How #trending can drive your targeted PR campaign

19 Jul How #trending can drive your targeted PR campaign

Since the launch of Twitter in 2006, small businesses catering to a niche market and large businesses sharing updates on a global scale have used the social media to connect with consumers. The method is simple: share interesting posts, grow your audience, build a following and make your millions. The reality? 82% of Twitter users have less than 350 followers, many of which are companies that have failed to make a dent in their prospective audiences.

Social media: Rule 101
Trending topics. Hashtags. Open “Social Media for Dummies” and these phrases are likely to be plastered at the top of page one. Twitter is all about joining in the conversation, but in the past this has made companies hashtag trigger happy – with some pretty terrible consequences.

“Millions are in uproar in #Cairo. Rumour is they heard our new Spring collection is now available online”.

Exhibit A: appropriating the Arab Spring to try to sell shoes. Shoe brand Kenneth Cole used the trending hashtag #Cairo during the Egyptian Revolution alongside a promotional message about the brand’s new season stock. The Twitterati can be relentless against companies that shamelessly use trending topics to boost their visibility. Twitter did not respond kindly and the brand took a big hit when it came to public opinion.

So, rule #101: only use hashtags that make contextual sense. Tweeting a picture of your CEO having a meal at Burger King and hash-tagging #NationalBurgerDay is not smart PR. While Twitter may seem like an online minefield, companies shouldn’t be afraid to use commemorative dates or trending hashtags to support genuine PR and marketing efforts. This is a foolproof route to market and to the people and conversations a company should be a part of.

#WorldIPDay: see what I mean?
We work with intellectual property (IP) technology company, CPA Global. With clients across the globe and offices in London, Madrid, Mumbai, Washington (and lots of other amazing places), they are a big company with an even bigger audience. For an organisation of this size, Twitter can be an incredible PR tool. There is no better way to share product updates, company news and new content with people in the UK and India at the same time, than to tweet it.

World IP Day took place on April 26, 2018 – a day to learn about the role that IP rights (patents, trademarks, industrial designs, copyright) play in encouraging innovation and creativity. With 2018’s theme celebrating the “brilliance, ingenuity, curiosity and courage of the women who are driving change in our world and shaping our common future” – we worked on a social media campaign with CPA Global to showcase 24 inspirational women innovators in 24 hours.

We filmed videos with the CPA Global team where they highlighted their favourite women innovators, we developed social media cards and a short blog for all 24 women and shared one inspiring story of innovation on the hour – every hour. While #WorldIPDay may not have been trending worldwide, the commemorative day was driving significant traction in the IP industry that day. By hash-tagging our posts and driving content to that targeted audience across Linkedin, Twitter and Instagram, we were promoting our dedication to

Women in IP to all the people that mattered.

In addition to great engagement from a global network of IP professionals, we reached out to media partners to help circulate our content further. We had IP publications such as IP Watch, Ideas Matter and Managing IP re-tweet and share CPA Global’s videos to their followers – most of which are prospective customers to CPA Global.

Remember: a journalist or publication will write about your product and talk to your client if they are right for their audience. We knew these magazines had a community that would be interested in what we were doing, so all we had to do was ask. Every player (be it client or media) is looking for relevant content to satisfy its audience and this is the basis of PR entirely.

Take a closer look at the full Women in IP campaign here.