WE'VE ALL BEEN THERE

Whether you’re on the client side or the agency side, you’ve probably experienced this situation. Your team has a new campaign that everyone’s psyched about – beautiful new creative, catchy tagline, media relations ready to spread the word. But no one thought about social at the beginning, so now there’s no budget or all of the creative hours have been exhausted on other assets. But it’s okay, because we’ll just slap a hashtag on some posts and now we’ve got a social campaign, right?

So wrong. Unfortunately, this happens all too often and the result of these kinds of efforts is that brands end up looking clueless, out of touch, and lame.

And the worst part is that we know that our best efforts could have been so much better and effective if social hadn’t been an afterthought.

IT'S TIME TO GO SOCIAL FIRST.

Social media is uniquely positioned to lead campaigns because it’s based on relatable, human connections. Because of our ability to engage in two-way dialogue on social channels, we’re tapped into the zeitgeist. We know what makes followers laugh, what makes them roll their eyes (or flip us off), and what makes them want to share.

Ultimately, a hashtag doesn’t make a campaign; brand authenticity does. That kind of real, relatable, honest-even-though-it-might-hurt awareness of who our brand is and who our customers are makes all the difference in the world.

This content was originally shared as a flash talk at Social Media Day Philadelphia 2017.