What Were You Thinking – Don’t Leverage Holidays with Your Brand

While swiping down on my Facebook feed a few months ago, I came across a Facebook business post for Martin Luther King Day. It simply said Happy MLK Day. It was designed into a “shareable image” – meaning, the expectation was that it would be shared. It also had the logo of the agency branded in the lower corner.

Let me get this straight, someone thought it was smart to put the MLK logo on a shareable image?

WHAT?

Brands, you can learn from this.

There are several things wrong with this situation.

• They are not the only ones to put their logo on a day that shouldn’t be branded.
• There isn’t a ton of value in leveraging sensitive days.
• Shareable images must leverage the first term in the phrase – SHAREABLE. An image saying “Happy MLK Day” with a logo is not something anyone would share. An image of MLK with an inspirational quote, maybe. But it’s still borderline.

It blows my mind how inappropriate brands, people and businesses can be with social media.

• Social media was not meant to be media only. It was meant to be social. Social content is not forced. Try walking into a crowded bar and yelling “HAPPY MLK DAY, BUY MY BRAND”. That won’t strike up a positive conversation.
• You don’t have to post content. Post when you have something of value to say. Post when you want your friends or fans to react.
• Facebook has changed the game, businesses. Get it through your heads that when you post, no one sees it (I am exaggerating – very few see it) unless you put $$$ against it. That means that if you are not driving people to your content, you will spend $$$ to create content that no one sees.
• Speaking of content that no one sees, blogging is currently falling into that category. Unless you have a voice (like Scott Gittrich, CEO of Toppers Pizza* www.scottgittrich.com) or influencer status, no one reads your content. Check your analytics. Prospects aren’t reading about you saying how great you are. They simply are not. Is there value in the SEO that comes along with blogs? Debatable. With blogging, you are spending $$$ to create content, but not spending $$$ to market it (unless you are, then kudos).
• Should you outsource your digital and have an agency to manage your footprint? Depends if they impress you with their own digital story. If they don’t know who they are – or don’t put time into their content, do you think they will really know what to do with yours? Lots of swings with many misses.
  • Check their LinkedIn page. This should be used for recruiting awesome talent.
  • Check the location of their office – culture is vital in an agency world. Why? It’s freakin’ stressful. Bad environments with long commutes = disgruntled/stressed behavior. Disgruntled/stressed behavior kills creativity. Without creativity, content may not challenge the norm.
  • Check their Facebook page. Do they post to post?
  • Check their point of view. Do they have one – other than we are the best agency because we are the oldest?

Social media is a wonderful tool. It is there to help businesses tell their brand stories in another way. But, you must have a vision for what you want your digital/social footprint to accomplish in order for it to work for you.

However, where social completely fails is when it’s done wrong. Brands – be careful with what you post.