Last night I made a spur of the moment decision to attend an event in Atlanta. Thanks to a tip from one of my professors, I heard about this awesome event just in time. The Social Media Club’s Atlanta chapter hosted an event called Behind the Curtain that featured a panel of social media executives from five top level companies including Coca-Cola, The Weather Channel, UPS, Krispy Kreme and Zoo Atlanta. It was a rare opportunity and I’m so glad I got to experience it. It proved to be a night full of powerful social media insights, networking over beer and tacos, and plenty of laughs and live tweeting (#SMCATL). Ready to hear all about it?
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Of course you are. Well, I can say that I was proud of myself for being less shy than my first big girl event. I met some great people who work for advertising agencies, strategic marketing firms and plenty of other types of companies I didn’t know existed. It’s amazing to hear about the tons of different jobs that communications degrees can be used for (gives me some job search hope!). And, to top off the networking hour, SMC provided a great beer selection along (including Sam Adams, my favorite!) with some fantastic tacos and crab rangoon from Tin Drum. The food alone made the $20 ticket worth it. I was excited to hear about the upcoming events, too. Apparently SMC does awesome seminars like this four times a year.
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The first speaker was Kelley O’Brien from Krispy Kreme (the only doughnuts worth the calories, in my opinion). She shared that Krispy Kreme is a brand that is all about love and said “To us, life is a celebration. We engage with our fans and celebrate every day." If the adorable bunny doughnuts below aren't proof of that, I don't know what is. Kelley mentioned that Krispy Kreme is a humble brand and how it’s important to keep that in mind when planning content. She also gave some great insight on planned vs. real time content. When #DeflateGate surfaced, Krispy Kreme took notice of the social trend and quickly sent out a highly successful post that saw a lot of engagement. The part I found most interesting was that Krispy Kreme has gotten rid of all traditional marketing techniques, including tv and radio, and replaced it with digital marketing. For a large company, it surprised me to hear that, but it seems like they know what they’re doing!
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Next up was Jen Miller from Coca-Cola. I was so eager to know how a massive, world-wide company like Coke manages its social media. My curiosities were satisfied! Coca-Cola aims to be the most reachable and engaged brand in the world, but when the company is being mentioned over 33 times a minute (in English alone) what can you do to manage it? The answer is The Hub. The Hub is somewhat of a social command center used by Coke that monitors all social mentions and cranks out thorough data reports so that the company can stay on top of daily brand sentiment. While discussing the company’s 2014 Super Bowl commercial, America Is Beautiful, Jen said “We’ve learned to use data to help drive big campaigns.”
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The company noticed a spike in negative sentiment while the commercial was airing. Coke contrasted this activity with normal data that determined the ratings weren’t extremely abnormal. Because of this, Coke was able to avoid an overreactive response. The biggest take-away I had from this presentation was how important it is to record social data and use it to your advantage.
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My favorite presentation of the night was Keisha Hines from Zoo Atlanta. I loved hearing how a non-profit organization utilizes social media in a creative way. Atlanta Zoo knows its varying audiences across different platforms and customizes content accordingly. Instagram is a photo platform, so naturally animal photos are going to be the most engaging content there. The funniest moment of the night was when Keisha gave us her secret to engaging followers by saying “Pandas rule all social media. Every platform loves pandas. If I see engagement is down, pandas here we come!” Who doesn’t love pandas? They make for great content, and according to Keisha content is king (and pretty darn cute if you ask me). Though the social media department for the zoo is relatively small, they have managed to create a global following of animal lovers and panda fanatics alike. The most interesting thing I heard was how Zoo Atlanta is currently running a social campaign that takes place offline by hiding large reptile eggs throughout the city to promote a new reptile exhibit. Egg finders receive zoo passes and a chance for a behind the scenes experience. A great idea for engaging the audience!
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The next speaker was Vincent Washington from UPS. He started off by showing a video from UPS’s #WishesDelivered campaign that showed hundreds of books being taken to villages in Africa. Video content like that is one of the many ways UPS uses social media to humanize the brand in order to better engage followers. UPS is a traditional brand but has begun using social media to meet business objectives. Vincent emphasized how important it is to understand the fundamentals behind the tools used on social media. He said “I’m not looking for a Twitter or Facebook genius. I’m looking for someone who understands audiences.” This key point can sometimes be overlooked, and I’m so happy that it was emphasized last night. Vincent also touched on how UPS uses both reactive and proactive listening tactics on social media. Plenty of people use social media as a way to file customer complaints, and UPS takes the time to listen to all of them.
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The most interesting thing I heard from Vincent was how he was so honest in saying that in order to truly compete, you have to "pay to play", meaning companies must utilize promoted posts. It was fascinating to hear how competition plays a major part in social media strategies.
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And to top it all off, the final speaker was Jenn Watson from The Weather Channel. Her presentation was fantastic as well. As a crisis communication lover at heart, I can totally appreciate how The Weather Channel uses social media to keep people updated with life saving information. Since the weather is constantly changing, the brand relies heavily on real-time content and doesn’t utilized planned content as often. A highlight of the presentation included a showing of Jim Cantore’s recent #ThunderSnow video that brought The Weather Channel’s a lot of engagement. Jenn also discussed how severe weather can affect social engagement by saying “When there is active weather, everything increases.” The Weather Channel is more than a brand, its a news outlet that is able to reach a greater audience through social media.
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The speakers sat for a panel discussion at the end of the event which was a nice way to round out the evening. Overall, I was impressed with how each company had completely different objectives and strategies for their social media. I feel that so many people lump all social media content into one big pile, but companies that are succeeding are careful about their audience, the message and the content. I’ll definitely be taking all of these things into consideration in my future career. I actually just applied for a social media assistant position with the Colorado Rockies, so wish me luck! Baseball and social media sounds like the perfect job description to me.
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