social-tidbits

Facebook and Twitter sales teams will tell you that posts aligning with time relevant events (like national holidays, sporting events, etc.) receive the most interaction. But many times brands have a hard time using their owned media to support a general, non-brand specific message. It looks like this MLK day some brands caught on and even implemented this insight. Walmart took it a step further and promoted its post as ad.

 

Insight? - Even if a brand’s post doesn’t sell a product or promote one of its current campaigns, positing content that is interesting to users and results in a response is just as valuable. Possibly it is even more valuable, since the message connects with users on a more personal level and resembles and interaction made between friends on the site.

Twitter has become a common household name since its launch in 2006 with 87% of people now aware of the platform (just 1% less than Facebook) and 200 million users. Thanks to its obvious value to the news industry, it’s now a part of nightly news’ daily routine, most recently reaching headlines for the Royal Wedding and Osama Bin Laden’s death, which actually broke on the platform earlier this week. With an increasingly prominent presence, it’s no surprise that Twitter is constantly evolving its money maker – paid media.

Twitter currently offers brands the ability to purchase promoted trends, tweets and accounts. And they must be doing well. In February, the cost of its most successful paid media, promoted trends, jumped from $70-80K to $100-120K. And while many brands are still trying to get promoted trends down to a science, there are a few that are heading in the right direction.

Coke - Today @CocaCola launched its latest promoted trend, #ThankYou. 

While a thank you tweet is a nice thought, it’s definitely not all that’s driving this $100,000 something media placement. At noon EST today, Coke will be hosting an exclusive live stream concert featuring top artists - K’Naan, Natasha Bedingfield, Kelly Clarkson, One Night Only and Ne-Yo to celebrate its 125th anniversary with fans. In the meantime, Coke’s sending users to its microsite, providing fans with a concert countdown and a nod to its Facebook page.

What did Coke get right?

• Using Twitter media to promote a global event (60% of Twitter users are located outside of the U.S.)
• Using a positive hashtag with nearly no language barrier
• Driving fans from Twitter to a website and not to Facebook
• Providing worldwide fans with exclusive and engaging content

Radio Shack - In December of 2010 @RadioShack launched #IfIHadSuperPowers giving fans a fun and engaging way to win prizes around the holidays.

To enter, users were asked to follow @RadioShack, submit a Twitpic with their hand held out, like the one to the right, and include #IfIHadSuperPowers. Throughout the day, RadioShack doctored photos and turned all entrants into Holiday Heroes, selecting winners by placing the prize in their new superhero hands.

What did Radio Shack get right?

• Followed the normal UX of users on the platform to drive high engagement 
• Used a fun and relevant hashtag that fans could create a conversation around (#IfIHadSuperPowers trended for 2 days)
• Beat the 140 character limit by directing fans to its Twitpic page, which provided an informational, but fun description of the contest.

With Coke and Radio Shack among leaders in the promoted trend space, what can other brands take from their strategy?

1. Don’t just buy a promoted trend to get into the space. Make sure it ladders up to the campaign’s strategy, goals, target and message -This seems obvious, but so many times brands are focused on just getting into the “it” space.
2. Choose a positive hashtag - No brand wants users picking up its $100K-120K hashtag and using it negatively in conversation, so don’t give them the option.
3. Drive fans to a landing page that makes sense - Tweets should not send users to another social site with media that could have housed this message. Why run media on Twitter if you’re just going to drive them to Facebook? You might as well run Facebook media and keep them within the same platform.
4. Create a user-flow Twitter users are comfortable with to engage them– Users are comfortable with clicking out of Twitter for information and using apps/sites compatible with the site like Twitpic, GetGlue, Instagram, etc.
5. Give fans something exclusive to engage with - We all know that exclusive content is all the rage among social media strategies. Why? Because it works.