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Tag: Twitter

How Brands Get the Ha-Has

How Brands Get the Ha-Has

November 6, 2020January 31, 2023 Clairemont InternBlog, Marketing, Wonderfully Randomcomedy, humor, Marketing, target marketing, Twitter

The way to a consumer’s heart might just be through his or her funny bone. Using humor in marketing breaks down walls and showcases a brand’s one-of-a-kind personality. When it comes to captivating comedy, what brands have landed the laughs with their target audience?

All About Brand Awareness

The driving motivation behind advertising efforts is to generate brand awareness with memorable campaigns that ultimately drive sales, of course. While some might say doing business leaves little room for humor, integrating a splash of silliness is proven to foster meaningful connections between consumers and a brand. The use of comedy not only serves to build brand identity, but humor marketing also gives a brand its own personality and air of authenticity. 

Which Brands Have Struck Their Audience’s Funny Bone? 

When a brand successfully leverages comedy to resonate with an audience, people take notice. In 2010, Old Spice made a bold decision that saved its brand during the Superbowl commercial break. A men’s grooming products brand, Old Spice advertised to the female partners of the men that would be the purchasers of Old Spice products. The viral marketing campaign, “the man your man could smell like,” garnered 220,000 YouTube views in a matter of hours after launching. 

The marketing genius behind this madness?

Humor, audience engagement and tons of quality content. Old Spice invited social media users on various platforms to submit questions to ask the “Old Spice Man” that would go live in an ad. People loved it, and the ads garnered attention, excitement and interest without relatively low cost and effort. Positive exposure for a brand because of a man cracking cool comments in front of a shower? That’s the beauty of humor marketing. 

What other brands have successfully dabbled in comedy? 

State Farm’s beloved Jake from State Farm, the quirky, potty-humored ads from the Dollar Shave Club and Clorox’s jokes about situations where you might need a Clorox wipe are all fantastic examples of the potential of humor marketing. 

Sarcasm Status: Trending

Twitter has normalized a casual, sarcastic tone for its users, giving brands an opportunity to capitalize on a casual marketing medium while showcasing a different part of their brands’ voices and personas. 

Wendy’s has earned a reputation on Twitter for being sassy, sarcastic and downright hilarious. While Wendy’s television and print advertising tactics might blend in with any other fast food joint, Wendy’s Twitter account has earned the brand a whole new level of awareness. From Tweets like, “Hey @McDonald’s, roast us.” to sassy exchanges with the Burger King Twitter account, Wendy’s has amassed a huge following, all because of its form of humor. 

Wendy’s isn’t the only brand to recognize the beauty of Twitter’s casual essence. Moon Pie has perfected the art of offhand hilarity with its tweets. This strategy has worked so well for its brand recognition that people who don’t even eat Moon Pies still give them a follow, including me!

The Impact of Empathy

Especially amidst a pandemic, humor in marketing can both boost a brand and serve as a much needed breath of fresh air. According to an excerpt from a Marketing Week article, “There’s an old Vaudeville expression that laughter is the shortest distance between two people.”

One of the main goals of marketing is to connect with an audience and to empathize with them. Humor can accomplish this, bridging the gap between a brand and its audience. Author Andrew Tarvin once said, “Both humor and marketing are about communication … If you get a consumer to laugh, you get them to listen. If you get them to listen, you get them to learn, and ultimately act.” 

If a brand can make an emotional connection by mixing compassion and humor together, it will establish itself positively in the mind of its audience. Here are a few brands that have managed to create content that does just that. 

Want to know more about marketing methods? Look at our blog about the magic of memes!

By Clairemont intern Anna Beth Adcock, a senior at NC State.

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Should You Buy Followers?

Should You Buy Followers?

August 21, 2018January 31, 2023 Clairemont InternBlog, Public Relations, Social Media + Influencer EngagementFacebook, Instagram, Marketing, Public Relations, Social Media, social media marketing, TwitterLeave 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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Making the Most of Your Hashtags

Making the Most of Your Hashtags

July 5, 2018January 31, 2023 Clairemont InternBlog, Marketing, Social Media + Influencer EngagementFacebook, hashtag strategy, hashtags, Instagram, Marketing, PR Agency, Social Media, social media advice, Twitter

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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Target Your Social Media in 2017

Target Your Social Media in 2017

February 13, 2017January 31, 2023 Cherith AndesBlog, Raleigh PR Agency, Social Media + Influencer EngagementFacebook, livestream, marketing video, Social Media, social media trends, Storytelling, Twitter

It’s certainly no contest that 2016 hit the history annuls as a momentous year, witnessing the launch of everything from Snapchat Spectacles to a new presidency. Every step of the way, America wasn’t just watching; we were creating libraries of social media to voice opinions, rally troops, champion movements … and occasionally tout our newest homemade Reese’s Brownie recipe. (Thank you for that.)

In a way, we almost rediscovered the vibrancy (and hopeful efficacy) of our social media voice. So what do 2017 trends entail for online expression?

1. Roll camera!

Videos, and lots of them. The Fantastic Four (Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat and Twitter) have all boosted their video-friendly components with features like Instagram stories and Facebook Livestream. Video content on Twitter alone has increased by 50 percent since the beginning of 2016, spiking when Twitter launched full-screen viewing and increased video length to 140 seconds. And Facebook put a premium on Livestream videos for Newsfeed ranking. As research is showing, visual content is one of the few types that has the potential to cut through the noise of pay-to-play social media advertising. From slideshow ads and crowd-sourced campaigns to Livestream previews and DIY videos, campaign content should leverage video content. Need we even reference our beloved Raleigh friends, Kim and Pen, whose Holderness Family videos garner upwards of 100,000 views?

2. Tell the tale.

Create narratives that tell the whole story. We’ve been burned by the flux of last year’s “fake news,” which augmented our desire to see the people behind the brand. Once again social media platforms are paving the way.Facebook is reportedly testing “Messenger Day,” and Twitter opened “Moments” to all users — a feature recently retooled in its “Explore” tab. While there’s a distinct place for professional videography, we’re craving to see the thought process behind the product.

A quick note: Keep your content “snackable.” Quick, how-to videos, collages and brief visual soundbites best appeal to our waning eight-second attention span (which, by the way, has now been surpassed by that of a goldfish.)

3. Be messy.

Image courtesy of The News & Observer

Andrea Weigl, the assistant features editor of The News & Observer, proved a solid point in her recent article, “What really happens at a food photo shoot.” She notes that the most popular images on the N&O’s Instagram accounts are not the gorgeous, mouth-watering spreads crafted by James Beard-winning chefs. No, they’re the messy ones, the ones that expose the chaos, clutter and realness of the production. Social media has already provided tools for you to welcome friends, fans and followers behind the curtain (with a flower wreath filter, if you really want). Embrace transparency as you share your story.

Interested in ideas on how to showcase a behind-the-scenes look at your brand? Check out our tips to leverage Instagram stories for restaurants!

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On The Record: Twitter for PR

On The Record: Twitter for PR

July 13, 2016January 31, 2023 Sarah HattmanBlog, On the Record, Social Media + Influencer Engagementbuilding social media, Public Relations, Raleigh PR, Social Media, Twitter, Twitter for PR

Several times in recent weeks, I have heard someone say, “Twitter is dead.” In the spirit of full disclosure, while I have not fully embraced the social media channel on a personal level, I do see how it can be a valuable tool. And while I’m not sure I agree that Twitter is dead, I do believe it  has evolved over the past 10 years.

For this installment of On the Record, I decided to take a closer look at how Twitter can be used for PR initiatives.

 

https://clairemontcommunications.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Twitter-for-Business.m4v

 

If you’re looking for a good resource to connect with journalists, I recommend following @HelpaReporter.

Hungry for more social media tips? Check out these posts!

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