fans questions so they can generate colorful commentary. For example, Marvel asks its fans for thoughts on movie releases and games. And across the company ' s Twitter accounts, hashtags are sprinkled in. The handy little # symbol categorizes tweets by topic and can make a huge difference. Case in point: When the NBA held its slam-dunk contest this year, viewers were asked to vote for favorite dunks using # spriteslam as the hashtag. Likewise, # spriteslam was tweeted 50,000 times in the first two minutes it appeared onscreen. But be sure to check your hashtags ahead of time. The pithy phrase may already be in use, and it may not be in line with your branding. Likewise, have a fresh pair of eyes look over the hashtag. Susan Boyle ' s # Susanalbumparty was a PR disaster.
5. Listen to your fans. When Tasti D-Lite ' s technology and digital marketing exec noticed a fan tweeting about potentially buying from the dessert company later in the day, he offered her a Tasti D-Lite coupon and she continued to tweet about how pleased she was with this interaction. This took less than a few minutes to do, but think of how effective it was. Along the same lines, when a Phoenix Suns fan sent out a tweet and photo complaining about a bad seat at a Suns game, the Suns social media team offered the unhappy fan a special seat in a suite. His resulting tweets were positive and influenced his huge audience.
6. Publish killer content. What makes content good? It has to be engaging enough that people want to share it. Ask yourself is this relevant to my audience? Does it answer a question? Does it provide entertainment? Do you have share buttons next to your content to make it easy for your readers to share it with their friends?
And remember, you don ' t have to generate all the content. Ask your audience members to guest blog, which will enable you to reach their audiences, too.
7. Develop a social media strategy. Of course, none of this makes sense if you don ' t have goals and longterm thinking in mind. Just like anything else, you don ' t want to throw your brand out into the social mediasphere all willy-nilly. Having a strategy will help you plan ahead for contests and such, and it helps you to shape your message. Keep in mind: Any good social media strategy should address the good( contests and coupons) and the bad and the ugly( customer complaints).
PR TIMES AFRICA
VOL 1. JULY 2015 1ST EDITION
33