People soshalize. They don't care how it's spelled. They just do it.
There are many lessons we can take from this Super Bowl this year. Important, crucial information like Beyonce has still got it, always pay your electricity bill before you have company over, and murderers can go on to do great things in life. Even more important though, are the lessons we can learn about Marketing with Twitter and Facebook. Let us here at Wikimotive share some of these with you.
For years, the social media landscape has remained largely unchanged. Sure, you have things like Pinterest and Instagram popping up, but the big things for business have consistently been Marketing with Twitter and Facebook. Google+ was designed to be the Facebook killer, but it hasn’t accomplished that, not by a long-shot. What Google’s social network HAS done, just this week, is take one step up the podium.
The answer, of course, is an Instagram. Listen, I’m not going to tell you that’s a great joke, simply a relevant one, because the social picture sharing and food-photo-filtering site has been making waves this week with their announcement that all your photos will soon be theirs. Everywhere, millions of voices are crying out against the image of Instagram CEOs diving Scrooge McDuck style into a big pool of blurry photos of cats and duck-faced girls. This might not be completely accurate, but the grim reality is that it’s not too far off either. I’m not sure why everyone is so surprised though, as anyone who does marketing with Twitter and Facebook knows that this is the same old song and dance.
People often times ask if they should schedule their social content posting when marketing with Twitter and Facebook. The short answer is yes, you should certainly schedule. For every industry, including automotive, there are times of day that see more activity than others, and scheduling ensures you hit those times of day. There are a myriad of services that offer post scheduling to every major social network and you should absolutely be taking advantage of those (just do a Google search to find one that fits your needs).
Now are you ready for the long answer?
There’s something to be said for getting in on a trend when it’s hot, social media marketing at it’s core is all about trends. When that great, roaring and rushing storm of interest starts to brew, it pays to be right in the eye of that sucker…unless the storm in question is a LITERAL one, of course.
American Apparel found that out the hard way when they tried to capitalize on hurricane Sandy’s arrival on the east coast. They sent out a mass-email Monday night (during peak storm hours) offering 20% off to customers who were in the danger zone. All you had to do was be in the right state and enter SANDYSALE at checkout.
This didn’t go over so well.
Social media marketing presents us with opportunities every day, we just need to be cognizant of them. Something simple can become a major boon, and sometimes it pays to go over the top a little bit, because if you don’t, a competitor might.
This played out last week after a joking Facebook post went viral. A man named Thomas Cook posted on the Facebook wall of the Thomas Cook travel agency. He wrote, “Seeing as I share the exact same name as your huge company, and because of this I have been ridiculed for as long as I can remember. I think it’s only fair that you help compensate for this by giving me one of your lovely holidays.”
The global travel agency politely declined. This might have been the end of it, but for LowCostHolidays.com. They saw the message and replied to Thomas Cook (the man) with this, “Here at lowcostholidays.com we completely sympathise with your suffering and if your name was “lowcostholidays.com” we would certainly have accepted your request to be sent away on a weekend in Paris. … So how about we send you on that weekend in Paris?”
And they did.
And the story blew up.
It’s been featured on most major news outlets and no matter how whimsical the story, it still ends up as a lot of great publicity for lowcostholidays.com, more than they ever could have gotten from spending the relatively small price of a weekend in Paris on advertising. Thomas Cook (the company) isn’t getting bad press, but they missed out on the opportunity for some GREAT press.
The takeaway? When you’re in a competitive field, sometimes it pays to be willing to go a little further than the competition. Keep tabs on their social media as well as your own, and capitalize on their mistakes and missed opportunities. Just make sure they can’t do the same thing to you!
Original article about Thomas Cook social media posted on Wikimotive’s blog under the title Thomas Cook’s Vacation.
Did you catch the presidential debate this week? It was of the more intense events from any recent election. The candidates appeared as though they might drop the mics and go for blood any second. Luckily, it didn’t come to that, but there was another group waiting in the wings, poised to pounce at the first opportunity. Of course we’re talking about the cyber-snipers, the people who watch national events just waiting for phrases with viral potential to drop, so they can exploit it for marketing with Facebook and Twitter. They got lucky this debate, because when Romney said “They brought us whole binders full of women,” a star was born.
The phrase was used innocuously, but it was taken out of context and spread around the web like wildfire. Grabbing this kind of phrase while it’s hot is a marketing dream, beneficial to pretty much any business. Don’t believe it? Let us show you a couple examples.
Facebook has hit another incredible milestone yesterday; the social network now has over a billion active monthly users. Did you read that right? That’s a BILLION with a B. Every single month. Marketing using Facebook can potentially reach more people than any other media outlet ever.
Zuckerberg kept it low key, simply publishing the following on his Facebook Newsroom:
Facebook has become so entrenched as the social media leader, it’s difficult to imagine any new threats emerging…but what about old threats? What about long forgotten ancients, stirring from their slumber and rising from the sea to reclaim their throne? In the world of social media this may be happening right now.
What about Myspace?
Well, it turns out sexy isn’t the only thing Justin Timberlake is bringing back.
Facebook and Apple are two of the most influential companies on the internet today, but they’ve never really worked well together. The fault falls mostly on Facebook. Their mobile application has been notoriously buggy and all the functionality it promised was never truly delivered. When Apple released iOS 5, everyone thought Facebook integration would be one of the main features, but it was conspicuously absent, to the dismay of many. With the newly released iOS 6 though, functionality for one of the world’s most popular social media sites is finally a priority.
Once you update to the new iOS, simply go to settings and you’ll find a header for Facebook. Open that up, and you’ll be guided through integrating Facebook into your phone. What does integration mean on iOS 6? Let us break down a few of the more interesting features.
