Is spring the time when brand catch their breaths after the
holiday and New Year rushes? Or, is it when they regroup, creatively, and put
their heads together to devise a plan for the long summer and fall seasons? How
do their strategies carry over into their social media efforts? These are just
a few questions we are asking ourselves at Versa as we work hard to make our
clients stand out this spring.
There is one huge trend creatives have caught on to: the Facebook
Share. The like has been “common practice among marketers for years,” says a
recent article by Adweek (Heine). The like is easy, instant, and gratifying,
but does not carry the weight or intrinsic value that a share does. Ultimately,
marketers want consumers and Facebook users to talk about their brand, they
want a great deal of chatter, and they want ‘“to percolate a frenzy”’ around
their products and services (as cited in Heine). The Facebook algorithm that
determines what shows up near the top of a user’s feed gives “1,300 percent
more weight to shares than likes” (Heine). Word of mouth, which is one of the
best sources of organic advertising, just became a little more complicated, and
a little more competitive.
What is the secret to converting a lot of views to a lot of—more
valuable—shares? Dennis Y, the CEO of BlitzMetrics, a social media insights
firms says, “‘Brands should focus on storytelling to create real engagement”
that fans are willing to share with their friends (as cited in Heine). And, to
do that, the story and accompanying photo must be memorable. A recent article
by Forbes.com has a short and helpful
list of elements that make a brand’s advertising great and memorable.
A great ad must do a lot of things, and it must do a lot of
things very well. To begin, it must present a strong brand identity. A
brilliant headline, of course, is a must. A visual that is both engaging, relevant
and, to use a term from the Forbes story, “disruptive” (Geller) is also a must.
The very last and most important element is something a little bit extra. A
little bit extra, we’ll admit, is hard to pinpoint and define. But, here’s how
we interpret it: something that makes you do a double-take, something that
makes you laugh and want to share your amusement or surprise, and something
that makes you secretly admire a brand even if you profess to be opposed to
advertising. In short, ads that will attract even the cynics. That’s all.
Works Cited
Gellar, Lois. “How To Make Your Advertising Memorable.” Forbes.com. Forbes.com LLC, 23 Jan.
2013.
Web. 3
April 2013.
Heine, Christopher. “Brands Favor Social Shares Over Likes:
Chatter is key.” Adweek.com. Adweek,
1
April
2013. Web. 3 April 2013.