crocs’ means of embracing the appeal of the unique present, relatively than making an attempt to alter it. The consequence was a social marketing campaign that felt genuine, nostalgic and genuinely enjoyable.
Luxurious & excessive style crossovers with Balenciaga and Swarovski
Regardless of Crocs not being a luxurious model, that hasn’t stopped it from partnering with high-end labels—a intelligent resolution as luxurious procuring turns into extra in style.
As of 2025, the worldwide luxurious items market is valued at over $471 billion, and this determine is anticipated to develop by 2.9% yearly for the following 5 years. Millennials and Gen Z—two of Crocs’ major buyer bases—are the most important spenders, accounting for 45% and 20% of luxurious items spending worldwide, respectively.
In June 2021, Crocs teamed up with Balenciaga, debuting Croc stilettos on the designer’s 2022 style present, combining inexpensive consolation with premium design.
And it bought individuals speaking. Within the weeks that adopted the launch, it spawned almost 400K interactions throughout the net; many had been shocked by the collaboration of two seemingly disconnected manufacturers.
However this partnership was only the start, setting the stage for upscale collaborations that shock and delight audiences. And stay as much as the model’s dedication to innovation.
That brings us to Could 2025 and the launch of Swarovski x Crocs.
The limited-edition line noticed two of Crocs most beloved kinds—the Basic Clog and Bae Clog—bedecked with Swarovski crystals. It additionally featured unique Jibbitz charms, together with a glowing Queen of Evening flower.
Per DSCENE, Crocs’ VP of World Advertising and marketing Matias Infante known as the gathering a “daring evolution” for the model.
“We’re elevating our most recognizable silhouettes and solidifying our place within the style dialog,” he mentioned.
The collaboration achieved precisely that, preserving Crocs’ basic designs whereas innovating them to suit into the excessive style house, the place self-expression is embraced and celebrated.
To discover the gathering and purchase these limited-edition pairs, shoppers needed to obtain and buy it via the Crocs app. This was a doubly intelligent transfer from Crocs; not solely did they generate buzz and exclusivity, however additionally they used the partnership to funnel extra individuals immediately into its digital ecosystem.
Fashiontainment & popular culture with celebrities
Fashiontainment—the place the world of style meets leisure—is changing into a go-to tactic in attire manufacturers’ social media methods. And with good cause, provided that leisure is the third most necessary trait of branded social content material, in response to the Index.
In apply, fashiontainment can take numerous varieties, together with product placement in in style exhibits, IRL occasions and collaborations that defy shopper expectations—all of which Crocs does masterfully.
For instance, a few of its most up-to-date superstar collaborations have included figures like Millie Bobby Brown, Younger Miko and Kai Cenat.
In its partnership with Millie Bobby Brown, the model featured whimsical, colourful photographs of the Stranger Issues star sporting its new product: cozzzy clogs.
The submit clearly hit the proper notice with the Crocs’ viewers; the Instagram carousel acquired over 500K engagements on August thirteenth alone—their greatest spike in interactions on the community between July 14 and October 14, 2025.
The corporate continued seeing success within the weeks that adopted, due to its Younger Miko product drop. Crocs labored with the Puerto Rican rapper to create a customized Jibbitz pack, then introduced the launch by way of an Instagram carousel that includes her and the merchandise.
The submit prompted the second-biggest spike in Instagram interactions throughout the identical interval, receiving over 260K interactions.
Crocs additionally jumped on one of many greatest popular culture moments of 2025: the discharge of Taylor Swift’s twelfth studio album, The Lifetime of a Showgirl.
The transfer was firmly on the heartbeat of on-line tradition, provided that 69% of social customers felt manufacturers ought to submit concerning the album, per the This fall 2025 Sprout Social Pulse Survey.
On Fb, the model shared a reel of somebody adorning a pair of orange Crocs with feathers, rhinestones and tassels consistent with the album artwork. It additionally included a pun in its caption, sustaining Crocs’ tongue-in-cheek tone.
The submit was well-received by its viewers, garnering almost 4K interactions on October 5, 2025 alone. This accounted for Crocs’ greatest spike in Fb interactions in the course of the July 14 to October 14, 2025 interval.
These superstar and popular culture tie-ins spotlight simply how effectively Crocs is aware of its viewers, leveraging the developments and figures they love most. All of the whereas, Crocs persistently retains its product and model values—playfulness and originality—on the forefront.
Surprising & area of interest mashup with Our Place
Crocs additionally makes a speciality of sudden, area of interest partnerships that reduce via the noise and proper into shoppers’ reminiscences.
Take its collaboration with the cookware model, Our Place.
Consistent with Our Place’s butter-yellow cookware assortment, Crocs created a customized line of Jibbitz, together with sticks of butter, a buttered slice of toast and the butter-yellow pans themselves.
To generate buzz across the collaboration, the manufacturers posted a joint Instagram giveaway, providing social customers the chance to win all the cookware set, a Surprise oven, a pair of unique butter Crocs footwear and Jibbitz charms.
Though footwear and kitchenware might appear to be unrelated industries, the businesses even have rather a lot in widespread. Each use shade and magnificence as a car for expression, prioritize innovation and attempt to deliver individuals collectively—all of which have generated uber-loyal fandoms.
Collectively, they mixed the most effective of each their worlds, making a novel expertise for current audiences whereas concurrently utilizing the collaboration to succeed in new followers.
How Crocs’ social media presence is a masterclass in engagement and creativity
Crocs has managed to show itself from a once-polarizing model right into a footwear staple and social media icon. Daring, intelligent and refreshingly human, Crocs is proof that social advertising is best if you’re not simply promoting however really connecting along with your viewers past partnerships and campaigns.
In response to Sprout Listening knowledge, Crocs has achieved over two million complete engagements between September 28 and November 19, 2025 alone. Let’s check out a few of the key ways feeding this engagement and that Crocs makes use of to persistently stand out on social.
Embrace and encourage UGC
A key means that Crocs nurtures model authenticity is by encouraging its clients to create user-generated content material (UGC).
In Crocs’ case, UGC comes within the type of day-in-the-life vlogs, humorous skits and styling movies just like the one under from creator Ariel Kellogg.
Celeb followers even submit UGC, additional fueling viral developments. Between September 28, 2025 and November 19, 2025, Sprout Listening knowledge confirmed a fan-fueled development round #CrocsKoreaXTen that spurred virtually 2,000 messages. It began on Instagram, when Thai Ok-Pop star TEN of NCT and WayV shared an Instagram story sporting Crocs’ limited-edition Basic Unforgettable Leopard Knee Excessive Boots created in collaboration with rapper T-Ache. The development shortly unfold to X, the place followers speculated a couple of future partnership and even began tagging Crocs on to share their pleasure concerning the prospect of it. A widely known fan of Crocs, TEN has continuously included custom-made Crocs into this outfits, making him an natural ambassador, even when they by no means formalize a partnership.
As a result of it outsources content material creation to loyal clients, UGC produces a perpetual loop of genuine phrase of mouth. Clients of all degree of influencers go from being product fans to performing as model ambassadors representing the Crocs neighborhood in their very own artistic methods.
This individuality ties immediately again to one in all Crocs’ core values. With an enormous collection of kinds, colours and Jibbitz, no two pairs of Crocs are ever the identical. And every bit of UGC spotlights that private contact, encouraging and celebrating the Crocs neighborhood’s self-expression.
Customized engagement
The Q2 2025 Sprout Social Pulse Survey discovered that viewers interplay is the factor social customers crave most from manufacturers, with 58% rating it their prime precedence.
That want for engagement is one thing Crocs takes severely, significantly in its remark sections on networks like TikTok and Instagram. Not solely does the model reply to social media feedback, nevertheless it tailors these responses to immediately tackle every consumer’s distinctive speaking factors whereas sustaining its informal, compelling and infrequently cheeky model voice.
For example, to advertise its Grinch-themed Crocs, the corporate created a sequence of TikTok movies that includes its personal spin on the inexperienced character.
One of many movies sees the Grinch sporting a white wig and reciting some iconic strains from Miranda Priestly, the tyrannical boss from The Satan Wears Prada. Individuals shortly picked up on the film crossover, with somebody commenting, “I do know the Satan Wears Prada once I see it”. Crocs replied with one other nod to the movie, referencing a few of Priestly’s signature approval indicators (i.e. nodding and smiling).
Plus, that is one other case of Crocs harnessing the ability of nostalgia. On this case, the model is embracing nostalgia in its content material and the feedback, permitting it to partake in on-line tradition in two alternative ways.
This sort of personalised engagement is only one instance of how Crocs turns digital conversations into significant moments of reference to its viewers.
Adapting to world occasions
Crocs persistently thinks on its toes, pivoting its advertising methods to align with main occasions and developments necessary to its clients. By adapting to those ever-changing parts, Crocs preserves its relevancy within the minds of shoppers.
One instance is its Free Pair for Healthcare initiative, which it launched in 2020 in the course of the COVID-19 pandemic. Crocs knew that one in all its longtime, core buyer teams was healthcare employees, who favored that the footwear had been comfy and simple to wash.
“It grew to become apparent that we have now a product {that a} group of our shoppers have been shopping for from us for years, and that specific group had an instantaneous and actual want,” mentioned Crocs’ Chief Digital Officer Adam Michaels. “We thought one of the best ways to present again was to present them the footwear they wanted on the entrance strains.”
As a part of the initiative, Crocs donated over 860,000 pairs of footwear worldwide, totaling $40 million in worth.
The model upheld this system within the years that adopted, selling it on social by sharing footage of actual nurses sporting Crocs on the bottom in hospitals and clinics. That is one other nice show of Crocs’ UGC, which retains its advertising grounded in actual individuals and tales.
Crocs is proof that adaptability—significantly when paired with authenticity—can flip world occasions into advertising masterclasses that by no means lose sight of the client.
Quirky & playful content material
As we mentioned earlier than, Crocs doesn’t take itself too severely. So it’s unsurprising that the model leans closely into humorous, unconventional content material on its socials.
However this social advertising transfer isn’t simply to align with the model’s identification; it’s to present social customers what they need. In response to our Q2 2025 Pulse Survey, 34% of social customers count on to see humorous content material from “daring” manufacturers like Crocs.
And posts just like the one under do a wonderful job of assembly that expectation. Within the POV-style Reel, somebody heads to the fridge, and the textual content overlay reads “nothing like a pair chilly ones after an extended day”. Whereas this expression usually means somebody is grabbing a few beers, Crocs took this concept of consolation to a brand new degree, revealing a pair of its clogs within the fridge.
Surprising and foolish, the submit is a chief instance of how Crocs makes use of humor to chop via the noise, keep true to its model and seize viewers consideration in a relatable means.
Tailor-made content material for youthful audiences
With its core viewers made up of younger individuals, the model makes certain to maintain its finger on the heartbeat of what’s most related to these demographics, comparable to the style developments, TV exhibits and musicians they’re at present loving.
Certainly one of these generations’ most beloved artists is Beyoncé. Per the 2024 State of Beyoncé: A Research of Fandom Tradition survey, 26% of Millennials and 19% of Gen Z respondents take into account themselves a part of the “Beyhive”.
So, it’s no shock that her Cowboy Carter Tour was a cultural phenomenon—and Crocs capitalized on it. Take this Reel from June 2025, during which Crocs are embellished in honor of the tour.
Leveraging cultural moments like these allows Crocs to strengthen its relevance and intimate understanding of buyer pursuits.
The Crocs advertising playbook: Key takeaways on your technique
By taking a web page or two from Crocs’ advertising playbook, you may rework your social content material right into a persistently related and modern technique.
Listed here are a few of the key takeaways to combine into your technique:
- Customized, genuine engagement: Social customers don’t simply need to be seen; they need to be understood. Customise your feedback and replies, utilizing clients’ names and acknowledging particular factors from their unique message or remark. Tailor your messages to make sure they abide by your model voice, so customers know precisely what to anticipate when participating with you.
- Shared cultural reminiscences: Keep updated on what your viewers is speaking about, be it trending occasions, social media tradition moments or world actions. Then, discover genuine methods to affix the dialog. Contributing to those broader discussions will hold your model related, relatable and a part of one thing larger than itself.
- Pattern agility and listening: Along with monitoring what your viewers is speaking about, use social media listening instruments to maintain tabs on how they really feel about these subjects and the way these emotions shift over time. Use these insights to refine your content material and messaging, demonstrating that your model is agile and actively engaged.
- Genuine collaborations: Search out influencers and creators who’re related to your viewers, and who’re or may be true followers of your model as effectively. This may add an additional dose of authenticity and fandom to your collaborations, whereas additionally serving to hold your model and content material persistently aligned to on-line tradition.
Why Crocs’ social media technique is constructed to final
Crocs has confirmed that it has actual endurance, not simply as a style model however as a social media advertising grasp.
Each transfer Crocs makes on social is guided by a deep understanding of its viewers and what’s related to them. Utilizing that data, the model creates content material that speaks their language—that includes their favourite creators, leaping on developments they love and celebrating the moments that matter most to them—via the unmistakable Crocs lens.
Begin understanding what your viewers needs with The 2025 Sprout Social Index™, which digs into what shoppers count on from manufacturers on social.
