We’ve all heard that saying, “There’s no such thing as a bad idea in brainstorming.” Well, I’ve got news for you, that’s just something your teachers told you in elementary school to avoid stunting your creativity. We’re not saying we don’t love your ambition and completely support the creative process, but when you’re pitching campaigns to your client, you need to recognize and weed out the bad ideas early. You don’t want to end up wasting your time, and more importantly the client’s time on ideas that aren’t realistic, or worse, find out an idea can’t be executed when the ball is already rolling.Spare yourself the pain, and be sure to ask yourself these questions while brainstorming...1. Is your idea within budget? There are a million great ideas out there that would make for an AWESOME marketing campaign. You could partner with Ray-ban and offer a free pair of sunglasses for everyone who signs up for your promotion. Caitlyn Jenner could love your product so much that maybe, you could ask her to make a 15 second Instagram video driving fans to your brand page. Or even better, you could just put your Facebook URL on the moon.All of these ideas would be a great way to drive people to your socials! You would get thousands of entries and tons of buzz from the press. But can they be executed? Unless your client has ample money to give away, a close personal friend of the Jenners or building a time machine with NASA, it’s probably not going to happen. Take those ideas, file them away on the off chance you end up with a budget to make them possible, and channel that creativity towards the attainable.
2. Is your idea on brand and designed for your target market? When approaching a brainstorm, you need to be EXTREMELY clear on the brand image. Let’s look at Taco Bell. They recently launched a delivery service to much excitement from their fans. And depending on your age, you might be thinking… Who wants Taco Bell delivered? I will tell you who wants Taco Bell delivered…. poor, lazy college students who are probably too intoxicated to stumble to the nearest Taco Bell. Taco Bell has built an empire off of this by leaning into the “Late Night Munchies” demographic for years. They cater their tone on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram to that crowd and the fans eat it up (literally). But, could any brand do something like this? ABSOLUTELY NOT. You might think the “stoner comedy” tone and a late night delivery service is funny in theory, but that doesn’t work for a brand like Tender Greens. They have worked to set the stage for a healthy, wholesome alternative to fast food and suggesting a switch in tone to something like “Late Night Munchie Meals” (especially delivery) would alienate and confuse the preexisting demographic.
3. Can this idea realistically be executed seamlessly? Ok, you have the budget, tone and it’s the perfect way to get your audience excited and drive new fans to your social platforms. Now, ask yourself, can this actually be executed? To answer this question, you need to factor in a few things…a. Do people understand it? I’m talking, your mom, your significant other, your crazy uncle in Nebraska? You want to make sure the general population understands the requirements of this promotion. They are the ones who will be participating, and you don’t have the time to be fielding 800 questions.b. Legally, are all of your bases covered? For any kind of promotion big or small you will need a set of rules and terms & conditions. This will protect your brand, in the event you have some sore losers.c. Do you have the man-power? If you want to put a Wheel-of-Fortune type wheel in every Islands Burger across the country and give fans an opportunity to spin it and win a free burger, you need to make sure that can happen. If you can’t be certain this can be executed, tweaks to your promotion are needed. If you can’t execute your plan 10 times out of 10, you are going to end up with a slew of complaints and problems.4. Is this idea appropriate or socially acceptable? This is the most important factor, because whether your idea is for the social space or not, if it is an inappropriate idea, it will go viral and become part of the social story. You need to remember when releasing content into the social sphere, you cannot control who sees it. Marketing materials are out in the world for public consumption, and if they are at all inappropriate or offensive, you will suffer the wrath of your consumers.5. Where should your campaign live? Now that you’re sure that you are within budget, on brand and catered to your target market, you need to consider the best place to showcase your campaign. Each platform caters to a specific kind of submission and you need to be aware of that.Let’s say you’re HGTV and want to run a giveaway where the Property Brothers will re-do your bathroom. Asking fans to submit a photo of their “before bathroom” using #HGTVBeforeBathroom should absolutely be hosted on Instagram. Why? Because Instagram is a photo driven, hashtag friendly social platform.
While users could enter a photo post on Twitter it is not likely to gain the same amount of traction there. Twitter is driven by 140 characters. This makes Twitter a great platform for word based entries. This kind of contest creates an even lower barrier to entry and should drive up submission.Now, you may notice we haven’t mentioned Facebook. A great Facebook campaign may require a little more oomph. Ideally, you may want to build an app (similar to the Honest Co. example to the left) in lieu of a microsite to give your fans somewhere to sign up and submit their entries. Building a “contest hub” on Facebook can allow you to house entries from any platform and give fans a nice landing page to find out all of the information they need.If you have answered a resounding “YES!” to all four of these questions, then there’s a strong possibility you don’t have a bad idea! Go forth and brainstorm your hearts out.Want more tips and tricks for how to dominate social this year with Data, Creative and Amplification? Download our 2016 Social Media Survival Guide.
How powerful is Selfie Marketing and how do you measure it?In today’s cluttered world of advertising, brands need to build ongoing connections with consumers where they engage in branded content. Paid media is not as effective as it once was.The best marketers are coming up with ideas to encourage customers to market their brand to their friends in fun and entertaining ways. According to Nielsen, impressions are 3x the value of paid media as there are few things more valuable than referrals coming from people we know.Ninety-two percent of people believe in recommendations coming from friends and only 47 percent and 33 percent believe in TV ads and banners, respectively (Nielsen Global Advertising Trust Study).The easiest way to measure Selfie media vs. Paid media is through Cost Per Engagement. At Socialtyze, we have seen our Selfie and influencer campaigns report CPE rates in the 20 to 30 cent range which is approximately one half to one third of what we see in paid media, not to mention Nielsen’s 3x in value of earned vs. paid.As for impressions, it’s a little harder to measure, but one way to look at the analysis for Instagram is to tally the average number of friends (843) and use an estimated reach of friends. Tap Influence estimates this number at 35%.
What are best practices for Selfie Marketing?The Idea. Center the selfie around an activity or theme that is simple, fun, shareable and promotes your brand. CPK’s What We Do for Love and Dear Mom campaigns above are good examples.The Incentive. Provide an incentive to post and #xyzSweeps to encourage people to participate. The best incentives are ones that money can’t buy, such as the Marc Jacobs Modeling Contest featured above.Feed App. Use a feed app that collects all the submissions in one destination (via a #), creating a community that allows you to display and promote all the submissions in a tab or microsite.
Content License. Set up the terms and conditions of your program so that you have the licensing rights to the posted content. The more unique the URL, the easier it will be to claim the rights.Content Approval Process. Use a feed app that allows you to approve or reject the content. While you can’t prevent what people post to their own pages, you can be selective in what you include in your own page through a content management system.Photos vs. Videos. While we are fans of video submission for the right campaign, it is a higher bar to clear than submitting a photo. More often than not, photos will generate more participation, more shares and more reach.The Right Social Networks. Encourage consumers to use Instagram. Unlike Facebook, whose algorithm limits views to approximately 10-15% of a friend base, Instagram posts reach a much higher percentage of friends, estimated at 25% - 35%. Vine is also very powerful if you are focusing on video and a younger demographic.Promote your Campaigns. Use paid media and influencer marketing to promote the campaigns. Influencers lend tremendous credibility to campaigns and encourage others to participate. Remember that every user engagement will be amplified so that your paid media dollars can go even further.My last point is that Selfie Marketing is hot right now and it is still relatively young which means it’s the best time to jump in. Getting users to participate is easier than you think and there is nothing better than watching your own customers endorse your brand to their friends, while having a ton of fun doing so.Want more tips and tricks for how to dominate social this year with Data, Creative and Amplification? Download our 2016 Social Media Survival Guide.
How Smart Marketers are CapitalizingFrom Pope Francis to Darth Vader, from Obama to Kim Kardashian, everyone seems to be taking selfies. Ellen DeGeneres tallied 33 million views and 2.4 million retweets for her Oscar Selfie. Oxford Dictionaries even announced “Selfie” as the Word of Year in 2013.Whether you like it or not, “The Selfie” is here to stay.I find selfies fascinating. Not so much for myself, although I do take them now and then, but for marketers. The Selfie provides an excellent opportunity for marketers to support an activity that people are already doing and integrate themselves into existing conversations in authentic ways.With selfies, brands can encourage fans to become part of an insta-community built around an activity or theme that is on brand and serves a specific strategic purpose.Here are four examples of great Selfie campaigns:
Hostess capitalized on the fact that Twinkies look just like Minions and partnered with Universal to create TwinkieMinions.com to provide fans with the opportunity to win a trip to Paris.
Fashion Designer Marc Jacobs put out a casting call to find the “Next Face of Marc Jacobs”. To become eligible, fans posted to Instagram or Twitter using the hashtag #CastMeMarc . Within one day they received 15,000 entries and by the campaign’s end, reported a total tally of 70,000.
Beats did a campaign called Solo Selfie to promote Solo2. With the support of some major celebrity talent, Beats has asked consumers to take a video selfie from one side of the headphones to the other and post using #SoloSelfie. Over 9,000 users participated.
California Pizza Kitchen (CPK) designed What We Do For Love during Valentine’s Day and tapped influencers, including top talent from The Bachelor, to post what they do for love along with #CPKLoveSweeps. Participants vied for the opportunity to receive CPK for a year, and all images were pulled into a feed gallery app, creating an insta-community centered on CPK and Valentine’s Day. CPK followed the campaign with a Dear Mom sweepstakes that allowed fans to post selfies celebrating their moms for a chance to win a trip to Las Vegas.Next week in Part Two of this post, we will address how you can measure the impact of Selfie campaigns, as well as best practices and things to consider when planning your campaign.Want more tips and tricks for how to dominate social this year with Data, Creative and Amplification? Download our 2016 Social Media Survival Guide.
Having worked in the studio industry for what felt like a lifetime, and overseeing 70+ digital marketing campaigns for theatrical releases, I’ve learned the importance of a well-balanced movie campaign. For example, a successful media campaign needs the right creative to create buzz, and a high reaching TV campaign isn’t as impactful without a targeted social post endorsing the film. Yet, as we immerse more deeply into the automated world of programmatic advertising, I am alarmed when I read how marketers are shifting more and more of their dollars into this space. As much as programmatic media allows us to efficiently pinpoint our target audience through data sources leveraging behaviors, affinities and look-alikes, relying solely on this sways the marketing scale too heavily into the mechanical void of non-personalized media.A successful digital movie campaign requires a more balanced mix of high reach and contextually relevant media. It doesn’t stop at programmatic, it levels out the automation with the synchronized execution of an Influencer campaign creating an emotional connection with its audience through well-tailored authentic messages. Influencers not only lend trustworthiness, they contextually align their allegiance with the passions and behaviors of their readers and followers. An authentic message has over 6 times the efficacy of a generic post.[1]With the proper lead time, instituting the following guidelines will help you execute a successful Influencer program in film marketing, ensuring you’re connecting with your audience, and ultimately driving box office dollars.
Side Note: Stop thinking Influencer Marketing is only for the millennials. 62% of Facebook, 60% of Pinterest and 59% of Twitter’s audiences are 35+[2]. Done right, a successful Influencer campaign can engage the masses as well as target niche audiences alike – all with powerful endorsements you can’t buy through media alone.
Want more tips and tricks for how to dominate social this year with Data, Creative and Amplification? Download our 2016 Social Media Survival Guide.
Ethnic targeting is notoriously difficult for any marketer. We’ve heard it all: linguistic profiling, targeting by hyper-specific area, targeting by interest, or JUST language. All of these felt, to be kind, shoddy in their construction.In years past, Facebook has worked hard to develop a more robust and accurate profile. They use their partnership with Datalogix to pinpoint credit profiles overlain with census data to build a real ethnic targeting capability.You read that right; they’re using credit card info to target your ads. Creepy as it sounds, it blows away any competitive targeting parameters in the ethnic arena. The result is a full offering that is especially useful in Hispanic Marketing.The real development here is the opportunity to target bilinguals, which at 60% of the US Hispanic population is the Holy Grail.
But the truth is any one of those groups is too broad for the type of hyper-targeted buy our clients are used to. They don’t want to target Asians. They want to target millennial Asians who are coastal and love action movies. That’s why Facebook’s ability to layer targeting puts it head and shoulders above the publisher network approach.Targeting by race alone is as silly and, candidly, lazy as you can get. Seth Godin made his name by encouraging marketers to “Find their tribe”. In essence, find a cohesive group of people with shared ideas and values that have similar purchasing patterns. The same could be said here. We do a lot of movie marketing at Socialtyze, horror movies especially. The Hispanic audience drives that opening weekend and as a result we work hard to match our creative, targeting and approach to extremely tailored profiles. That can include testing bilingual copy, overlaying interests against larger purchase profiles, and A/B testing creative.In sum, Facebook’s ethnic targeting is the premiere approach to a problem that has plagued marketers for a long time.Want more tips and tricks for how to dominate social this year with Data, Creative and Amplification? Download our 2016 Social Media Survival Guide.
Socialtyze - All Rights Reserved 2022