The fight to go viral!

In the world of social media, brands are fighting to be noticed; every social media manager wants their campaign to go viral for all the right reasons. Whether it’s because of a meme, a funny tweet or something more thoughtful and ethical – they want the brand to be recognised.

Through working on big brand social media accounts, I know the importance of a quick reaction. News stories can either be your friend or foe, and most times it’s easy – and beneficial – to pull something topical from the news to draft an interesting post on behalf of a client. The hard bit isn’t deciding what to write or creating an image - it’s knowing what news to choose!

Really controversial subjects and anything based around politics, religion or health aren’t the best things to tweet about… In fact, they’re probably the top three worst things for brands to talk about, unless they are in those particular fields. B2C social media is intended to be light-hearted and enjoyable at the best of times, so it’s best to avoid sensitive subjects.

Topical subjects like the World Cup, Wimbledon and national days are great for brands to get involved with. With a significant public interest in them, it’s easy to capitalise and gain engagement.

Done properly, brands can engage with thousands of followers and gain even more. A great example was Luis Suarez’s biting incident at the World Cup, which saw brands react quickly on social networking sites Facebook and Twitter.

Here are my favourite brand responses to the incident: