This week our reads ranged from a kick in the gut (burn down your platforms and start over!) to drool-worthy inspiration from brands who continue to win on social by practicing what the “experts” preach—creating content that is 100 percent tailored for each intended platform.
The takeaway?
If your budgets, resources and bandwidth only allow for a one-size-fits-all approach to social and digital marketing, its pays, both literally and figuratively, to be in just one or two places.
Strategy
Experience The Blog: Burn It Down, Start From Scratch And Build a Social Media Strategy That Works
A lengthy and tough, but fair, read challenging all of us to take a hard look at the social media presence we’ve built and the challenges all brands now face as social media becomes more and more of a paid frontier. Facts such as “consumers work hard to ignore brand messaging” and “consumers do not trust brand content,” are supported both with data and strong recommendations for how to recalibrate.
Pinterest & Vine
Digiday: Lowe’s Sees Traction On Pinterest And Vine
“The retailer only joins a new platform if it can figure out how to engage with users while providing something new and relevant to its brand…we don’t jump in until we can identify that plan.” AMEN! We understand the allure of bright-and-shiny new social platforms just like anyone else, but at GFM we’re constantly pushing ourselves and our client partners to take a giant leap back and evaluate audiences, bandwidth, budget and goals before throwing themselves into a new platform. Lowe’s success isn’t only for big brands. Their recipe for success is simply authenticity + offering value.
Digiday: How Chandon Gets Instagram-Happy Millennials To Guzzle Sparkling Wine
Chandon’s Pinterest efforts have gone flat compared to the sharable and potential “go viral” nature of Instagram among its target audience of imbibing female millennials. The marketing team takes a distinct, “Instagrammable” approach to its photo content for the platform and purposely avoids over saturation during the holiday season, when many other wines and spirits are pushing extra hard. Read on for smart insights and gorgeous imagery.
Outta the Box
B2C: Emojis And Marketing
If a picture is worth a thousand words, three or four emojis could be novel-worthy. Albeit “out there,” we love the idea of brands creating their own quirky emojis to show some personality and cut through the competitive clutter on visual mediums such as Instagram.
Consumerist: Arby’s Plays Along, Sees Jon Stewart Off Into The Meat-Hued Sunset
You don’t always have to build a protected fortress around your brand from naysayers and critics. Case in point: Arby’s video tribute reel to all of the jokes and punches Jon Stewart through at the brand in his tenure as The Daily Show host. In this case, Arby’s knew its audience well enough to assume many were also Stewart fans and that a social/video medium would be well received for the sarcastic content.
On the GFM Blog this Week:
Tips To Spark Creativity
Beware the Donalds
Buffer for Video Allows for Easy Uploading & Posting
