Social Media Relevancy
MEMOTo: Professor Mickey KovachSubject: Advertising AgeDate: February 16, 2015Staying relevant and up to date through Social Media is an important and effective way to represent our brand and continually communicate with our customers. In order to remain effective and a focus point for consumers to stay engaged with our media, content needs to also be engaging.Recently, Taco Bell took a different route for their social media campaign. In an effort to stimulate interest for an app they are launching, they kicked off the initiative by blacking out all of their social media sites. Instead of content being displayed, the only information provided along side the black screen was the hash tag #onlyintheapp. This let their customers know that the only way they can acquire information about their foods, ingredients and locations is through their newly minted application available on both iOS and Android devices.
While many would assume that taking away content and preventing the display of information would only harm the effectiveness of their advertising—this unorthodox approach actually worked. Taco Bell’s app is now ranked in the number one spot of the Food & Beverage category within the iTunes app store (Ad Age, 2015).This definitely provides insight to the ever evolving and changing environment of social media, and further implies that while there are unwritten  “rules” to social media engagement—there really are not any rules, at least that apply in the long run, due to the unexpected nature and reaction in this form of media. To further this idea, Entrepreneur.com published an article detailing in depth what can hurt your social media campaign—instead of what is needed to help it.  Among their topics they included, insuring that your social media manager is properly vetted, negative feedback is dealt with appropriately, buying likes or followers, being a one-trick pony, promoting products too often, being inconsistent in messaging, offering canned responses, and spreading oneself too thin (Entrepreneur, 2015).