It’s already Wednesday and just 4 days left to the Big Game – the biggest sport and advertising event of the year, but also the hottest time in social media. If you want to leverage social media to increase the awareness of your brand, it’s high time you start. Based on my experience and on data from Sotrender social media analytics, I’d like to share with you some essential tips to use social media and Super Bowl to gain reach and visibility for your brand.
Wednesday: Enter the game!
First of all, decide if you want to leverage your social media marketing thanks to Super Bowl – it’s the last moment. The States already are living the Game. Look at the chart from Google Trends with keywords related to the Big Game. More and more people are searching them every day closer to Super Bowl. Becoming a dominant trend on the web, it’s a sign that it’s high time for starting your social media campaign. Think if there is anything related to Super Bowl – football, sports, physical activites, fun, spending time together – that fits your brand and appeals to your target group. If it does, it’s worth taking a shot with this event. If the Big Game is of no interest for your customers, you may just question it, communicating say “The only bar in town with no Super Bowl this Sunday”. Sharing the same values will create stronger bond between your brand and customers.
Next, choose your target and strategy. You can aim at increasing direct sales of your products and services, pitching and giving special offers, but I don’t recommend it. Super Bowl is all about fun and sports, for most of brands sales just doesn’t fit in. You can use the event for branding instead. Check which companies will advertise during the Big Game, it might be useful for you. For example, if you run a bar, write that you sell there Bud Light that advertises during Super Bowl. If you’re a car dealer selling Nissan or BMW – both these brands will air commercials during Sunday game – use that information and their content for your purposes.
Wednesday – Saturday: Pre-game trainings
So, it’s Wednesday already, no time to waste! Time from today to Saturday is both like a pre-game show and a team training. Build your buzz, become noticed. Follow trends with trending hashtags, both on Twitter and Facebook. Using them – if relevant to your content of course – might help you gain attention. To identify trending hashtags, you can go to Twitter site for each city, or use a special tool for Twitter analytics.
Think of different game scenarios and prepare generic content you can easily change. There are only two teams on the field: one wins, the other loses. Prepare variants for both occasions, and don’t forget to thank the losing team for the great play. The game can be decided in first quarter like Super Bowl XLVIII, when Seahawks smashed Broncos, but it can be fierce and thirilling like Super Bowl XLVI when Patriots fought to the last seconds with Giants. Think how different scenarios fit your product. One good example is DiGiorno pizza that perfectly commented the last game.
Remember one thing, the best real time marketing is often prepared and planned earlier.
Have everything prepared before the Super Bowl Sunday. Decide who’s responsible for the social media communication during the Game. It can be you personally, someone from your team, a freelancer either an agency. The choice is yours, but remember that the content and communication should be professional.
Have in mind that on the Super Bowl Sunday social media will be immensely cluttered. Even the greatest, the wittiest content won’t guarantee that you will reach enough users. One good idea is buying reach in social media, paid promotion of your content. If you want to use Facebook or Twitter Ads, submit them earlier as they need some time to be accepted.
Sunday: The Big Game
Sunday is the Big Day. You have your team prepared, the content ready to post. What now? Observe what’s going on in social media. Look for opportunities to engage into brand-to brand interactions, even with the biggest ones.
Watch the whole broadcast. Something interesting can happen before the game. Watch the game itself very carefully. Tweet (we’re writing mostly about Twitter because it’s the fastest of the most popular social medium, but you can expand your actions on Facebook, Instagram etc.) when something spectacular happens – be it a catch, a throw, or a tackle. It shows people that you really watch the game and excite together. That feeling connects followers with your brand, shows its human side. Also, it gives a chance for your communication to become viral, reaching new consumers for free.
Monday – Tuesday: Post-game show
Super Bowl-related buzz doesn’t end with the end of the game. Just like during post-game shows in TV, where experts debate on the game, normal people relive plays, discuss again and again the field events or if really the better team won. Engage in these discussions, try to add something from yourself, ask questions. It’s a good way to keep interest in your brand. Remember, this phase can’t last too long. Tuesday after Super Bowl is the last suitable day for tweeting about the Game, life goes on and it would look unprofessional if you’d stuck to this one topic.
Using Super Bowl in your social media marketing strategy may help leverage your brand awareness if you do it right.
And don’t forget to measure your results – Sotrender is a tool which might be helpful here 🙂
This guest post is courtesy of Jan Zajac. Folllow him on Twitter and connect on LinkedIn