There is a lot of yelling noises going on about Twitter hacking, but one question is yet to be answered: why the fuck are you following Burger King on Twitter in the first place? Are there a bunch of Junior Whopper deals I’m missing on the regular? Is “The King” tweeting hyper-topical jokes with Rob Delaney? If you are a) following Burger King or b) at all upset about Burger King’s Twitter hack you probably don’t understand the point of Twitter.
I go to school for advertising and I hear a lot of phrases like brand story telling and brand engagement. Though I know these are important ideas for marketers I generally can’t really pretend to care what multi-billion dollar companies think they have to do to sell more digital cameras.
I’m probably too close to the source not to be cynical. Still, what motivates someone to “like” Gillette on Facebook or follow Allstate on Twitter?
I had to read this article for a class, which talks about how companies are struggling to engage consumers on Twitter, but it really just highlights that brands still have no idea how to use Twitter as a marketing tool in remote jobs . Of course, that’s only supposing that there even is a way a multi-million dollar capitalistic venture can say anything worthwhile on Twitter.
The comedian Joe Mande hilariously highlighted how utterly stupid corporate Twitter accounts are on 9/11 this year by retweeting practically every large brand on Twitter.
Facebook does that thing where it tells you which of your friends has liked Walmart which is crazy to me as a) why do you like Walmart? and b) what reason could one possibly have for following Walmart on Facebook? This is the most ridiculous thing to me and I will never be able to get over it. I have four friends that “like” Hyundai, can someone explain this?
Back to Twitter, there’s one account I want to highlight in particular and that is that of Whataburger (@whataburger), the Texas-based fast-food chain/circus building. The handle is run by a social media bro probably somewhere in College Station, Texas and he tweets stuff like such:
Even I can’t argue that this isn’t engaging content, however lowest-common-denominator-esque it may seem.
Twitter makes really awful, outdated, self-absorbed events more fun and engaging. There’s a slew of people you should be following any time you decide to sit down and watch an awards show, a political moment or a sporting event — things that are happening in real time. This is usually the reason why Twitter is praised as such a major game changer; you’re hearing about things in real time.
This years Super Bowl blackout was really just one 38 minute advertisement for Twitter. Those who were there will tell their grandchildren about the jokes that were tweeted, the @raylewis mentions and this Jay-Z gem.
And yet, the most talked about Twitter moment in the mainstream was Oreo’s uninspired rush-ad. The only thing that’s creatively working for this ad is it’s timeliness. Wired wrote a post called “How Oreo Won the Marketing Super Bowl” praising it as taking advantage of the three-screen lifestyle like it’s some secret that people are on Twitter.
I’m of the belief that brands should be held to the same high retweet/fav standards that everyday citizens are. I think Mitt Romney would agree.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2h8ujX6T0A]
