Marketers often have a love-hate relationship with the holidays. Nostalgia and cheer also pave the way for intense competition and last-ditch efforts to “one up” ideas from the year prior. Yet in the midst of the Thanksgiving and December holiday madness to come, everyone was dealt a tragic dose of reality and perspective as we gathered around TVs, Twitter streams and Facebook feeds to watch the attacks in Paris play out last Friday evening.
Collectively the world experienced the positive power of social media and that people, our loved ones, remain the WHY of the digital movement. Facebook’s Safety Check tool enabled worried friends and families to check on people in Paris. Twitter Moments aggregated top news stories and the hashtag #PorteOuverte helped those on the ground find safety in real-time.
While our latest edition of weekly reads has plenty of uplifting and creative recommendations for holiday and 2016 planning, we’d be remiss not to take a moment to reflect on the power of social media when there is tragedy. We encourage you to keep this perspective as a guiding compass for all of your social and digital planning as we near year’s end.
Influencer Marketing
PRDaily: Tips For Working With Influential Social Media Personalities
According to a recent study, “…more than 80 percent of marketing and communications professionals expect to launch at least one campaign involving bloggers and social media personalities by mid-2016.” Talk about competition! Read (and bookmark) this article for its actionable tips on how to make strong connections with social influencers.
Content
Digiday: Community Management Extends Far Beyond Social Media
A one-way broadcast of messaging on social media is a popular, but short-sided strategy that today’s marketers have to outgrow. This article makes a strong statement for the “why” of community building that is bigger than reacting on social channels or requesting some user-generated content. “It is the overarching strategy for how a company interacts with and facilitates engagement among its customers — and, it’s channel agnostic. In fact, community is not even necessarily a marketing function.” We couldn’t agree more—don’t miss this read!
PRDaily: 6 Tools To Make Holiday Marketing Content Strategy Festive
‘Tis the season for decking the content halls with Elf memes and Santa GIFs. But before you sink hours into developing content that you think will get noticed during this hectic time of year, play around with a few of the very basic research tools outlined in this article to get a better grasp on what people are actually searching for online.
PRDaily: 6 Ways Social Media Managers Can Win With Humor
Would your mother find the tweet funny? We love these six quick, sure-fire filters to add some PG humor to new social media content.
AdWeek: Brands Embracing Twitter Emoji Craze
GFM’s ladies were buzzing when Dove recently introduced curly-haired Twitter emojis and that was just the beginning of the hot emoji craze. From #ShareACoke to Starbuck’s #RedCup, don’t forget to invite a digital designer or two to your next brainstorm. Your next big idea might come in the form of a tiny, colorful little character.
On the GFM Blog this Week:
Best Beer Labels In Denver
Crisis Management And Responding To The Media
