As you scroll through Twitter, you are more than likely going to see a brand you recognize tweeting out their reaction to the latest Game Of Thrones episode or engaging in some playful banter with another brand. One of the most popular ways I personally see brands tweet is when one brand quote tweets another. Even the simplest interactions between brands drive massive amounts of engagement. To have a successful social media campaign, every tweet must be calculated.
Even this one:
If you are interested in learning how to craft a seamless social media campaign, follow these simple steps below to learn more!
Step 1: Find Out Who Is Listening
This may seem simple, but in all actuality, it can get very complex. There are all too many organizations / businesses who are throwing content away by not targeting the right audience.
For example, if you are not using some type of program to gauge your followers then you are using social media incorrectly. Your brand needs to know and understand who the target is. Do some research, study some analytics, and start talking.
Step 2: Fun People are Fun, It’s Who They Are
If you are a brand that has a good time you need to show that. A big misconception that brands have when they are starting out is to just fire wherever they want.
In other words, the brand itself comes off as a bipolar nutcase on their social media, instead of a well-informed, modern individual.
In order to avoid looking like you have no purpose, here are some steps you can take to be more organized:
- Stay current: Other than staying up to date on the subject of your organization’s goals there are other ways of being well versed in your field.
- Develop your voice: Every brand has its own way of talking and speaking online. If your brand focuses on a younger audience, make sure your messages are relevant to your niche or else your message will be lost.
- Curate similar content to your brand: Don’t be afraid to use someone else’s content that you can connect to your very own brand. This could lead to partnerships, more followers, or a stronger sense of who you are to others. Content is today’s digital currency, so when you can leverage someone else’s for free you need to take that opportunity.
Step 3: Speak To the Crowd, Love the Individual.
It’s no secret that everyone today is trying their best to make an emotional connection to those they are trying to reach. As millennials become the focus of brands, there is a tension that develops between trying to show who you are and why you are special versus everyone else. For the most part, you and all of your competitors are doing the same exact thing. What you must worry about, is if they are doing it better than you.
Here are some examples of social media campaigns who spoke to the crowd, yet went to the core of the individual.
Lay’s was losing touch with the current generation. They found that the best way to reach a millennial is to give them something to participate in. This “something” couldn’t be just another contest or even just another video. It had to be interesting, effective, and long-lasting. By reaching out and giving the younger generation something to work on to better the company itself Lay’s was able to make every participant worthy to make their very own flavor.
This is a simple example of what it means to leverage someone else’s content while still hitting the individuals at the core. Wendy’s knows that there is content in making fun of their competitors for using “frozen beef”. Being that it is a controversial issue between using fresh or frozen beef, Wendys positions itself on the morally right side. By nothing more than one tweet they were able to provide a window into the culture of the brand they are trying to build.
Effective content doesn’t always have to be well planned out or even lengthy. Sometimes your most effective form of marketing will be your timing.
Now here is a social media campaign that has been able to put itself at the forefront of food news through using Twitter. As some of you may remember, in the summer of 2018, IHOP decided they would boldly change their brand by flipping the P in their name to a b, briefly changing their name to IHOb. When they announced on Twitter they were changing their name, they asked their audience to guess what the b stood for. This drove their engagement way up, with thousands of users replying, liking, and retweeting their posts.
Not only do they put a radical spin on their product, jokingly changing their main product to burgers rather than pancakes, but they also allow their users to become part of the mass hysteria they created on twitter. Allowing opportunities for random users to go viral by responding, quoting and, retweeting their tweets. Even Wendy’s got involved, using Steps 2 and 3, leveraging other brands content to their advantage.
In order for your brand to really hit the ball out of the park when it comes to creating a great social media campaign, you need to be courageous. When joining/creating a movement for your brand and finding a way to draw everyone into both the cause and your brand, you have to be creative and unafraid of taking risks. Just think of IHOP, they took a massive risk but, a year later here we are talking about it.
So there you have it, creating a seamless social media campaign will take time, it will take patience, and it will take working with others. Yet, it will be worth the time and money, in the end, to know that your brand will matter and be remembered long after you are gone.
Thanks for reading, if you have any questions drop them in the comments!
