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How To Make Something Go Viral On Social Media (NOT)

April 14, 2015/0 Comments/in Beat Cancer, Blog, Content Marketing, Social Media Best Practices /by Danica Kombol

It’s 2015 and I still get asked that dreaded question posed to nearly every social media marketer. That question is, “Can you make this go viral?” My answer is always the same, “You can’t make something go viral any more than you can make a toddler eat spinach.” I always stress to think “shareable” instead of viral and to think long and hard about your goals. Ultimately, the thing to ponder is whether you are building an idea or campaign that people will share without prompting. Going viral is an almost hopeless aspiration, yet there are a few strategies marketers can consider to encourage the possibility.

Here are three questions to pose if you’re thinking you have that viral campaign. After you ask these, you may just think again.

Is it about you or is it about them? If you want people to share your campaign, it cannot be about you. It has to be about them, the sharer. Think of the Ice Bucket Challenge. We all know that ALS had nothing to do with the origins of that campaign. What made that concept go viral was the fact that it was about the sharer. Crazy folks around the globe decided it would be funny to drop a bucket of ice on their head. The act became about their reaction to said ice and along the way ALS was occasionally mentioned.
Is it memorable? Any thing you want to be shared on social media has to be easy to repeat, easy to remember, easy to spell. When the Everywhere Agency won the Guinness World Record for #BeatCancer, it was because those two words, Beat and Cancer, were easy to remember and words you could not forget or confuse. Clients often come to me with concepts that align with their marketing strategy, but unfortunately don’t have that easy, memorable, catchy hook. If there’s a chance it can get misconstrued, misspelled or misaligned, it likely will be.
Is it inherently shareable? We all hopefully learned about sharing sometime after we emerged from the toddler period of existence… but think about what’s shareable in your life now. Funny ideas, gossip, and breaking news all fall under that category. Your brand manifesto or marketing campaign is not. Shareable is something you go out of your way to do and if your campaign does not have that easy click, send appeal of gossip, or a funny story, it won’t get shared.

There’s a video right now on YouTube, which is sponsored by the Card Store. It’s called #WorldsToughestJob and it features a dude interviewing potential job candidates for a job which requires candidates to be available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The potential job candidates are incredulous and frankly so are we as we watch. Who could expect anyone to be available, on your feet, ready to respond to any demand of your employer 365 days of the year, 7 days a week. The denouement comes when the dry interviewer reveals that the job in question is being a mom. Spoiler alert – you’ll need to get out your handkerchief at that point. The video has been viewed over 23M times (at the writing of this blog post) and it isn’t until the last 16 seconds of this 4-minute video that the brand is even mentioned.

That’s what I call shareable, er, viral.

A Social Media Intern Goes to SouthWiRED

October 20, 2014/0 Comments/in Blog, COX, Social Media Best Practices, Society /by Josh Guilbaud

One of the benefits of being a social media intern at a place like Everywhere is that instead of being sent out to get the coffee, they send you out to conferences like SouthWiRED. SouthWiRED is the largest digital conference in the Southeast featuring panels and presentations from the top innovators in the country and not a bad way to spend a day interning. What follows are a few of my takeaways from a hard day interning!

The very first panel I attended was moderated by our CEO, Danica Kombol and it was entitled, Taking on the Challenge of Social Media in a B2B World. She was joined by seasoned marketers & PR folks from Cox Communications, PGI, Manheim & Novelis. The panelists did a fantastic job addressing many of the common concerns and conundrums marketers face in the B2B realm. Many professionals are under the impression that marketing for B2B and B2C bands on social media is as similar as night and day; they’re more like breakfast and brunch. Just like B2C brands, those in B2B must have an authentic and consistent brand voice. The story they build needs to be fluid, but relevant to the consistent and relatable themes in their overarching marketing strategy. Also worth mentioning is that B2B brands have influencers too and they’re usually in-house. Executives, VPs, and Directors of brands should be both active on social media and engaging in order to build credibility, as this will drive more new business leads. The more we come to understand marketing across social platforms and digital mediums, the more we understand that the age old adages of “B2B” and “B2C” no longer exists—it’s all about H2H, Human to Human.

The next presentation I attended was about understanding owned, paid and earned media from an HR perspective. It helped me understand why companies that strictly put their efforts into either paid or earned media are doing themselves a huge disservice—utilizing both types of media allows them to maximize the effectiveness of their campaigns. Earned media is great for brands because consumers see it as trustworthy due to its organic nature. When influencers write reviews, blog posts, or social media content, they are establishing and perpetuating the trustworthiness and credibility of a brand to their readership. While this effect is great, the reach and audience can be limited. This is where paid comes in—it gives brands the ability to magnify their reach beyond the scope of their followers and those of their influencers, as well as target consumers based on CRM and POS data. Simply, I learned that the key here is to gain as much earned media as possible and to leverage paid media to enhance and refine it.

So, not bad for a day’s work as a social media intern! I can only hope that in a few years, armed with the knowledge I gained at Everywhere, I’ll see myself on a panel sharing my opinions about social, digital and business.

*This post was penned by Everywhere Agency’s wonderful Fall 2014 Intern, Josh Guilbaud.

Kids As Brands’ Ambassadors

August 5, 2014/1 Comment/in Blog, Content Marketing, Society /by Lina Skandalakis

Having launched my career at Cartoon Network, I’m pretty familiar with the in’s and out’s of kids marketing. What’s really interesting to me is how kids are beginning to be marketed to on social media. The minimum age that Facebook says kids can join is 13, but the truth is that kids at the age of 9 are jumping on the social media bandwagon. It’s not just to chat with friends – They’re there to interact with brands too. To put this info into perspective with numbers: 55% of parents of 12 year olds say their child is on Facebook, 81% of online 9-17 year olds say they visited a social networking website within the last 3 months, and more than 25% of Facebook’s users are under the age of 10 (1).

No matter how you feel about social media marketing towards kids, let’s take a look at how some brands are using the medium to interact with youngsters. Note: I’ll shy away from Cartoon Network, since I’m a little biased towards them. 😉

Angry Birds
By engaging its customers on a variety of platforms and deepening the presence of its new brands, Rovio took Angry Bird’s social media presence to the next level. On Facebook, you can play two versions of it against your friends. While on Twitter, the brand engages fans in a variety of ways including product giveaways (which not many kids brands do), videos clips for upcoming game or level releases, retweets of user generated content. My favorite way that they engage their fans is by posting images of kids’ fan mail they’ve received. Why does Rovio do this? My hunch is they are showing kids that they care about what they say. They’re also developing “loyalty,” essentially making their kids fans ambassadors for many years to come.

Nickelodeon
Using social media to poll one’s audience is red hot right now. And Nickelodeon is no stranger to the game. They activated their Facebook page with over 32.1 million likes to join in and vote on the Kid’s Choice Awards (2). They also incorporated both Twitter and gamification into their Kid’s Choice campaign strategy. Leaderboards showed “fan armies” supporting the nominees – fans could track who was winning and losing. Facebook/Twitter fans contributed to their favorite nominees’ placements on the board, creating the ever-elusive ‘engagement’. Nickelodeon extended its viewing audience beyond the channel, keeping fans engaged for weeks before the awards show, compared to previous years where consumers would only vote once. What I love about this strategy is that it engaged fans as true brand ambassadors. While I don’t know how it affected their viewership, I can imagine that fans who engaged on Facebook and Twitter so actively would want to tune in to find out who won.

Lucky Charms
While Lucky Charms may not be magically nutritious, it is magically smart when it comes to their social marketing strategy. General Mills created a webisode series on YouTube depicting the animated adventures of Lucky the leprechaun, linking them back to the Lucky Charms website, which states “Hey Kids, this is advertising” in the bottom corner. The site creates an immersive experience in Lucky’s world and asks kids to join the Adventurer’s Club, which houses their game stats and gems to be used in the flash games they offer on the site. Furthermore, they’ve got a load of comics depicting Lucky’s adventures. If you’ve ever eaten a bowl of Lucky Charms you know the intrigue of those marshmallow pink hearts or shooting stars. General Mills brought those marshmallows to life in a way that kids will surely share it with friends.

Disney
I admire Disney’s use of YouTube (3). They jumped on the beauty vlogging bandwagon and created a Disney Style account to convey tips, tricks, and how-to’s from top beauty, fashion, and DIY vloggers. Why is this a relevant way for Disney to spend its marketing dollars? The page posts tutorials on how to do you hair and make-up like Elsa or create a costume inspired by Miss Piggy; the videos are tied to recent releases and encourage fans to take their love of the brands offline and into the real world, sparking brand ambassadorship in these kids and making them walking, talking billboards.

So what does this all mean? Kids are on social and brands are there too, interacting with them. We can’t turn back the clock on social media and stop kids from joining and interacting. What brands should think about is what are the right channels to use and what’s ethical when it comes to younger kids who may not realize they are being marketed to. What’s interesting to me is that there are clever ways to reach out to kids and build brand loyalty without doing so in a devious manner.

Sources
1. http://www.guardchild.com/social-media-statistics-2
2. http://lostremote.com/why-is-spongebob-is-so-popular-on-social-nickelodeon-talks-about-social-tv-strategy_b30281
3. https://econsultancy.com/blog/64550-how-disney-uses-social-media-vine-youtube-pinterest-instagram-and-more#i.cts9cm1edxepb1

Internet Fat Cats: Memes and Marketing

July 8, 2013/5 Comments/in Blog, Uncategorized /by Molly

By Molly Daly

I’d wager to guess that almost every Facebook user has seen a meme in their day. There’s a decent chance that those memes feature cats. The Internet has had a long lasting love affair with felines and many cite the ancient Egyptians as unknowing inspiration to future generations.

The concept of Internet memes has spread from culture sites such as Reddit and 4Chan and worming its way into the mainstream and life as we know it. For “meme management” pioneer Ben Lashes, it’s a way of life. After success with perhaps one of the oldest cat memes, Keyboard Cat, Lashes left his job as a music distributor and started managing memes full time. Keyboard Cat has made several television appearances, and his likeness was even used in a Pistachios commercial, with over 2.5 million YouTube views on the ad alone.

Photo courtesy of YouTube.com

Lashes manages other popular memes such as Nyan Cat, and Grumpy Cat, among others. There’s a bit of a feline pattern here, but that’s no surprise to a Redditor or a cat lover. (Or in my case, both.) Therefore, I am pleasantly surprised by the recent leaps Internet cats have made towards television and film.

Photo courtesy of GrumpyCats.com

Grumpy Cat, who was boosted to extreme popularity thanks to Reddit, has hailed many accolades. Voted Meme of the Year at the 2013 Webby Awards, she now has over 1 million Facebook likes under her dwarfish belt, was a star at SXSW – and just scored a movie deal. I can only hope the proposed Garfield-style family film lands on its feet.

Photo courtesy of LilBub.com

Another figure in the feline field is Lil Bub, who won big at the Tribeca Film Festival with her documentary on cats and the Internet, titled Lil Bub and Friendz. If this blog post caught your cat fancy, I definitely recommend checking out the trailer.

There’s no question that the popularity of Internet memes affects marketers in a big way. So how can brands catch the breaking memes before they become too mainstream? “Become a nerd about memes,” says Ben Lashes, in an interview with Big Think. “Watch culture websites like the stock market.” For me in particular, this advice is not hard to follow.

Vine: Will Instagram Kill the Video Star?

June 21, 2013/4 Comments/in Blog, Uncategorized /by Meredith Lorch

By Meredith Lorch

Photo Credit: Gizmodo

All the foodie photos and selfie snapshots on your Instagram feed are about to be brought to life. Vine has largely dominated the video-sharing world in recent months, but Instagram has just added video features to its iPhone and Android apps, creating quite the buzz. The question is clear: does Video on Instagram mean the downfall of Vine?

Only time will tell whether Video on Instagram will outcompete its rival. Some continue to see real potential in Vine. Gary Vaynerchuk, a brand consultant and industry thought leader, is even creating a talent agency for Vine stars, called “Grape Story.” Despite this, it’s hard to believe that Vine will amount to anything more than a fad. While its novel six-second looping video format is initially charming, Vine’s brief, repetitive nature quickly becomes overwhelming. Add in the effect of camera shake and erratic Vines can be dizzying.

Photo Credit: Tech Crunch

Both Vine and Video on Instagram employ a simple tap-and-hold-to-record feature, but Vine fails to capitalize on post-production features. The beauty of Instagram lies in the 13 brand new filters created exclusively for video—not to mention an image-stabilization tool called Cinema for capturing crisp, shake-free video. Users can also browse Instagram videos on a website—unlike Vine, which solely allows for video exploration within the app. Overall, Instagram’s new 15-second video capability allows users to share the adventure and splendor of their worlds unlike ever before, posing a serious threat to competitors.

Photo Credit: ABC News

So what’s on the horizon? Rumor has it Instagram has potential for Google Glass integration. The possibilities are seemingly endless. With its latest update, Instagram has solidified its place as a classic sharing tool that is here to stay—and not just for the foodies.

Everywhere has a robust internship program and we invite our interns to participate by writing on our blog. Meredith Lorch is an intern from Emory University. She authored this blog post.

Keep it ‘Pinteresting’: Secret to Pinterest

May 31, 2013/2 Comments/in Blog /by Leighanne Ferri

By Leighanne Ferri

I’m sure many can relate when I say that after spending an hour (or five) on Pinterest, I often feel a strong urge to work out, bake, craft or shop. On our personal Pinterest pages, we pin things that apply to our own interests, lifestyles and hobbies.

On the consumer side, we want to see things we are interested in from the people, and companies, we follow. We want ideas on how to put an outfit together, how to bake the perfect birthday cake or plan the ideal vacation. Brands can, and should, use this to their advantage. In order to create advocates for your brand, you must actively engage your consumers. After reading up on some creative ways of how brands are using Pinterest, I’ve come up with a few of my own.

Promote your Brand’s Lifestyle

Free People, a popular boho-chic fashion brand does an impeccable job promoting not just their brand, but the lifestyle they represent. The Free People woman is free-spirited and in tune with her mind, body and soul. One of their boards entitled ‘FP Movement’ boasts gorgeous photos of women in yoga poses, inspirational quotes, health tips and beautiful photography. The ‘Festival Fashion’ board highlights style trends from booming music festivals like Coachella and Bonnaroo. This is all a part of the FP lifestyle, and thus, the FP brand.

Image courtesy of styleblazer.com

Limit the Clutter

The next thing a brand should do is limit the clutter. As a consumer, I want to hop on a company’s Pinterest page and immediately see boards that stand out to me and push me to explore further. Although Walmart is a huge, well-known company, they have 80+ boards that seem repetitive to the buyer. A good example of pinning brevity is the Nike Women page, which has 10 concise boards with relevant content that supports current campaigns, as well as workout graphics and motivation pins.

Be Relatable and Relevant

The Whole Foods shopper is typically a health-conscious individual who appreciates being kept up-to-date with current health trends. Whole Foods Market does a fabulous job relating to its consumers and staying relevant. Their ‘#HealthYeah’ board provides an enthusiastic outlook on getting healthy while tying in the trendy use of the hashtag. Boards labeled ‘Summer Vacation!’ and ‘Savor Summer’ are seasonal and valuable to the follower.

Stay consistent (if it makes sense)

For brands that have a distinct voice or social media presence (like us), it is recommended to carry that presence into your Pinterest boards. Take our example. Everywhere brands its boards by remaining consistent, with titles including ‘Everyday Everywhere’, ‘Infographics Everywhere’ and ‘Events Everywhere’. Notice a pattern? Consistency makes your brand easily recognizable and accessible. This example aside, some companies may benefit from changing up their boards to appeal to different consumers; it’s all about what works for your brand.

Image courtesy of hongkiat.com

As a Pinterest fanatic, I can vouch for most consumers when I say that utilizing these methods to keep your brand’s Pinterest page up to par would definitely appeal to me. Executing these tactics engages viewers and can immensely benefit your social media and real life presence in the mind of the consumer.

Everywhere has a robust internship program and we invite our interns to participate by writing on our blog. Leighanne Ferri is an intern from Florida State University. She authored this blog post.

6 Social Media Resolutions for 2013

December 31, 2012/1 Comment/in Blog /by Danica Kombol

by: Danica Kombol

New Year’s Social Media Resolutions

On Christmas Eve, as we were decorating our tree, my kids moaned, “No more Instagramming.” Both my 20-year-old daughter and I were more fixated on creating artsy Instagram pics than we were adorning our tree. The next morning, my other daughter laid down the law, “No social media until after breakfast.” My husband piped in, “How about no social media all day.” I managed to make it through the day with only one brief visit to my Facebook page. If your teenage and twenty-something kids are begging you to lay off the social media sauce, it may be time for a few social media resolutions. Here are my 6 social media resolutions for 2013:

1. Social Media Diet: Put yourself on a social media diet. Three solid social media meals every day. By that I mean, check into your platforms three times a day – and no snacking in between. Pinterest (which in my house is like crack cocaine) is reserved for dessert.

2. Be in the moment: Recognize that not every moment is a social media moment. Special times with family, like decorating the tree, should be experienced in real time and the Instagram and Facebook photos kept out of the picture.

3. Be respectful: I’m pretty slap happy about posting pictures on Facebook but I always ask first. Randi Zuckerberg was rightly outraged when one of her friends tweeted out a private family holiday moment she had shared on Facebook. Ask before sharing – different people have different attitudes about what is public and private.

4. Set a goal: If you are using social media for business, set some goals. Create a clearly outlined goal for what you want to achieve through the use of social media and measure against those goals. Hint: Increasing your Facebook “likes” is not a goal. Building leads or building positive PR buzz is.

5. Spend Wisely: Yes social media is free, but think before you spend your tweets. Mindless content just to fill up your feed ends up annoying your followers and will never get you to a goal of building a community.

6. Be a good friend: Social media really is first and foremost about relationship building. It’s about sharing and being part of a community. Nobody likes a friend who is all about ME-ME-ME. Think sharing and building an alliance.

So let’s make a toast instead of a Tweet to our 2013 Social Media Resolutions Diet!

If You Wanna Be My Lover, You Gotta Get With My Pins

December 7, 2012/0 Comments/in Blog /by Molly

By Molly Daly

My lovely mother works tirelessly at a wedding gown shop. When she tells me about single girls who come into the store to try on gowns and waste her time, I instantly think of what the Pinterest looks like in this equation.

I think we should talk about wedding boards and the presumptions that single ladies tend to make. I am of the opinion that almost every female Pinterest user has a regularly maintained board devoted to her special conjecture day. These boards feature gowns, venues, rings, engagement photos, hairstyles, flowers, even photos of ideal husbands.

As we know, social media is an unprecedented phenomenon that has made a massively positive impact on our lives over the course of the past decade. However, it’s also created cause for social scientists to examine our heads a little bit. Studies regarding the psychological and social implications of social networking are continually surfacing. Some specifically examine the level of narcissism required to actively post about oneself on a daily basis. (According to a study published by Taylor & Francis Online: Twitter is particularly narcissistic, Facebook not so much - check it.)

Think about it: Pinterest, as a concept, is modeled after a bulletin board. If these ladies had a real life, tangible bulletin board full of wedding ideas hidden in their boudoir, they would not want the boyfriend to find it. Maybe that’s the subconscious thrill of it - maybe the lucky guy will happen to come across their pins and think “what in the world have I been waiting on?” Then drop his laptop and rush out for the ring.

This isn’t to say there’s not a market here – wedding blogs and retailers have pounced on this ripe opportunity. Ruffled Blog’s Pinterest has close to 3 million followers and helps keep traffic flowing towards the main blog. The market is so widespread that wedding-specific, Pinterest-style sites such as Loverly are popping up. The majority of Pinterest users are female, at a whopping 80% as of January 2012. According to a Comscore study from 2010, women are the majority in social networking, period, and spend 30% more time on social sites as compared to men.

Pinterest is one of the fastest-growing social sites in history, and much of that success is due to aspiring brides-to-be, which has to be respected. One in three couples use Pinterest to plan their wedding, and that number was one in five only two years ago. That being said, I suppose I should let you know that I’m as guilty of wedding pins as you are, though my board is disguised with the not-so-subtle title “Social Ideas.” Even the Everywhere Pinterest has a wedding board! I guess if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em, right? It’s fun to play pretend, but if you really want to keep things under wraps, Pinterest now offers private boards, too.

“Molly Daly is an intern at Everywhere. As part of our internship program, we invite interns to write blog posts. We think you’ll be lovin’ Molly for this post.” - Danica