Big, flashy social media campaigns undoubtedly capture a lot of attention. But often it’s the way a brand reacts to the steady drumbeat of day-to-day social media conversations that really knocks my iPhone out of my hand.
Case in point. Trident is one of my favorite brands of gum. I am a gum addict and I have tried them all. Recently I discovered Trident Layers and keep packs of the Grape Lemonade and Strawberry flavors in my purse, computer and diaper bags to satisfy my constant sweet tooth cravings. One afternoon I decided to profess my love for Trident Layers on Twitter after popping a piece of Strawberry into my mouth instead of the chocolate tempting me in the GroundFloor Media kitchen.
Minutes later – yes minutes, not days – Trident responded in an upbeat and excited tone to my tweet.
The conversation was eventually taken to Direct Messages so that they could ask for my mailing address. Two days later a small package arrived at my house with several packs of Grape Lemonade and Strawberry Trident Layers and a fun, highly-personalized letter. Needless to say, I was impressed.
Let’s put Trident’s social media marketing budget aside for a moment, as I am going to assume it is pretty healthy. Here are the three things we can all take away from this interaction.
- Monitor, monitor, monitor. Trident’s social media team clearly uses a monitoring tool and/or has Hootsuite or TweetDeck up all day to catch @ replies and hahstags. Twitter moves quickly and they understand how important it is to jump on opportunities in real-time
- Empower your people. Whoever was overseeing the Trident Twitter account that day had full approval to engage with me immediately. No internal red tape.
- Know what you can give. Free samples of gum probably costs Trident mere pennies. So they are smart to be generous with samples for fans who they deem as influential. I assume they looked at my Twitter profile, saw that I also have a blog and decided I was worth a few packs.
What brands have engaged with you on social media recently?
Alexis Anderson is an admitted gum addict and now, a Trident chewer for life.
