Where I think social media’s real power and interesting bits are.
Of course, shout out to Carman for coming up with much of the initial strategies for the two projects mentioned.
And make sure you check out Jeff’s great post about social media and real life connections.
Transcript:
Sings: Video Monday, video Monday, it’s a Monday so here’s a video!
So today on Video Monday I just wanted to very briefly talk about social media in real life. Basically what I find most interesting about all the social media stuff we talk about all the time.
And the reason I bring these up is the projects I’ve been working on the most at my day job these days have been Going To The Max, which you know, to market a new lotto game, we decided that you should have a bunch of people come out, use social tools to get people out at events around Atlantic Canada, to roll down a giant ramp in a huge plastic ball. To share in that experience together. To have fun, and it makes that association with the new lotto game and just Going To The Max.
The other thing I’ve been working on is marketing the Peggy’s Cove Area. One of the biggest things we did with that was to use social tools, so Twitter, blogs that we read and a Facebook contest, to get people out to experience the Peggy’s Cove Area. For a jam packed day of fun, photo taking, wine tasting, just everything that the area has to offer, and to share in that experience together and to have shared conversations about it.
So I wanted to say that I think social media’s true power, or I think social media really only gets interesting when you’re able to move people off of the tools and into a conversation somewhere else. Whether that is, ideally that is in real life, in the same room, on the same boat, doing something together, being people together. Not Twitter user names.
But even if you’re just moving them off of that platform into something else more engaging where people are sharing something they experience together. That’s where things get interesting, for me at least. You give people a new experience to talk about. Something that really brings them together there. They’re not just a mass of people on a social media platform, now they’re doing something special. They’re doing something together, and they’ll have something to talk about.
And you know if you’re doing your marketing right, that conversation is going to include whatever it was you wanted them to be talking about. You wanted to give them an experience. So if you were thinking about your new social media marketing program, give some careful thought about how do we move this off of the tool? How do we give them something interesting enough to do that they’ll want to move off of their tool? Not just try to shove them somewhere else. Not just try to link them to a new website. Give them a reason that they’ll actually want to move from Twitter to something that will actually be a little more interesting.
That’s Video Monday everyone, bye.
{ 10 comments… read them below or add one }
Couldn’t agree more Joel. Very challenging to do tho’ to find those experiences surrounding a product that people will enjoy sharing.
P.S. I am looking out at lots of small boats (most likely kayaks – hard to tell from my location) on St Margaret’s Bay today.
Very true. Challenging, but very satisfying when you nail it
Excellent to hear!
Couldn’t agree more. I talked about this a bit in my post Social Media is about the real life connections you make. As social creatures, even though we spend a great deal of time living in Facebook, Twitter and our blogs, it’s so much more powerful when it’s a real life experience.
Having experienced the cool vibe at the Going To The Max event, I have to say this really just reinforces what that’s all about. Then, by providing social media tools following the event, the campaign comes full circle. It’s pretty awesome to be involved.
Exactly right, Jeff.
Completely forgot to link up your post about this! Yours was great.
Yes, Putting the”social” in the social media model.
Simple but powerful.
thnx for sharing
Glad you liked it. Thanks for the comment!
Hey, great video, and I couldn’t agree with you more. That is exactly the approach I am taking. Getting folks off twitter and out to our events, to experience us in the community, and to build memories together.
Thanks for saying it so succinctly.
Cheers!
Stacey (@theStacey) in Ottawa
Hi Stacey,
So glad you liked the video! It’s very satisfying to see people actually come out and interact in person, or at least off of a social network, isn’t it?
Well said Joel.
In this post you mention several things you have tried or are planning to try to get people out for “real world” events.
Could you expand on how has it worked for you? Do you try to track how social media directly contributed to the success of an public event after the fact? If so, do you have any thoughts on how to determine if folks are attending due to your SM efforts or for other more traditional reasons?
Well, for Peggy’s Cove Area we’ve had several popular, Halifax-based blogs speak very highly about their time in the Peggy’s Cove Area, as well as significant Twitter conversation and an increase in Facebook fans (which will be helpful in future promotions). The goal for the campaign, which includes several print/poster/guerrilla tactics, is to see an increase in fringe season visitations. Only time will tell if we do.
For Going to the Max, we had hundreds of people show up at each event, and everyone had a terrific time, all while hearing about Lotto Max. Again, time will tell if ticket sales increase. In this case, the actual social media promotion didn’t play as large a part as the more traditional elements, potentially, but the chatter online and the connections we’ve made through Facebook and on the website will help sustain the momentum of the campaign better than any traditional medium could.
Not moving the goalpost here, the goal really should be ‘did people buy more of our stuff?’ But we just don’t know yet.