Tag: Marketing

Best of 2018: Top 3 Marketing Campaigns

Clairemont InternBlog, Marketing, Restaurant PR + Hospitality PR, , , ,

As 2018 comes to a close, it’s important to highlight some of the most creative campaigns within the public relations, advertising and marketing industries. Perhaps this stems from my love of food, but my top three campaigns happen to be within the culinary industry.

1. IHOP

On June 4, 2018, IHOP told the world via Twitter it would be changing its name to IHOb. After one long week of speculation in regards to what the “b” would stand for, it released that the International House of Pancakes was now the International House of Burgers. IHOP, a haven for breakfast lovers with its fluffy buttermilk pancakes smothered in maple syrup, suggested that it would be parting ways with this fan-favorite.

IHOb later reassured concerned customers that pancakes wouldn’t be going anywhere, but that the company was firing up its grills and adding ultimate steakburgers to its menu. Little did we know that the name IHOb wasn’t here to stay. It was only a marketing ploy and a genius one at that.

This campaign is extremely memorable, even to someone like myself who hasn’t been to IHOP in several years, which is why I believe it ranks as the top marketing campaign of the year. Additionally, IHOP reached nearly 4 billion social media users by using Twitter to release this campaign, and its burger sales have quadrupled.

2. KFC

Believe it or not, some of the best marketing campaigns originate from mistakes. In the United Kingdom, Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) experienced a chicken shortage. Yep, you read that right; a fast food company whose menu consists of all things chicken ran out of chicken. KFC’s crisis management team responded by rearranging its letters and released an advertisement that read “FCK, We’re Sorry.”

The chicken shortage was caused by issues with DHL, the company’s delivery service. As a result, hundreds of KFC locations shut down throughout the U.K., causing major backlash from hungry customers. The hashtag #KFCCrisis was trending on social media, and some KFC lovers even tried to get the police involved.

The chicken deficiency impacted stores for a week, which warranted an apology from the company. KFC decided to publish a full page print ad in The Sun and Metro, U.K.’s best-selling newspaper. KFC fans took the apology well and praised the company for its witty response to a serious matter.

3. McDonald’s 

For International Women’s Day on March 8, 2018, McDonald’s decided to flip its famous golden arches upside down to form a “W” to recognize women around the world for all of their hard work and accomplishments.

The fast food company also pushed out this campaign by changing its packaging from displaying the standard “M” to “W”, as well as its logo on employee uniforms in 100 stores across the United States. It used social media to engage its consumers and to generate awareness of the campaign and International Women’s Day as a whole.

This campaign reached 1.6 billion people and increased sales significantly. It received some repercussions, however, regarding whether it was intended to promote social justice or only to increase sales. Regardless, this campaign sparked conversation about International Women’s Day and gave women much needed recognition.

We’ve seen some of the best marketing campaigns so far in 2018, and I’m excited to see what’s in store for next year. Bring it on, 2019.

Written by Clairemont Intern Anna Ostrowski, a senior at UNC.
All photos from Unsplash.com

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Should You Buy Followers?

Clairemont InternBlog, Public Relations, Social Media + Influencer Engagement, , , , , , Leave a Comment on Should You Buy Followers?

We’ve all done it. You post fresh content, respond to comments and employ a good balance of organic and paid exposure, but it seems like your social media following is growing at a snail’s pace.

Growing your social media can cause headaches and take an amount of effort and time that you feel like you may not have. You’ve heard that some accounts pay to boost their followers and, at this point, it seems like a creative solution to your problem, right? Unfortunately, like all things too-good-to-be-true, that notion is a little misguided.

Buying social media followers can have more consequences than just taking a large bite out of your budget.

1) It can damage your brand reputation. While buying followers can seem harmless at first, once real followers discover that your profile numbers have been padded, they may feel as if you are no longer credible. Once your brand suffers a negative reputation, it can be difficult to regain your customers’ trust.

2) You won’t get the engagement you need. With thousands of “bot” accounts (accounts created for users that don’t exist, copycat accounts or hacked accounts), you won’t be getting the true engagement that you need for social media success. Sure, you may be paying for hundreds of likes and retweets, but when you post content, the consumer is more than likely one of your fake followers. That doesn’t help get your message out there or grow your business.

3) It can be expensive. If you still want to risk it, think about how much money you’ll be paying to potentially damage your reputation and acquire hollow engagement. Most companies that provide these follower accounts charge in bulk for followers, likes and retweets. It could cost you anywhere from $50 to a few thousand dollars regularly.

4) It often violates platforms’ terms of use. If you still think that buying followers on social media is a good idea, think about this: it violates many of the top platforms’ terms of use, including Twitter and Instagram. While it’s not illegal, your account could be suspended or even removed.

It may seem like your account will take forever to gain a hefty following, but by uploading and sharing quality content strategically, you can grow your social media accounts. Try working in some hashtag magic or become acquainted with Instagram’s new algorithm to start.

If you need to step back and let some pros take over, drop us a line, DM us or tweet us!

Written by intern Yasmine Evans, a senior at NC State University.

 

 

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The Social Race: Paid vs. Organic Exposure

Clairemont InternBlog, Marketing, Social Media + Influencer Engagement, , , ,

It sometimes feels like social media is one big race; everyone’s trying to gain the most followers, likes and comments in the fastest time possible.

Social media provides an excellent opportunity to learn about your customers, expand your business and stay connected to the community. It doesn’t matter whether you’re an international corporation, a local business or a freelance artist. Taking advantage of the benefits of social media can be exceptionally rewarding.

Many people, though, can find it hard to grow their following and engagement. That’s where exposure comes in to play. Organic exposure is when you provide content on social media without paying for it, such as posts to your own feed, shares and comments. Paid exposure requires a monetary investment for items such as ads and sponsored posts.

In terms of our race, paid exposure is similar to a series of 100-meter dashes. You pay for an ad or sponsored content targeting specific audiences that, if done correctly, provides a quick boost to your numbers. Once that ad has accomplished its goal, a strong social media strategy will retarget the audience (another sprint) to move them along the sales funnel.

One benefit to paid exposure? Paid promotion helps to connect you with people that are already interested in your expertise but may not be following you yet. For example, if you’re a sports retailer, taking advantage of paid ads on social media means that sports fans (identified by their online activity) are more likely to see your ad than someone who doesn’t know that LeBron signed with the Lakers. This can drive an increase of traffic to your social media accounts and website. Paid promotion can also reach new customers and provide them with incentive to take action. With ad buys and strategic marketing, your customer base can grow exponentially.

Organic exposure is akin to the cross-country marathon. It takes time, effort and creativity. Posting creative, relevant content on a regular basis will help to build a relationship with your customers, further brand imaging and distribute information about your business. Organic engagement, however, often lacks a broad reach, especially in today’s social media climate. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Linkedin have all changed their newsfeed algorithms recently. This means that users’ feeds show content based on who they already follow and who they interact with using likes and comments. With this change, businesses can’t rely on just posting content regularly to drive traffic.

So what’s the best tactic to increase followers and engagement?

The short answer is both.

Paid and organic exposure work best when done together. It’s difficult to gain results by utilizing just one tactic. Start by establishing a reliable organic strategy. Post regularly, interact with followers (or non-followers relevant to your business) and follow others. Then try a paid strategy for a boost in followers and engagement. Make sure to research your target demographic and test varying ad durations, copy and target segments to find the right fit. But never forget to stay consistent with your postings and interaction.

Slow and steady (with a few well-placed paid slots) wins the race.

Are you looking for an award-winning social media campaign? Drop us a line!

Written by intern Yasmine Evans, a senior at NC State University.

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Making the Most of Your Hashtags

Clairemont InternBlog, Marketing, Social Media + Influencer Engagement, , , , , , , ,

Hashtag. It’s one of those words you keep hearing and the more you hear it, the weirder it sounds. In social media, you’re constantly reminded to “hashtag this” or “hashtag that.” But which hashtags should you really be using … and why?

Remember that a hashtag is merely an identifier that pools certain posts together and keeps relevant data connected. It is a way for communities to share, a way to gauge opinions on topics and most importantly, a way for users to sift through the millions of terabytes of content floating around on the internet.

If you’re looking to beef up your hashtag game, you have to first ask, “For which platform am I creating content?” There is a monumental difference in strategy and results among Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. Let’s break down each one.

Twitter

Twitter is where hashtags started, and the platform still emulates the tried-and-true spirit of their original purpose. Hashtags siphon your post into an online conversation. These tagged posts are “connected” to a thread of posts with the same hashtag, linking all the posts together. They work wonders for discovering developing trends and tracking relevant news or your favorite topics.

© [Artistan] / Adobe Stock
Twitter’s timeline algorithm, much like Instagram and Facebook, organizes your feed based on what it thinks will be relevant to your interests. One of the easiest ways to utilize hashtags is to find a popular tag and make your brand a part of that conversation. By engaging with a popular tag, your post will attract much more eye traffic. Connecting with trends is a great way to keep your brand in the loop.

Due to the 280-character limit, using several hashtags in a post doesn’t work well, so the most effective route is to use only two. Believe it, or not, there is an aesthetic appeal to social media content and writing a well-composed, organized and “clean” post could make all the difference.

Instagram

While people log on to Instagram to see carefully framed and beautifully filtered pictures, it is often the hashtags on the caption of a post that generates likes and helps it reach star status.

Tags on this platform serve as buckets for posts. Once a certain tag is put on a post, Instagram will group that post with all the other posts with that tag, creating an enormous gallery. Users can search any hashtag with Instagram’s Discover tab and see all the buzz on that topic.

This has shaped a community feel on the platform, letting foodies and travel enthusiasts alike share their posts with specific niche communities. Any brand has the chance to reach out to an exact market and share content with people that are interested in a certain topic.

Over time, certain hashtags have developed into industry standards, generating millions of posts. If you are a travel enthusiast, it may seem like a good idea to throw “#adventure” on your post, but at the time I wrote this article, that hashtag had almost 64 million posts. Remember that if you decide to use the more popular hashtags, your post could be lost a lot quicker due to the amount of activity!

However, Instagram allows you to insert 30 hashtags in one post, so use as many as you like! Just as a friendly reminder, it’s a good idea to make your hashtags appear lower in your caption so your post does not look cluttered. This can be accomplished by burying them beneath your text with dots, line breaks or whatever symbols you prefer. People will only be able to see the hashtags if they click on your post to see the full caption. On the other hand, tags can also be put into the comment section after a post has been made.

Facebook

Many people aren’t sure if Facebook is the place for hashtags. The original social network has traditionally been a platform for people to connect with close friends or specific users, unlike Twitter which encourages conversation among non-connected users.

Many businesses on Facebook use hashtags and promote campaigns the same way they would on any other platform. However, according to a study done by BuzzSumo in which more than a billion posts from more than 30 million brand pages were analyzed, posts without hashtags garnered more reach than posts with hashtags.

© [momius] / Adobe Stock
The sheer volume of that study makes it hard to argue that one should be using tags, but if your team has created a killer campaign and has found a great way to market it with an inventive hashtag, do it! It is still a good idea to keep the number of tags low to make it more appealing to the eye. We recommend approximately two.

The most important facet of the hashtag process is research! Research your industry leaders, influencers and audience to gauge tags people are using and which ones are resonating with those communities. In order to come up with meaningful hashtags that stick out, you need to know who you are trying to reach. You want to make sure your tag is refreshing and different from another brand’s hashtag!

Do your #research, be #inventive and don’t forget to have fun!

Now that you’re in the groove, check out some other tips on social media strategy!

Cover Photo Credit: © [Michail Petrov] / Adobe Stock

Written by intern Nathan J. McDaniel, a senior at Western Carolina University.

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Domino’s: Paving the Way?

Clairemont InternBlog, Public Relations, Restaurant PR + Hospitality PR, , , ,

What does it take to really connect with your audience?

The pizza giant, Domino’s, announced a new initiative to smooth out the streets by filling potholes across the country. They dubbed it “Paving for Pizza,” and it has garnered massive attention. But is it merely a PR tactic?

Not necessarily. An organization can truly care about its customers.

Corporate social responsibility, or “CSR,” means that a company strives for ethical business practices, works with the local community and builds relationships with its employees and customers. There are teams of people that work long hours trying to build a relationship between an organization and their audience. That’s where PR takes the wheel.

CSR isn’t a new strategy. Think of McDonald’s Ronald McDonald House, TOMS and Warby Parker. They all contribute to the community through their business strategies. So what made this PR move by Domino’s so enticing to the country?

Here are a few things they did and you can do to craft your next successful CSR campaign.

1. Connect the business to a meaningful cause. 

Infrastructure has been a hot topic in politics for a long time. Deteriorating roads frustrate everyone, including the local pizza delivery boy. Domino’s strategically leveraged a common cause that relates to a wide audience, forging a connection, spotlighting its brand and sparking interest. 

2. Stay true to your brand.

Domino’s has offered cheeky “carryout insurance” since late last year, and if you peruse the company’s social media, you’ll see playful, emoji-heavy accounts. Even though it is a large corporation doing a public service, Domino’s is staying true to its playful and fun voice.

3. Make it interactive.

People don’t just want to know what’s happening; they want to be a part of the action. Domino’s has opened up an opportunity for customers to nominate their own city for a pothole makeover. They also developed an interactive Pothole Impact Meter so you can see first-hand just how ravaged the pizzas are by potholes. By engaging its audience, Domino’s is creating an opportunity to draw people in and and get them talking.

Photo by Domino’s Pizza

4. Be honest.

Don’t promise something you can’t or won’t do. It will backfire. Just days after announcing its campaign, Domino’s had already fixed potholes in Texas, Delaware, Georgia and California. Honesty is always the best policy and will ensure that your audience maintains trust in you and your brand.

What do you think of Domino’s creative CSR campaign? Was it half-baked or perfectly cooked?

Drop us a line if you’re looking for some creative juices for your organization!

Written by intern Yasmine Evans, a senior at NC State University.

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