I think it’s safe to say that whether or not companies should be incorporating social media into their advertising plan is no longer in question. Over the past five years social networking has grown from a niche taken primarily by college and high school students and select computer geeks to a formidable web of sites, applications and services that connects a good chunk of the world’s population <I still can’t get over the fact that my mom is now on Facebook and she even figured out how to “like” my status updates>. So it’s pretty obvious that whether they like it or not if companies want to stay in touch with their consumers they better tune into the social media.
So once the “if” is settled the next obvious question becomes “how”; and that’s where possibilities are vast, if not endless. Most companies now have a Facebook page (some better maintained than others); companies like Starbucks, Adidas and Coca-Cola are good example of how to do it right. However even the best fan page is not worth much without the traffic, so what can companies do to get consumers to visit and more importantly “like” them?
Viral videos (and by “viral” for my purposes here I mean the “home-made”, amateur-style ones that are not distributed through traditional ad channels like TV) have proven to be among the most creative, cheap and effective ways to promote the brand and drive traffic to company’s website and Facebook fan page. What makes is so effective is that video is among easiest types of content to consume and when done right, a video going “viral” can bring thousands of new visitors to company’s page through all kinds of social media channels (YouTube, Facebook, Twitter to name a few). Now of course creating a viral video is not easy, there is no magic formula, there’s no bullet-proof way to predict what will resonate with consumers and the amount of money spend doesn’t seem to be directly correlated with the ultimate number of views a video will receive. However, looking at some of the most successful over the past few months a couple of common trends begin to emerge:
1) Strength in numbers: featuring a large number of people in the video will get you notice. Online and off.
Despite having a fairly corporate and not particularly “cool” image Verizon created a few fairly successful videos featuring the “Can You Hear Me Now” guy and the “network”. The cool thing about those videos is that not only did Verizon get all the views online but the attention they got from all the people in the park (and their friends, and their friend’s friends) is a nice windfall of brand exposure
2) Make ‘em laugh (and ideally say “holy sh#t” as well).
One of the most successful viral videos of all time the “Diet Coke and Mentos Experiment” killed several birds with one stone. First it made people talk about the brand without realizing that they are talking about the brand (“hey dude, have you seen that awesome video of the fountain some two crazy guys made from Coke and Mentos”). Second it generated a slew of copycat videos of people trying to do other crazy things with Coke and Mentos so not only did it increase brand exposure it also directly helped drive sales!
3) Just dance! (or sing, or both)
Most people like dancing and having fun and singing and when all of that is done is the most unexpected and mundane places you are bound to get noticed. What’s great about those videos is that nowhere does it say that this is a T-Mobile sponsored event, so the people in the video probably have no idea that this will ultimately be turned into a branded video, which adds an additional layer of coolness, authenticity and good old fun
No comments:
Post a Comment