As a business owner you should always try to stay on top of industry events, but you should be sure to keep up with current events as well. Marketing with current events can be a great way to engage customers and help them get to know your brand. Social media offers the perfect fun, informal platform to create ad campaigns for your business using current events. We’re going to use this blog post to tell you why and how you should add current events to your marketing tool belt.
So the first thing you may be asking is why current events; they have nothing to do with my business. The reason you should add current events to your marketing tool belt is because they get people talking. Remember the white and gold dress that went viral (or black and blue dress if you’re crazy!)? People couldn’t stop sharing it on Facebook and talking about it on Twitter. Why not use this viral trend to gain more exposure for your business? Dunkin’ Donuts had a great example of incorporating the dress into their social media campaign. You too can incorporate the event into your ad to show customers you are fun and want to engage them.
Have we convinced you to use current events in your marketing campaign yet? If so, let’s look at some ways you should (and shouldn’t) incorporate them. You can use fun viral trends like the Dunkin’ Donuts example above or you can use real-world events. Take a look at what Gaf Roofing did to get their Instagram followers ready for The Kentucky Derby. This example demonstrates how to tie in unrelated events to your brand.
Another way to use current events marketing is to incorporate “real-time” events. Remember when the lights went out during the 2013 Super Bowl? Oreo was on Twitter incorporating this right away. The difficult part of using this strategy is that you cannot plan in advance. You must think on your feet and work fast to make “real-time” marketing effective.
If you choose to use current events in your marketing campaign, be sure to do your research. There have been too many real-time marketing examples gone wrong that caused public uproar. One of the most notable examples is a DiGiorno Pizza tweet from 2014. The brand decided to hop on a #WhyIStayed bandwagon without realizing the context of the hashtag. The hashtag was referencing women in abusive relationships so clearly DiGiorno’s tweet was not taken well.
The main takeaway when using current events in your marketing campaign is to be current, relevant, and fresh. Make sure you do your research and only advertise tastefully. Be selective in which current events you use and how you use them, but don’t be afraid to get creative. Most of all, have fun with it!