If you’re looking to find ways to engage in fun social media trends, but also get people to notice your brand, check out these three tips on how to jump on the trend wagon.
Jump On It Fast
When trending topics happen, whether it’s on Twitter, Facebook or some other platform, it comes and goes very quickly. You need to be ready to jump in on the fun right when it’s happening. If you don’t, before you know it everyone else will have already moved on and you’ll be tweeting hashtags with yesterday’s Internet fad. Usually, unless the topic is something that occurs for multiple days (Olympics, festivals, world series, TV shows), most trends happen within a 24 hour period. When you start seeing multiple people using the same hashtag on your feed, that’s when you know you need to jump on the bandwagon.
Use Some Tact
When tweeting trending topics, always remember to us a little tact when coming up with your social message. There are countless examples out there of companies that failed to understand the meaning of a trend, or posted something that was offensive to customers. For example, when the Ray Rice domestic abuse fiasco was happening, the hashtag #WhyIStayed popped up all over social media. DiGiorno Pizza mistakenly tweeted out, “#WhyIStayed You had pizza,” and Twitter immediately unloaded on the company. DiGiorno later apologized for the tweet, saying they didn’t know the meaning of the hashtag, but the company’s error is a great message to other companies to research your hashtag meanings before you use them.
A million apologies. Did not read what the hashtag was about before posting.
— DiGiorno Pizza (@DiGiornoPizza) September 9, 2014
Use It To Bring People To Your Brand
During the #TheDress debate that occurred a few weeks ago, the Internet was up in arms about whether a badly photographed picture of a dress was blue and black, or white and gold (it’s blue and black, by the way). While the debate stirred on through different social media outlets, many companies took notice and began using the debate as a way to promote their brands. Xbox tweeted out a picture of a new blue and black controller design (asking if it looked white and gold), Specsavers asked people who see the dress as white and gold to come in for an eye exam.
For all of you who think #theDress is #WhiteandGold, come and visit us for an eye test #shouldve https://t.co/meL7PikOJu — Specsavers (@Specsavers) February 27, 2015
And most innovative of all, the Salvation Army used the debate as a way to raise awareness for domestic violence. There’s always a way to use a trend as promotion for your brand or even to show support for certain social causes.
Why is it so hard to see black and blue? One in 6 women are victims of abuse. #StopAbuseAgainstWomen pic.twitter.com/cpNgEWGekq
— The Salvation Army (@salvationarmy) March 6, 2015
So remember, trending topics aren’t always meaningless Internet fun. They might also have marketing and branding advantages for your company!
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