How to write effectively for social media

Social media is like this giant game that everyone plays, few master and most fail to win. Generally, people may struggle to get their ideas across in the short character limits of Twitter or have to actively attempt not to ramble on in a Facebook post.

Content-wise, the creation of quality content all stems from the Golden Rule of social media that all marketers, and even people eager to better their personal brand, should know.

The Golden Rule is this, all content should aim to do one, or more, of four things: entertain, expose, engage and/or educate. Following the rules of the four E’s will allow you to think about the content you are posting and help you to measure if it is valuable content.

We, as consumers, are selfish. We don’t want to click, comment, like or even see an ad, post or tweet that isn’t relevant to us on some level or one that doesn’t “offer” up anything for us in return. That’s what the four E’s do – they quantify that return.

If the post is for entertainment, someone may get a chuckle out of it or a story to tell his or her friend later. For expose and educate, people are offered up the opportunity to learn something – even if they don’t know they are doing it. For engage, everyone loves to hear him or herself speak – they just want a soapbox to stand on. By giving someone that opportunity, and if it’s something they feel worthy of engaging with, your content becomes valuable. With the same notion, people also do not want you to just talk all about yourself on social media – you need to ask something of them in return.

Another effective tool to keep in mind when writing and creating content for social media, is to keep your mind focused on creating a consistent voice for your product, your social media outlets. Think about who you are talking to, what you are saying and how you are saying it. This may vary from platform to platform or vary by content itself, but before you send any tweet or press that “post” button as yourself, who is this valuable to and what kind of message am I sending?

In conclusion, there are many different ways to create valuable content for your followers – but by sticking to content that will not only give your consumers something in return, but will ask something of them, you are making them want to come back and continue to engage with your brand.

5 of the best social media ad campaigns out there

There’s always that ad that you’ll watch, hear or see that just makes you stop in your tracks and say, “Well, (insert four letter word) that campaign is brilliant,” no matter what your place in the advertising or marketing industry.

At Wilesmith, we do some pretty incredible ads and try to maintain that transient advantage that so many people and our clients strive for by continuing to innovate. It’s the thinking that makes us different, I’m sure you’ve heard.

Now, social media is the newest medium out there for advertisers. It’s one that a lot of people spend a lot of time trying to “get” and very few actually end up getting. Note: it’s also very hard to limit this list to five, so there may be another edition of it.

Here’s our list of some of the best social media campaigns out there:

• Oreo’s Daily Twist Campaign
During a short period in 2012, Oreo came out with something that the world had pretty much never seen before – an entertaining, engaging and informative social media campaign that still managed to fully immerse itself in the product. The campaign used Oreo cookies to create important moments in history, sports, politics and music. From an Elvis Oreo to a gay pride Oreo, the cookies told a tale and made us all hungry for a little (or a lot) of those little black and white treats. Oreo then managed to blow us away again in 2013, with some serious real-time marketing at the Super Bowl when they launched their infamous “you can still dunk in the dark” Twitter ad when the power went out at the game. This ad ushered in a new way to advertise and we still see many similar ads today, though Oreo is seemingly the first to do it.

• Human Rights Campaign’s marriage equality Facebook profile photos
Facebook, which is perceived as a somewhat outdated social medium, managed to serve as a successful platform for the Human Rights Campaign in 2013 during the marriage equality discussions surrounding Proposition 8 and the Supreme Court. The red equality or equals sign logo went viral around the Internet with over 9 million people seeing the logo. This was a key way for a brand with a purpose to get the word out about a specific cause.

• NASA global selfie
Oh, the selfie. The definition of narcissim in a nutshell, yet somehow an everyday observance. If you can’t beat them, join them, I guess. This is what NASA did to incorporate the underrated holiday that is Earth Day and engage the general public. Alas, we got the “global selfie” an accumulation of 40,000 fan submitted photos from more than 100 countries to create a “globe” of photos.

http://www.postano.com/blog/14-best-social-media-campaigns-of-2014

• A.1. sauce rebrand
A.1. taught us marketers that there’s more to Facebook than just the day-to-day posts we see every day. Those with a link, photo, etc. A.1. for a few words has been really playing the social media game. It began in 2014, according to AdWeek, when CP+B, my former employer for the sake of transparency, created a campaign where A.1. Sauce had some “new friend requests.” They changed the name, for one, to just A.!. Original Sauce and then released an ad where the sauce “broke up” with steak and received a bunch of requests from “other foods” that were fighting for its heart. The campaign used Facebook, made it modern and attempted to attract the right demographic.

• Turnip for What
Perhaps it was just a timng issue, but before the Obama Administration there was seemingly no White House transparency when it came to social media. One of the most viral, and talked about, (but also extremely confusing and random!) campaigns of 2014 was Michelle Obama’s “#turnipforwhat” Vine post. The First Lady made a spoof on the popular Lil Jon/DJ Snake song “Turn Down For What?” in order to promote her healthy eating campaign. The first lady, essentially, danced with a turnip and received huge amounts of press for it. No matter what their initial mission was, Mrs. Obama seemingly accomplished it.

Image by mkhmarketing, mkhmarketing.wordpress.com, used under cc.

For the love of Beyoncé, please stop using hashtags on Facebook

So unless you’ve been in some sort of astronaut space sleep / coma for an extended period of time, we have this thing called a hashtag now. My father, for instance, still likes to pronounce it as “pound.” I am pound blessed to have a father like him.

It’s peculiar, yet extremely useful in some ways for PR professionals and advertisers. It has, in many ways, even lost it’s meaning as we see a simple photo of, let’s say, a sunset. Said sunset is then captioned with the following (and this is an actual example from someone who shant be named): #sun #set #orange #yellow #colors #livinlife #blessed #fridaynight #chillen #drinkingmargs #notreally #drinkingmojitos #beach #sand #fun #family #friends #summer #notreallysummersnothereyet #eatingmyfaceoff #conchfritters #beautiful #beauty

There’s more. I just couldn’t bring myself to physically type them all.

If you are totally lost, a hashtag is a way to index a subject a user is referring to so that it can be accessed by other users and sorted into that specific category. No spaces are required for hashtags and no punctuation is needed. These will often be used for special events. For instance, you’ll see the Super Bowl come out with a specific hashtag or you’ll see an ad campaign launch nudging people to use the hashtag. You’ll want to be specific when using hashtags as well. For instance #family isn’t a particularly effective hashtag because it is too broad. #TheAdamsFamily or #FamilyFeud? You’re getting there.

Hashtags are in full force on Twitter and Instagram, and besides for the aforementioned problem of the overuse, they are looking pretty solid.

So then comes the black sheep of hashtags yet the Golden Goose of the social media world: Facebook.

Use them? Don’t use them? You’ll never get a straight answer on this debate. My advice for other marketers out there, and for people interested in self-branding, is to not use them.

They can make your post clunky and they aren’t particularly effective on Facebook even with the security settings of everyone’s profiles being a dime a dozen for what they are and aren’t showing. Hashtags, sure, can make your content visible to a wide audience, but Facebook, at this point, is like the stuffed animal you had in fifth grade. Yeah, you kind of still have it way past its due date, but it holds a bunch of memories, is somewhat sad to get rid of and (circa my photos from 2009) is really, really embarrassing to show to your friends.

As the dying modem for conversation among young people, what’s the point in trying to create more engagement with hashtags? Some may disagree, but I stand by my point.
In a study of top brands on social media by SproutSocial, interactions dropped abruptly for brands using three to five hashtags in a post – and fell steeply from that for each hashtag there after.

Now in some cases, Facebook campaigns with hashtags can be extremely successful, but that is mostly when those hashtags are taken cross-platform. For instance, the Dove #Beautyis campaign was a very widely used (and brilliant might I add) campaign. They’ve since moved the to #speakbeautiful where women are encouraged to say something nice about themselves every day, whether through a photo or just a simple tweet.

I’d also like to bring exhibit B to your attention: top-branded news(?) outlets like Mashable, Buzzfeed and The Daily Beast. You will rarely, if ever in extreme cases like events or a specific campaign, see those outlets use hashtags on their Facebook pages. It’s a link and a quick pull quote or just something to grab your eye. That’s what the secret formula is now-adays.

Go forth and use your hashtags on Instagram and Twitter, just please, keep them out of my Facebook that I don’t even check.

Over 5,000 messages and counting…My media immersion observation.

MW: Scott, do you have one of those things that counts things?

Scott: What do you mean ‘counts things’?

MW: You know, if you have a lot of things to count, you click it, 1…2…3…4…5…6…7…8…

Scott: Oh yeah, no.

MW: Kate?

Kate: Nie (she’s Polish)

MW: Ceilese?

Ceilese: What is it?

MW: You know, a clicker. Like if lots of people were running past and you had to keep count.

Ceilese: Oh. No.

MW: Anyone?

Chorus: NO!!!!.

MW finds one at Wal-Mart online: Look, it’s called a Tally Counter! Does anyone live near a Wal-Mart?/?

SFX: crickets

MW: Are you guys telling me no one lives near a Wal-Mart?

Anne Marie: I do.

MW: Great. Can you pick one up? It’s $9.99, but if they have a cheaper one, get it.

Scott: What do you need that for anyway?

MW: To monitor the insanity that is my daily life with the frequency of idiotic conversations like these!

Scott: Oh. Well, let me know how it goes…

7am. I have my first brand interaction of the day with Excedrin Migraine, “Fast Migraine Relief,” to shortstop the crushing headache I’m anticipating this experiment will inflict. I begin clicking my tally counter. After a brief brush with Aim (cavity protection value-priced at $1.99), I unwrap a bar of Dial, which, the package thoughtfully informs me, is newly curved to fit my hand. What they really mean is they carved out a half ounce of product, but charged me the same.

Turning on my TV, I receive an unwelcome message from AT&T: “Press ok for U-verse TV” – code for malfunction. I resolve, as I do every day, to switch to Comcast.

Channel surfing, I encounter 12 on-air personalities – all of whom enjoy brand value in the millions with the possible exception of Willard Scott, who delivers centennial birthday wishes on behalf of Smuckers. I click for Smuckers (there’s a bumper sticker for you) and briefly consider if, in spite of its enduring and iconic tagline, Smuckers risks relevance by identifying so strongly with centenarians.

I quickly tally up over 60 commercials promoting everything from Humera (7-9am being prime time for big pharma and their gallows humor disclaimers) to Swiffer, “Better clean in half the time.” I’m sold! Product demonstration remains persuasive.

The commercial that engages me is for Target, choreographed to the French song singable by every American who was ever in first grade, Alouette. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KcgwgkyU4sY. The ad makes me want to skip through Target’s aisles, tossing things into my cart with gay abandon while singing in French. Is this a wink to the brand’s Francophile nickname ‘Tar-ghay’?

Driving to work, my car’s emblem assures me I am enjoying a ride of sophisticated luxury. My dashboard reminds me of the responsibilities of driving such a machine, i.e., 15 days beyond service and fuel is low. I consider the covenant I made with the dealership to use only premium, but Mobil’s sign signals its stratospheric price. I guiltily choose regular and select my form of payment from the credit card logos on the pump. My Delta Amex prompts the fuel tank to ask if I want a receipt and a brushless carwash. No and No. As I pump gas, I observe my surroundings, my clicker racking up numbers faster than a Vegas slot machine.

Crossing the bridge, I listen to NPR’s pledge drive complete with incentive – a free iPad. It doesn’t stimulate any philanthropic urge. Rather, I speculate on the on-going brand problems of NPR implied by the dangling of an iPad to encourage engagement. NPR gets clicks but no donation. Along my route, I spot four law firm billboards promising justice for the injured…“se habla español!”

In the parking garage, a poster tells me if I carpool, I can enjoy preferred parking. I note there is only one preferred parking space…occupied by a city vehicle.

Starbucks’ window decal informs me that I can have my coffee my way, hot or cold. That seems to lack imagination. I mean cold coffee is just hot…with ice, no? In any case, talk to the hand. Starbucks has ticked me off one too many times.

At my desk, my mail is piled neatly: catalogs, coupons, membership renewals and 4 fur storage postcards, all mailed to a woman (me) who lives in sunny Florida…hmmm.

An envelope from UBS says ‘important information enclosed’ but I’m not falling for that. Since 2009 the only important information enclosed has been that the world has gone to hell in a hand basket and taken my portfolio with it. My shiny new New York mag calls out to me with a tantalizing cover story on Xanax, but I resist the temptation because I don’t want to tally the multitude of ads I am sure to encounter.

As media messages in every form mount up, the experiment begins to get to me. Estimates say we are exposed to more than 5,000 per day. I’m not sure if my counter goes that high and I don’t want to injure myself finding out. But the bigger question is one of media literacy. Do all these messages make me do things I shouldn’t? Like eating too many Pringles or frittering the inheritance that I don’t actually have and may never get? As a professional marketer, I can’t ignore my own culpability. But tally-counter ho! The day is young.

My computer boots up and I confront Adage, ProfNet, NY Times, Marketing Profs, Delta, Viagra (?), and a Nigerian who needs me to wire £5m to a bank in Tenerife. (I’ll get right on it).

In a moment of weakness, I pick up Vogue and am 100 media messages deep before I realize the error of my ways and snap it shut. At lunchtime, the office orders pizza from the Grimaldi’s outpost, “The pizza that made the Brooklyn Bridge famous”. Yippee, real NYC pizza! The message creates big expectations, and the pizza delivers, jeopardizing our relationship with Papa John’s, whose daily promotional prices make it easy to believe that it is, “Better Ingredients, Better Pizza”.

By 6pm, I lost count, even with my trusty clicker. The exercise is both amusing and illuminating. Today, there is very little that is not a media message, from the imprint on your daily vitamin, to the red soles of the shoes you wear to dinner, each and every one looking to take another little piece of your heart…

Image found on on.mash.to/1LejRky

Category: Media

How to write effectively for social media

5 of the best social media ad campaigns out there

For the love of Beyoncé, please stop using hashtags on Facebook

Over 5,000 messages and counting…My media immersion observation.