It is imperative when managing your Social Media channels, that you pay attention to current events. If you are the social voice of your company online, I highly recommend to make sure that you are fully aware of upcoming holidays, keeping a frequent eye on the news, and tracking high publicity events.
Holidays are big on Social Media. Take Facebook for example; we can all vouch that during ‘national holidays’ – holiday posts are basically all we see. Either that, or a few select users ranting about how annoyed they are at the constant holiday oriented status updates. Regardless of that small complaining majority, this is never a good time to market your brand without using holiday-related content. The goal is not to market your brand. Instead, take the opportunity to relate on a personal level with your viewers. The simple gesture of sharing holiday savvy material makes a statement that you are human and support what is evidently important to your audience. Your viewers will relate and respond well to this. The only exception: The promotion of a holiday sensitive offer or discount. Who doesn’t love that?
News – also huge in Social Media networking. Searching for news and being educated on current events is popular. These days, the search is almost always followed by sharing discovered news on one’s channel. It seems as though people no longer want to search for news articles. Let’s take a look at Twitter – The Huffington Post has declared that there were over 175 million tweets from twitter daily in 2012. As you can imagine, the life span of a tweet is about one minute in length. With that being said, it is still nearly impossible as an active user to miss tweets about a major current event. Most people will search for a trending hashtag of the current event which will lead them to a library of tweets containing links to related news articles. Simple – just the way we like it these days.
What does this mean for you as a business owner on Twitter? If you pay attention to current events, it is a great way to post some helpful information about the event for your users. Even though it may not be industry-related, it is still a way of establishing your brand as a source of information to your users.
When it comes to a ‘high publicity event’ – I cannot think of anything bigger than the Presidential election. Here is an example that will help to put this all into perspective: The number one most liked post in the history of Facebook is Mr. Obama’s “Victory” post. In the same token – the most popular tweet in existence is, “Four more years” tweeted by President Obama.
Whether it’s a friendly holiday post to ‘blend with the trend’ or sharing an article of a major current event for the benefit and education of your users – current events are crucial in the world of Social Media. Business owners ask yourselves,”What are users talking about?” and “How can I engage in the conversation with my audience?” Be prepared, be fearless, and get social.
