You know the Facebook posts of that famous brand that does service for funerals and that for whatever happens in the world it publishes something? Exactly! No, the article you have just started will not talk about this.
Here I will explain what real time marketing is, how it should work and how to best tell it to your customers, to avoid you wasting your time and them becoming the laughing stock of some wonderful page like ” Social media epic fails “.
Let’s start from the beginning.
Real time marketing: no, Valentine’s Day is not worth it!
What is real time marketing really? Perhaps it means opening the calendar of Friar Indovino, circling in red all the most famous saints (maronn ‘today is Sant’Isidoro of Seville, even the comic cat was called Isidoro!), Moving to a Wikipedia page and identifying all the days world championships that the University of Massachusset has established and then start drawing up as amanuensis monks an editorial calendar for their customer who sells tires in life? No, not really.
First of all, because your customer who sells tires that today in Australia is World Beer-Drinking Day with the left hand does not care and, secondly, because this does not even interest his target.
A true definition of ” Real time marketing ” does not exist, and that is why too often we fall into considering it a lot per kilo “when you post about what happens”.
Put a little better, with Real time marketing we define all the marketing actions conceived and implemented in response to particular events , practically in real time.
The idea is that, if a lot of people are already talking about that fact or that news, brands can exploit that topic in the shortest time possible, publishing something that fits perfectly to gain visibility and consensus.
So we speak of “instant”, of “event of the moment” of “timeliness”: these are the three essential factors. So no, your Valentine’s Day, May 1st or St. Patrick’s post are not real time marketing posts!
Those are just posts on your editorial calendar and, going back to earlier, if your customer is a tire brand, perhaps for Valentine’s Day they have nothing to say … except something like “make your heart travel on solid tires, to reach it! ” (if you really use it, I will leave you the IBAN for the transfer).
Admitted and not granted that before arriving at this line you already knew what I wrote above, probably your customer who produces tires was not entirely knowledgeable on the subject (eh, of course, that knows a lot of tires, he hired you to take care of the communication).
So my dispassionate advice is to immediately make it clear what can be considered Real time marketing with the tire company, so that there are no doubts when your contact person will start asking “oh but let’s do a Real time marketing also us with a post that makes a thousand thousand likes on St. Patrick’s ?! “.
Your answer will be: “No dear contact person, this is not Real time marketing and perhaps it is better that on your page we do not talk about St. Patrick unless we do a mega company party in which we paint the tires green for the occasion” .
Real time marketing yes or no?
I go straight, direct and I don’t look anyone in the face like when I’m hungry and a pizza arrives at my house: no, it is not necessary to do real time marketing . We live very well anyway, with posts that work in any case, with a community that appreciates what is published day after day, because it was selected well in the targeting phase and because the posts are clean, direct, simple and beautiful, very beautiful to look at.
I swear to you that in life I would like to see more well-made and coherent editorial plans , than pages with Real time marketing contents every day as if they were on a special offer at the supermarket or as if Facebook gave us a star of merit every time we publish a post. of this type.
Ah, I remind you that if your posts talk to you they will always have to talk to you, every time between a post and the previous one I see that the person changes with fancy jumps between “you” and “you” I cry. I really cry. But it is not stylistic coherence that I want to talk about today .
We have therefore established that the doctor does not order us to do Real time marketing, and neither does Giuseppe Conte who is so fashionable these days with ordinances. We can move on to step number 3.
Real time marketing, you’re doing it right, can I be your friend?
If the threat of ending up on “Social media epic fail” is not enough, if the abyss of seeing that your post does not go beyond 100 likes does not make you give up and if you feel so strong and creative that “ah dear, but what do you know, we have brilliant ideas at breakfast “let’s go into the wonderful world of ” those who know how to do it “.
My two cents practical advice first of all, so at least you can’t accuse me “oh but you didn’t tell us”.
Brand: your tire brand will hardly have the opportunity to post Real time marketing precisely because at the tone of voice and target level we cannot afford to talk about everything and make crazy jokes. So make sure that there is fertile ground in which to try, yes because Real time marketing is above all a bet, to make a post dedicated to a particular fact or event.
Target: your Real time marketing post will have a theme, when you go to sponsor, do the same without restraint and include everything related that comes to mind among the interests. Also because, said with the heart, that content on the page will not serve to make you sell more products, but will have awareness as its sole objective. And the engagement. Lots of engagement.
TIMELINESS: Real time marketing takes place within 4 hours after you come to find out the fact or the event happens. If you can do it within the working day, perhaps you still have some hope (Facebook analysis times permitting) that users will see your post in the evening. If “the graph had other priorities” and you put it into production the next day, my dispassionate advice is to save budget and wait for the next moment to be exploited.
Clarity: text and image must be clear, first of all to you. Then you will show it to a few colleagues to make sure the message is immediate. The boss approves it agile. You send it to the customer (and you call him right away, we’re in a hurry to publish here).
Do not pull concepts by the hair: please, it is not necessary to be nice at all costs. For example, it is not enough to forcefully insert “princely” or “crown” if the Real time marketing you are doing is dedicated to Harry and Meghan and their decision to abandon their real commitments.
Ok, now it’s time to leave room for inspiration (which does not mean we mark them all and copy them as soon as something of the same kind comes up)
And finally, the most awaited moment by the sadistic talkers: here are some examples of posts in which if the social media manager had started combing the dolls it would have been better.
What have we learned from this article? I hope a lot of things, if it were not so “Let’s not think about them, but look and pass” cit.
Real time marketing and Coronavirus: is it right to talk about it? If so, how?
I would like to conclude with a small final parenthesis on the Coronavirus, #iorestoacasa and social distancing theme. Who knows if your customer who sells tires has asked you to publish a post on this topic …
In this case we are going a little further than Real time marketing because it is a social issue of extreme relevance, a real stance of the brand towards a difficult, complex and important situation.
We first saw one, then many, brands give a “strong” signal by making a real positioning operation by modifying their logo and applying “social distancing” even within their symbol.
It starts from McDonald’s Brazil and arrives at the greengrocer behind the house, because in the internet when one does and seems a genius, then cascade also arrives at “mio cugggino” which modifies, in fact, even the greengrocer’s logo.
As for McDonald’s, criticism immediately exploded, with provocative questions about how the brand treats its workers or whether it was just an opportunistic move.
Former presidential candidate Senator Bernie Sanders also spoke out on this issue. Result? A few days after the campaign was unveiled, McDonald’s Brazil removed the separate arches from its social media accounts.
All this teaches us that we need to understand if “we can afford” to express our point of view and to expose ourselves because the skeletons we have in the closet our enemies know very well, I assure you.
It is certainly important that brands expose themselves on social and public interest issues, but when they do they must be careful to be able to talk about that specific issue: their reputation is at stake.
I conclude with a few posts / positive actions always on the Coronavirus theme, proposed in these difficult days by some brands, there are a lot of interesting things!
