Black Friday and Cyber Monday were popular topics in the social media sphere. Companies took to their social media accounts to let people know the deals they were offering and to see how people were responding to their content. While most companies saw the value in leveraging social media for these sale events, some had superior strategic execution. Below is a list of five companies who did it right and the lessons we can take away from their campaigns.
1. NASA News Jacking
News Jacking is a public relations strategy involving taking what seems like an irrelevant news story and turning it into something relevant to your company. When there is a viral conversation taking place on the internet, finding a way to include your organization is a great strategy from a marketing perspective. Regardless of your industry or the conversation topic, there are many creative ways to integrate what’s new and popular in your content marketing scheme.
A clever example of this “news jacking” style of content marketing can be seen in NASA’s Twitter strategy for Black Friday. Clearly it is far easier for department stores and retailers to come up with relevant content for an event of this nature, but this didn’t stop NASA.
On Black Friday NASA posted this tweet to its Twitter account in an attempt to promote its content campaign about black holes:
Deeming Friday “#BlackHoleFriday” was a clever way for NASA to insert itself into the conversation in the social space. By utilizing the trending hashtag “#BlackFriday” along with its own unique hashtag, NASA was able to introduce its own content to the trending conversation. This type of news – or conversation jacking –is a brilliant strategy for increasing awareness for your company’s brand and content.
2. Redditgifts Themed Hashtag
Redditgifts leveraged Black Friday and Cyber Monday by launching a weekend-long sale on its merchandise via Twittter. By using the hashtag “RGSN”, or Redditgifts Shopping Network, on all of its Tweets Redditgifts was able to present its individual deals as one linked conversation online. These hashtags were accompanied by humorous copy referring to the merchandise being promoted.
This approach allowed Redditgifts to advertise its products without their efforts seeming to be too sales oriented or overly direct. Providing people with entertaining content made the Tweets sound enticing, while the consistent hashtag use allowed for the campaign to seem cohesive.
3. Newegg Feedback
In a similar fashion to most other companies Newegg utilized Twitter hashtags to categorize its “#CyberMonday” Tweets. What set Newegg apart was its masterful display of customer relations and response to feedback.
Taking a glance at Newegg’s Twitter account during cyber Monday displays Newegg responding to all of the Tweets it was receiving from its customers. Customers who tuned in to thank Newegg for their new electronic items received personal responses. Not only did this go a long way toward developing a long-term relationship with those customers, it showed potential customers Newegg’s quality customer service. Newegg capitalized on the great feedback it was receiving for its promotional tweets and took part in what became a very large and positive digital conversation.
4. Amazon’s Lightning Deals
On Black Friday, Amazon utilized Facebook to announce a series of seven “Lightning Deals”. These sales would last for a set period of time indicated in their status updates. Interested users could check what the current lightning deal was and decide whether or not they wished to visit the site and make a purchase.
This campaign turned the Amazon Facebook page into something people wanted to continuously check throughout the weekend. Rather than announcing all its deals at once, the lightning deals served as spontaneous content users had to keep checking back to discover. A content series of this nature giving people a reason to come back to the site certainly generated steady business for Amazon on Black Friday.
5. JCPenney’s Social Responsibility
JCPenney had a creative approach to its Black Friday social media scheme as it incorporated Twitter and Foursquare to engage people. Prior to Black Friday, JCPenney teamed up with a few bloggers to host a “Twitter Party” in which people joined an open conversation about giving during the holidays. Some lucky participants in this conversation received gift cards.
The other portion of their strategy was to make $25 donations to people who checked into JCPenney on Black Friday, as cited by Mashable. These two approaches to Black Friday social media successfully encouraged people to shop at JCPenney while simultaneously associating their brand with social responsibility.
The aforementioned brand names demonstrated creativity and strategy in their use of social media on Black Friday. The ways in which they promoted their respective deals stand as unique sales strategies effective in the digital space.