Social Smoko

Inspired by Gary Vaynerchuk, and in the interest of keeping social media sensible, I'm sharing my tips, how-to's and improvements on various brand posts across the interweb.

[socialsmoko]

Lowes - Working a little DIY Vine action

Lowes is an American home hardware - Do-It-Yourself (DIY) chain store who understand how to use Vine's 6 second video recording limitation to their advantage.

Utility: It's nice to see brands actually creating content that provides some sort of helpful value to their followers. Lowe's #FixInSix series of Vine videos are all designed to help everyday people solve small DIY tasks like the one above. 

Playfulness: Lowes are also good at creating a broader brand personality by inserting a little humour into their "helpful" Vines with some calendar themed Vines i.e. thanksgiving and Christmas. These Vines help  ensure that Lowes remains relevant and a part of the conversation and everyday events of their fans. 

Native platform usage: Several brands have "hacked" Vine and uploaded pre-produced videos, Lowes to their credit are using the native functions of the Vine app and shooting everything tap-by-tap, so any mistakes they make, it's back to square one. 

These little 6 second videos go a long way in building a brand that offers fan and followers of Lowes a great value proposition - "Clever improvements that make life at home a little easier." You can't argue with that. Well played. 

[socialsmoko]

Nike - Unleashing your inner instagram

These guys are good, they understand content and understand how to get it into the users newsfeeds. This post hits the mark in several ways:

Aspirational; This image just wants to make me go out and run, I know that may not be everyones cup of tea, but as a trail runner I love the idea of being out in the wild surrounded by gorgeous scenery.

Copy; The text on this is really short and to the point - "Running will take you anywhere you let it", then finished of with the hashtag #justdoit 

Native: Although I know that it's most likely not taken via a smartphone, it still appears to be taken by someone who was actually there watching the runners go by. 

Bravo Nike, not like it's hard for them though, to the rest #justdoit

[socialsmoko]

Visa - Nailing it with clever copy

// <![CDATA[ (function(d, s, id) { var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0]; if (d.getElementById(id)) return; js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id; js.src = "//connect.facebook.net/en_US/all.js#xfbml=1"; fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs); }(document, 'script', 'facebook-jssdk')); // ]]>

// <![CDATA[ (function(d, s, id) { var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0]; if (d.getElementById(id)) return; js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id; js.src = "//connect.facebook.net/en_US/all.js#xfbml=1"; fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs); }(document, 'script', 'facebook-jssdk')); // ]]>

Post by Visa.

Visa is obviously a big brand with a large following, 11M+ likes and counting, and has some clever people helping them out with their content. In general their #goinsix posts are really good, but this one stood out for me, here's why:

Strong Visuals; Visa uses great high res. shots that give the impression that you're standing on the bridge walking towards that beach in Aruba or wherever it may be. The image is also in a mobile friendly square format and included their logo. 

Simple Messaging; The #GoInSix campaign is based around using 6 words in the copy, meaning that it's short, easy to communicate and simple to understand. 

Consistent Campaign;  Visa is also used the #GoInSix hashtag across all channels, which creates consistency and makes it easy for consumers to engage.

Traffic for partners; With a little investigation (adding a '+' to the end of the http://bit.ly/1lP9zd4 in your browser shows the traffic to the URL) we can see that with 5K+ likes this post drove over 10.5K visits to their partner shermanstravel.com. Which is pretty sweet for Shermans Travel, that's 10,500 visits on top of their normal traffic and if a couple of them use their Visa - everyone wins :)

Well done Visa.

[socialsmoko]

Quartz: Don't waste good copy on a Facebook link

// <![CDATA[ (function(d, s, id) { var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0]; if (d.getElementById(id)) return; js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id; js.src = "//connect.facebook.net/en_US/all.js#xfbml=1"; fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs); }(document, 'script', 'facebook-jssdk')); // ]]>

Post by Quartz.

Here's a good article that's never going to get any real reach, because Quartz used a link rather than an image. 

We all know that images trump links, so if you have a link you want to share use a related image or the same image from the destination. Like the one shown.

Then add a branded short URL, from a service like bit.ly, which allows brands to buy there own short URL i.e. mrsk.co vs. maersk.com, at the end of the text with a call to action (CTA) preceding it. 

On the positive side the text is short and creates interest, the only problem is that when you go to the destination the heading reads "How you’ll write emails on the tiny screen of a smartwatch" which is not related to kids writing term papers.