The digital age has changed the way we access and comprehend information. Consumers now have more power when it comes to interacting with companies, which means brands must act quickly.
In other words, personalized content is being made faster than ever, which makes promoting your brand much harder and more competitive.
What does it mean to promote brands in real-time?
For marketers, this translates to a simple philosophy of “sooner equals better.” When something new happens with your brand, you want to promote it as quickly as possible.
Significant changes, breakthroughs, and developments can even be promoted in real-time as they occur.
Whether you’re covering changes to your own company or sending out news-related content to current events outside your organization, real-time brand promotion can be a very effective strategy.
How do you measure real-time brand promotion?
You can measure real-time brand promotion by how well your company responds to issues, news, and even memes.
Consider when KFC ran out of chicken: despite the PR nightmare, they reacted quickly with their FCK campaign.
Source: Inc
You can measure this real-time promotion by how well it worked: And it did work. Instead of focusing on the fact that KFC ran out of chicken in a regional location, people instead focused on the clever campaign.
How can you use your social profiles for real-time marketing?
One of the greatest benefits of social media is its focus on trending topics. By closely following social media, your team will always have an idea of what’s popular, whether it’s in your own industry or overall on the site itself.
Whether through automation or manual monitoring of popular topics, social media makes an excellent tool for relevant marketing. Ideas include:
- Relate sales to certain events (holidays, seasons, etc.)
- Cover popular changes to your company as they happen (new products, sales, etc.)
- Tie your promotion to a trending topic everyone is discussing
When the power went out at the Superbowl, Oreo utilized real-time marketing on a trending topic with this:
Source: Digital Ready
Whether you’re setting your triggers to send out content based on events in your own company, or you have your social media manager hovering over the trending section waiting for opportunities, relevant ads like this are much easier to create via social profiles.
Does it really matter?
As a marketer, you know all about the importance of keeping your content relevant. Real-time content is one of the most pertinent types you can create.
Real-time marketing’s advantages are clear, but the importance of social profiles as a platform is sometimes understated. Even businesses, which traditionally prefer email, see the world’s leading social profiles as a primary avenue for content distribution.
Sixty percent of marketers say real-time data in content is effective or highly effective.
Real-time brand promotion matters because it’s about seizing opportunities. When the chance for a relevant ad comes up, companies must be able to take advantage of it.
It’s a way to make ads feel more personal and build a better connection with the viewer, increasing the chance of engagement.
What now?
We can see that social profiles are built on a foundation of trending content and user relevance. Because of this, they make the perfect avenue for real-time content promotion.
Real-time brand promotion makes a better connection with the viewer, and the next step is learning how to craft entire social media campaigns based on the philosophy of “sooner equals better.”
If you’re looking to take advantage of social platforms for real-time marketing, you should also understand the other benefits, such as finding prospects. Learn how to build a prospect list via your social platforms to further improve your marketing strategy.