When Oreo Cookie seized the opportunity of the 2013 Super Bowl power outage to tweet: “You can still dunk in the dark,” real time marketing communications became a darling tactic of businesses and brands looking for a quick hit and viral immortality. This “stroke of marketing genius” – as described by Forbes – went incredibly great, but there are many that go horribly wrong (think DiGiorno’s failed newsjack of the domestic violence hashtag #WhyIStayed). Further, it is worth noting that Oreo had a game plan, including a social media war room, to respond to whatever the big game threw its way.
Recognizing that many small businesses lack the luxury of social media war rooms, not to mention social media or marketing staff, here is a quick overview and a few suggestions on how best to put real time marketing communications (RTMC) to use for your business or brand.
David Meerman Scott, best-selling author, internationally acclaimed marketing and sales strategist and guru of instant and real time communications, provides this definition:
Real-time means news breaks over minutes, not days. It means ideas percolate, then suddenly and unpredictably go viral to a global audience. It’s when companies develop (or refine) products or services instantly, based on feedback from customers or events in the marketplace. And it’s when businesses see an opportunity and are the first to act on it.
Scott puts real time into perspective in this video:
In a post for the Vocus Blog, Allen Mireles outlines a few benefits and several tips, many from Meerman, for successful RTMC:
RTMC Benefits
- Positioning yourself, your organization or your client as an expert source
- Increasing reach and brand awareness
- Sharing your message with new audiences
- Staying relevant
RTMC Tips
- …stay tuned into local, national and global news to watch for opportunities. …“Be very discerning: A military coup, the death of a celebrity, a natural disaster — these are not events of which you should take advantage.
- …find news or a trend that’s relevant to your brand. Formulate a strategy in real-time, taking into consideration your goals and objectives, your organization’s abilities to respond quickly, and how credible your link to the story is. Ask yourself why the media will care about the angle you’re about to run with.
- …get your story angle out to the public. Possible vehicles for doing so can include blogging, tweeting using an established hashtag, updating your social networks, sending out a media alert and contacting journalists directly. Speed and responsiveness are critical in all this. You need to be available to answer any questions or provide additional information if the media picks up on it or if the topic generates conversation in social media.
- Stories of RTMC gone wrong litter the web. Especially today. Each of them clearly lacks one essential ingredient: common sense.
In a previous post, we profiled how Arby’s Restaurants utilized real time engagement during the 2014 Grammy Awards. You can read it here.
Have you put real time marketing communications to use for your business or brand? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments section of this post.
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