If you’re looking for ways to improve your company’s social media efforts, consider taking a lesson from Hollywood. Indeed, high-profile actors, singers, and performers understand the art of online promotion in a way that many companies could learn from as they work to create digital visibility for their brands.
While Beyoncé broke ground by announcing a new album via social media, she’s been especially good at focusing her social media efforts and matching the right platform (Instagram) to her brand image (very visual). She’s also very effective at using this channel to create narratives if there’s negative news. For example, when rumors started flying about her marriage, she immediately used Instagram to show that her family was fine.
Businesses can take a similar approach. If what you do is not particularly visual, maybe you should consider canceling your Instagram account and focusing on more appropriate platforms. That said, if you’ve been attacked by hackers, consider posting a video on Facebook to explain the problem or using Twitter to let customers know where they can go to get help and more information.
Tesla is a good example of a company that proactively built a social media narrative to counter a negative situation. When a few of its all-electric cars caught fire – resulting in a media storm and a drop in the company’s stock price – the founder and CEO went on the offensive via a variety of social media channels to disparage the coverage, and more importantly, let customers know that their cars were safe. The effort played an important role in helping the company quickly move beyond the bad publicity and recover from the crisis.
So consider taking a page from the social media playbook of celebrities. Certainly not everything they do will be right or appropriate for your business, but there are definitely lessons that companies can learn from the likes of Beyoncé.
– George Sopko
Image via Giphy