The popular reality show, Big Brother Nigeria came to an end yesterday (April 9th) and as always, social media was blazing with conversation trends on the event. Nigerians took to their Twitter pages to share opinions, expectations, fears and unavoidably insults (as trolls), inciting uproar and fun LOL moments for all.
What’s worth pointing out is how brands choose to ignore social media trends, especially on Twitter and Instagram. See, trends are actually not for jokes. Brands need to be smart enough to leverage on hashtags and make them relatable to their brands. A good case study would be how local banks below worked with the recent Big Brother phenomenon.
1. Access Bank wasn’t a sponsor of #BBNaija but leveraged on the conversation far better than Heritage Bank, Payporte and Legend, the official sponsors of the show.
2. Create your explosive content and leave it to cause massive engagement. Don’t go retweeting without a clear strategy. Just take a look at this TL.
3. Never be your competitor’s online influencer. Don’t ever retweet content related to your competition. Heritage Bank felt they were throwing shade at Access Bank. What they were actually doing was giving their rival more exposure… for free. Sigh, come on, guys!
4. Keep the conversation going. If the trend is getting everyone talking, don’t stick to a tweet. Instead, keep the conversation smart and ongoing. Payporte’s #MondayMotivation or #ManCrushMonday posts could have been around @efemoney winning the hearts of Nigerians. I wonder how they missed that.
5. Did Stanbic IBTC think that writing in Pidgin English would help them get massive engagement? The Warri movement doesn’t work that way.
Brands need to understand this new phase of social media marketing. Find your target audience on social media, leverage on trends they connect with and give them witty content to remember you by.
Written by
Omoefe Ohworakpo
Social Media Lead at Anakle