“Friends” with a Hygiene Product? Why Not All Businesses Should be on Social Media

How Your Social Media Campaign Can Backfire:

Everyone knows that twitter and Facebook are no longer ambiguous entities in the marketing world. Long ago, many businesses viewed these sites as too complex and obscure, which hindered them from reaching mass amounts of people. Those that didn’t find them complex and obscure were trail blazing into the necessary world of social media marketing.   Around 2006, 2007 and even 2008, a business could jump on a social media outlet for promotional purposes, and be considered revolutionary. There was a level of respect for businesses using social media for promotion back then, and now it seems as though we can’t get our information without it.  In 2012, we live in a society where pseudo-celebrities like Rob Kardashian can tweet about entering law school and within minutes its front page news.   Journalists get their leads and headlines from status updates and picture posting from time to time and that has shaped the way we promote our brands.  Over the past five years, everything from light bulb corporations to politicians reach their audiences through the social media universe.   Similarly, for publicists, marketers, journalists, and promoters, it is becoming essential to not only have a social media presence, but to properly execute an entire campaign that generates buzz and engages an audience.  Otherwise, it’s a waste of time.    This is why every business is jumping at the chance, foaming at the mouth, and chomping on the bit, to have a successful social media campaign.

In an ideal utopian marketing world, every business and every individual would be able to follow the same format for success—-a kind of success where the audience is engaged and the followers are plentiful, right?  Wrong.  Sometimes, some products just don’t belong or aren’t engaging enough to have a social media presence. Basically, it just seems plain weird to see some products have a twitter page or a Facebook page.

While watching television the other night, I noticed a deodorant commercial that designed the  closing 5 seconds of their ad to pitch their social media outlets in hopes of gaining followers. While it is important to have a social media presence, doesn’t it seem odd to assume that anyone would want to “follow” something that eliminates embarrassing body odor?  I’m not sure of many people feel compelled to follow a deodorant online and proudly wear that badge on a personalized Facebook page. This is a bit concerning and yet, hilarious.

As a marketing professional, I believe it might be beneficial in this case or similar cases to stage an alternate social media page and incorporate the product into entertaining content posts. For example, the deodorant company should create a twitter feed about celebrities who have sweating problems or embarrassing wet marks under their arms during red-carpet events.  For marketers, captions under the photos on the feed could read, “If Tom Cruise used product X, he would be pit-stain free”, which is still great for branding.

Utilizing this approach is great because an individual can follow this feed and not worry that someone in his/her social media circle will question the motivation behind being a fan or “liking” or following a particular deodorant. Maybe this person is interested in celebrities, or finds the posts witty and entertaining, but the general idea is to eliminate speculation that the person who follows a deodorant itself, must have a sweating problem.

Doing this, allows room for a sense of humor and some laughs from the audience.  Not only can the deodorant be incorporated in the tweets and posts subliminally, but having the product associated with celebrity news is great for SEO.

The moral of the story is, before committing to a social media campaign, it’s important to understand your audience. Many people don’t want the general public knowing what kind of deodorant they wear, they want to hop online and keep up with famous people or their own social networks. Posting about promotions and giveaways on behalf of a product is great, but when people are flooded with this kind of messaging daily, the likelihood of them following their favorite hairspray, or deodorant, or movie snack, is slim.  Staging a pseudo-page with richer content and incorporating your product is sure to enhance the public image of the product itself.

After all, in what other universe would you go up to a stick of deodorant and give it thumbs up, other than on social media?