A bad social media campaign can wreck your reputation. A really good one, however, can revitalize both your reputation and your brand. Here are four examples of social media campaigns that can help you.
These campaigns may be executed in a number of different ways. Some might happen on Twitter alone. Others might include You Tube videos and a variety of interactions across multiple social channels. Be aware that execution matters, even when you’ve chosen one of the four themes below.
1. A campaign which uplifts others.
There are two ways to uplift others through your social media campaigns.
One way is to support a cause or course of action that really matters. For example, if you are heavily involved in a charity you can spend a lot of time tweeting about the things that you and that charity are accomplishing together.
Another way involves encouraging other people to believe in themselves. Dove’s Real Beauty campaign and Pantene’s “No Labels” campaign are two good examples of this phenomenon in action. These campaigns worked because they spoke to serious issues that had an impact on their audience, and they did so in a sensitive, approachable way.
2. Contests, giveaways, and games.
Contests are a great way to inject a little fun into your social media presence. Besides, people enjoy getting free stuff. If they are getting high quality free stuff then they will tend to feel some measure of good will for you and your company.
This works best if the games intersect with your brand. Otherwise they’ll just come across as random and disjointed. If you can work user-generated content into the mix you’ll have even more success. Just check out Chipotle’s “Wrap What You Love” contest.
3. Something cool, unique, or just a bit outrageous.
This one is a tricky one, because sometimes it’s hard to tell what people will think is awesome and what will come across as lame. You also need to put a lot of work into the launch, building up anticipation and teasing people to generate buzz. If you just unveil something it is almost guaranteed to fall flat.
An example would be Cadbury’s giant Dairy Milk Facebook Like Thumb. This article helps to demonstrate how all of their build up and response played into the success of what otherwise might have just come across as an ugly, disturbing chocolate statue.
They used teaser ads to build up to the event and then live streamed from a studio with user-generated content and photos. The Cadbury team also responded to comments made by fans in the video.
Without the build up and the response this campaign would have been dead in the water.
4. Twitter chats with a valuable purpose.
There are twitter chats for all sorts of things: #landscape chats, #mommy chats, and so on. Choosing and hosting the right chat can give people all kinds of reasons to engage with you and your company. A really good talk will generate a ton of positive feelings which go on to feed into your good reputation.
However, make sure that you’re not duplicating a chat that already exists, and take the time to be a participant before you’re a host. That will give you the chance to gain an understanding of what makes a successful Twitter chat and will help you generate ideas for creating your own. This also works best if you stay in it for the long haul, hosting the same chat with a different valuable question or theme every week.
Lay your groundwork before you launch.
Even the best social media campaign can flop if you don’t take the time to really listen to your customers. You might need to spend a month or more monitoring your reputation and what’s being said to really get a sense of what your customers think about your brand. If you have a truly bad reputation then you need to clean that up before you start, or any campaign can backfire. Once you’ve done your homework you’ll be well positioned to turn your social media into a positive force for your online reputation management.
