The Importance of Social Media Marketing at Events

Engaging your audience with your brand through social media marketing is important when it comes to growing your business. There is no shortage of creative and innovative ways to do so. One of the most effective and popular methods is to promote your brand by producing social media campaigns that attach you to cultural events like the Super Bowl. Companies from Doritos to Old Spice have found massive success by connecting significant events to their brands through social media.

So why is it important to integrate this kind of campaign to your marketing strategy? 76% of consumers have said they would rather buy from a business they’ve formed a connection with, and 57% are likely to spend more money from said businesses. By associating your brand with major events, you have the opportunity to increase engagement as well as cultural relevance. Using a social media agency to promote your business in connection to events can create a large impact as to how your brand grows.

When has this kind of campaign been successful?

A particularly infamous, but successful, example of this kind of strategy was the Planters Nut and Chocolate campaign for the 2020 Super Bowl, “Baby Nut.” The goal was to freshen the face of the company while promoting their brand by killing their original mascot, Mr. Peanut. His death occurred in a commercial that aired in late January, which was followed by a social media marketing campaign advertising his funeral during the Super Bowl. In a shocking turn of events, Mr. Peanut was revived in the form of Baby Nut leading to a dramatic increase in social media engagement with the brand.

While Baby Nut was met with it’s fair share of criticism and controversy, statistics reveal that the campaign absolutely worked in revitalizing the Planters brand. After the completed narrative, Planters saw a 132% increase in Twitter followers. Viewers were actively engaged over social media, creating conversations between the brand and the consumers.

Plan

How does a social media agency achieve something like this for your business? Attaching a media campaign to an event is an interesting process. This starts by identifying how to approach an event with your specific brand in mind. What story is it you want to tell? What tone are you setting? What do you want this campaign to achieve? What is it your audience wants to see? Having these questions in mind can help develop the best course of action for a successful social media marketing strategy.

When you’re marketing in association with an event, whether it’s an annual sports game or a widely discussed and timely news story, it’s important to know where your brand is going to fit.

Implement

Once you’ve determined a game plan, it’s time to start on content creation and joining the fray. Often the most favorable campaigns have an element of audience interaction, which is one of the reasons Baby Nut made such an impact on Planters. Viewers had a lot to say, and by implementing this kind of flexible narrative, their social media managers were able to keep people continually engaged even after the commercials had aired. By attaching a brand to an event, you can increase viewer interactions which leads to longer cultural relevance. It isn’t necessary to buy a $4 million television advertisement either. This kind of campaign is just as successful if it takes place solely via social media as well.

Analyze

After you’ve completed your initial campaign, you can start measuring the overall impact to then plan your next steps in marketing for your business. Multi-day events, like the Olympics, are a great opportunity to experiment with what your consumer demographic is interested in engaging with. In keeping with the Planters example, while the campaign was successful in promoting engagement, many viewers were extremely unhappy with the brand for it’s strange choice to kill their mascot and replace it with Baby Nut. Fortunately for Planters, by analyzing responses to their marketing strategy they were able to correct where they had fallen short while also maintaining elements of their original concept.

Conclusion

Using a social media agency to develop a marketing strategy in conjunction with cultural events is a fun and creative method of expanding your brand. Not only does it provide the opportunity to engage audiences, but it also can help you learn more about what your target demographic wants to see. Creative agencies like Bright Age can assist your business in developing event campaigns for social media so that your brand continues to stay up to date on trends.