I’ll begin by introducing myself, my name is Wes Clarke and I’m a Senior Account Executive at an Advertising and Marketing agency called C21 Creative Communications based in Altrincham, South Manchester. I’m also responsible for our social media accounts and assist our clients with their social media and SEO needs.

Brands of all shapes and sizes can be found in the world of social media.

I thought I’d share a few things I particularly like about social media as a marketing tool and some examples of brands ‘doing’ social media well!

Cheap

It’s free to create accounts and post content. The only cost is time and the price of creating the content to post. A brand or individual can reach more people through a simple tweet than it can through expensive advertising in the media. Ellen DeGeneres’ ‘most re-tweeted’ tweet is currently at 3,370,159 re-tweets with over 2 million favourites to boot! That’s a boost for Ellen DeGeneres’ brand, The Oscars ceremony itself, not to mention the Samsung phone Ellen used to take the photo.

Another great example of maximum exposure for minimal cost was during the Super Bowl 2013. During a 30 minute power cut in the Superdome, Oreo’s marketing department instantly saw an opportunity. They knocked up a simple ad joking with their 472k Twitter followers, ‘You can still dunk in the dark’. This simple post picked up 10,000 re-tweets within the hour, as well as an abundance of praise and positive PR from bloggers and media outlets who claimed Oreo had ‘won the night’. So whilst other brands had spent millions on trying to better each other’s adverts and buying time slots in the coveted commercial breaks, Oreo made sure they were ready to react to any event in real time and use their creativity to steal the limelight for next to no cost! Which takes me nicely to my next point…

Responsive

The beauty of Facebook and Twitter is that people use these whilst they are watching television at home, usually communicating with their friends about how funny Cheryl Cole’s dress looks or Steven Gerrard slipping up. This presents brands with a great opportunity to engage with fans or potential customers about what they are interested in at that exact moment. Cadburys took their chance to talk about that hat Pharrell wore to the Brits earlier this year, with a nice ‘hats off’ message. When people see these kinds of timely posts from brands, they are more inclined to share or engage with them as content is so relevant. It also humanises a brand to its audience, it becomes another friend in your timeline watching and laughing at the same things as you.

Funny

The internet can be a very funny place. From memes in comment sections to viral videos, to your friend on Facebook sharing their latest calamity, its nice to come home at the end of the day and be made to smile. Their are some brands who capitalise on this aspect of our social media desire. Paddy Power spring to mind when it comes to using humour in their social media strategy. From live tweeting a hilarious ‘wrong number’ text conversion with an unknowing Steve, to convincing the world they had chopped down some of the Amazon Rainforest for a World Cup ad, they are constantly proving they ‘get’ their audience’s sense of humour. I suppose that is the real key for any brands using social media, knowing and understanding your audience. ‘Getting’ your audience will enable your communications to cut through, in a world where everybody is fighting to be heard.

Thanks for reading my thoughts, at the very least I hope some of the examples I’ve shared have made you smile!

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