Weekend Reading: Real-Time Marketing

by Jason Unger, Founder

Insights / Content / Weekend Reading: Real-Time Marketing

During last year’s Super Bowl blackout, Oreo capitalized on the moment and posted a photo tweet with the caption, “You can still dunk in the dark.” Oreo saw an opportunity to make their brand relevant during the Super Bowl, a time not really known for cookie dunking.

Last week, Arby’s posted an incredibly viral tweet during the Grammy Awards, garnering over 83,000 retweets and 48,000 favorites.

Both of these are examples of real-time marketing, which continues to become more relevant as consumers check in online during popular events. With the Super Bowl approaching this weekend, we wanted to share some articles on the topic, as well as one major real-time marketing “don’t.”

4 Steps to Explosive Real-Time Marketing

Your team should also begin to identify the daily trends, topics, sub-topics, quirks, habits, news and tendencies in each of your spaces. Discover the influencers and their roles in the community. Start to gauge the tone, attitudes and flavor of the population. Set alerts in your social media analytics tools when conversations start to gain momentum around certain key phrases or search terms. Track and monitor buzz to reply or share key pieces of content.

Quick Take: Even though the term is real-time marketing, you need to make sure to do your research before any big event. You can’t just dive in headfirst; you need to get your feet wet first and see what the market is already talking about. This is a key factor to being relevant during the actual event.

Brands Gear Up For Their Oreo Moment at this Year’s Super Bowl

CarMax will also set up a 15-person war room charged with finding moments to tag with #slowclap, a hashtag affiliated with the brand’s Super Bowl ad. “We’re looking at game night as a sort of virtual Super Bowl party,” says Laura Donahue, VP of advertising for CarMax. CarMax dropped its Super Bowl ad on YouTube a week and a half before the game. Donahue says the ad has prompted a lot of opportunities for social media discussion. “We think those opportunities are going to be very prevalent during the game,” she says.

Quick Take: While some brands seem to be setting up a “war room” just to have one, we really like how CarMax is taking it a step further and looking for specific opportunities they can pair with their existing #slowclap hashtag affiliated with their Super Bowl ad.

Watch the Super Bowl, don’t just tweet it

I learned a concept last year called the “10-second rule.” After you compose your post, ponder whether it’s relevant, accurate or even necessary. If it is, then post it. Ten seconds goes a long way in the mind.

Quick Take: If you take anything from this post, we hope it’s this: don’t just post to post. Write your post, and then take a quick minute to think about it and question it before pushing send. If you aren’t adding something that is relevant to your brand, nix it.

But if you think you’ve found your way into the conversation, go for it, and make sure you let us know.