The very first point on how Dunkin Donuts succeeds on Twitter to get out of the way is that they sell delicious donuts. That is always a big #WIN for me. Beyond their product, Dunkin’ Donuts have met a level of success on Twitter that others would surely like to have for their own.
Excellent Corporate Branding
Dunkin’ Donuts has a great look that you see as soon as you log onto their account. They have their logo bright and in your face, and their header image is simply… mouth-watering. Look at the featured image again – this is a Twitter account that visually makes you want to go to their nearest location and grab a donut.
Take Full Advantage Of New Twitter Features
Beyond the new header image feature, Dunkin Donuts are using to the following:
Pinned tweets featuring their current offers and promotions
Their photos and video tab is full of content to explore
Popular tweets are being highlighted and encouraging sharing of exciting (and marketable) material.
Staying on top of the latest developments helps them succeed where other Twitter users are content with using what they’ve always used. If you want to succeed on Twitter, be like Dunkin’ Donuts and stay on top of the latest developments.
Create Twitter Hashtags
Dunkin’ has focused on creating hashtags on Twitter for their business that users get to know quickly and use on their own. One example would be a recent contest known as the #APCoolattaSweeps that engaged quite a few users as they answered trivia questions about AP – Arnold Palmer, the name of a golfer and his legendary drink (it’s half iced tea and half lemonade) now being served at Dunkin’.
The current hashtag gaining traction is #DDPerks where Dunkin’ tweets out promos to their followers via their perks cards, and shares abound as users want their friends to save on delicious donuts as well.
Their other major ongoing hashtag is #MyDunkin. This hashtag is the primary way that they build their social proof as it’s used all the time by the company itself, and by users who just happen to have some sort of Dunkin’ Donuts products that they’re consuming, often in an amusing way:
It’s an easy to remember hashtag, and the brand encourages you to have fun like the post above.
Collaborate With Off-brand Partners
This is a two part story of how they succeed. First, Dunkin Donuts has teamed up with Liverpool FC, a soccer team in England for my non-soccer loving readers, for a new donut.
This has resulted in the Dunkin’ brand being exposed to a whole new breed of potential fans – soccer fans from all over the world who follow Liverpool. This interesting partnership has given them a whole new angle to explore as they work with someone well outside of their usual brand market.
The #DDLFCDonut campaign
#DDLFCDonut stands for “Dunkin’ Donuts Liverpool FC Donut.” This is the hashtag for the partnership above, but with a contest spin on it. The contest is for the chance to name the new donut in question for a chance to win a ticket to see Liverpool play in Boston, a rarity for the England based team. Users have been having fun coming up with names:
Shares have been good as their followers want to see what silly names their friends come up with. On top of this, fans in Liverpool got in on the action and had a few suggestions of their own. This type of cross-promotion is an exciting way to develop a new fanbase, and Dunkin’ took full advantage of it.
Every July 4th is a red, white, and blue party in America, and it brings out some the best content on Twitter accounts across the country. Every Twitter account that is even remotely related to American history or politics has something to say about the holiday, and it can be great fun to have your Twitter account taken over by the best of this content.
I’m going to look at the best Twitter accounts to follow for Independence Day, and for American political interest in general. They’ll have a splash of patriotism, some historical significance, and there’d better be some fireworks! So get ready to see and retweet some great American content, and help you gain trust and new Twitter followers along the way as you connect with your fellow countrymen.
Statue of Liberty
If you had to pick one symbol for America, it may just be The Statue of Liberty. Her enduring symbolization of freedom and liberty for all has been in place for over a century, a will surely stand for much longer than that. Follow her this Independence Day in hopes of a seeing few exciting photos of her being lit up by fireworks! If you have any doubts about her relevancy to this list, take a look at the date on the tablet in her left hand.
Barack Obama built his presidential run on social media, working his way into the White House one new Twitter follower at a time. President Obama may have staff run his account for him, but you can find him signing in from time to time, tweets signed “-bo” are from the thumbs of the President himself!
While the last Presidency may have been defined by the power of the Vice President, the First Lady appears to be more of a second opinion than Joe Biden (whose account isn’t terribly fun). Michelle Obama may be the most powerful woman on Earth (Sorry, Beyonce and Oprah), and her presence on social media is strong. Look for tweets signed “-mo” to hear something directly from the First Lady.
Lasting much, much longer than any President will ever hope to, The White House is a symbol of American pride. The White House Twitter account was established by the Obama administration, but here’s to it being passed on when Obama steps down at the end of his term so that a social media legacy can be created for this historic landmark.
Independence Day in NYC wouldn’t be the same without the Macy’s 4th of July fireworks display. It is often said to be one of the best in the whole country, and we’re hoping that the Macy’s Twitter account is filled with images of fireworks over the Manhattan skyline.
The National Independence Day Celebration rivals, or even surpasses the event in NYC. Not to knock the skyline of New York, but it’s tough to outdo the National Mall on July 4th! Expect the Washington DC Twitter account to be lit up with photos of the White House, the Lincoln Memorial, and the Washington Monument all bathed in red, white, and blue fireworks.
This may not be the most well managed Twitter account here, (check out the National Parks Service for something better) but they sure do give us a great view of the Mount Rushmore national monument, with beautiful fireworks, every year.
Abraham Lincoln is one of the most loved figures in American history. His speeches were legendary, his policies were radical, and he shaped this nation more than any President since the Founding Fathers. This Abraham Lincoln account tweets out historical facts about Honest Abe, and is as good on Independence Day as any other time of the year.
Sketch of Lincoln's casket as his remains lay in state in the White House East Room. pic.twitter.com/RWcfPvWKl3
— Lincoln Belongs To The Ages (@Mr_Lincoln) April 17, 2013
Captain America
Steve Rogers is a man with many nicknames: The Star-Spangled Avenger. The Sentinel of Liberty. Ol’ Winghead. And, as he is best known: Captain America. In my opinion, Cap is the last true American symbol that has an active participation in today’s world. He isn’t a statue, a monument, or a dead President. He’s here and struggling with a modern American identity, despite his desire for the simpler times of the 1940’s when you punched ol’ Hitler in the jaw.
Each one of these deserves its own spot on this list, but I have to group them together for space! Check out the US Army, US Marine Corp, US Navy, and US Air Force. They’re going to offer you unique images of our soldiers that no one else will have access to on Independence Day. Personally, I’m excited for some photos from the Air Force where fighter jets are flying in front of exploding fireworks. Fighter jets are awesome.
Twitter announced the arrival of the GIFs with a GIF of their own last week, and it was like every brand on Earth with a Twitter account had been sitting on a big pile of great GIFs. It was a GIF explosion right from the very beginning, and we\’re loving it. Here are 10 of our favorite Twitter GIFs so far!
1. Twitter
Twitter got it started off right with a GIF that both poked fun at the pronunciation of GIF, it has a soft ‘g’ like Gin, and was just ridiculous as so many funny GIFs are:
Starting today, you can share and view animated GIFs on Android and iPhone.
This image takes full advantage of the continuous looping feature of GIFs as we gaze upon a mesmerizing repeat of Oreo cookies…that…makes me….need cookie…:
This new #GIF phase of Twitter is really putting a new perspective on things. Oreo Cookie (@Oreo) June 19, 2014
3. Wendy’s
Wendy’s is a type of business that isn’t commonly associated with social media, just tasty hamburgers. Their innovative use of their logo is sure to keep people’s mind on their brand. They had 832 retweets as of this writing. Now those are some social hamburgers:
I am a bit of a geek, especially when it comes to science. Neil deGrasse Tyson’s Cosmos TV series is doing plenty to bring science to the general public. This GIF of a rotating star is a perfect example of the beauty that is out there for us to learn about, and is perfect for sharing as social media users want to impress their friends with beautiful images:
Remember: The elements we’re all made of were cooked in the fiery hearts of long vanished stars. #StarStuff#cosmos
Let’s talk about food again. Arby’s is a bit of an offbeat brand, their marketing is also a bit unusual. To coincide with the World Cup and their general weirdness, here is a GIF of one of their famous curly fries playing soccer. Ronaldo beware, this guy could seriously curl one in there too:
Just when you thought @Twitter couldn’t get any better, now we can post a GIF of Curly Fries playing soccer.
Jeep loves taking every chance they can to show off how tough their vehicles are. When you pair up that machismo with a usual locale, you get a GIF like this:
As if Soccer.com wasn’t getting enough attention during the World Cup, they had to send us an unforgettable GIF that is funnier every time you see it. They went over 200 retweets and favorites in a hurry, and who would be surprised? The kid’s adorable!
Our reaction when we just found out @twitter now supports animated GIFs.
In a similar vein, Major League Baseball sent us another young fan that got some pretty decent retweets and favorite numbers. You have to keep it PG – soft R rated on Twitter. With that in mind, cute sells to the tune of nearly 700 retweets:
Okay, enough cute. Mountain Dew pride itself on creating edgy marketing materials and truly engaging with their audience. Their first GIF clearly illustrates this: flashing neon lights, bacon, a kitty, a bottle of Mountain Dew… It’s like a GIF so much like bad 90’s web advertising that it’s good. Just don’t ask me what “FTW” stands for:
FTW! GIFs are now on Twitter! Tweet us the greatest GIF of ALL TIME to help us crown the #KingOfGIFs!
I saved the funniest, and the best, GIF of all for last. With this one GIF, The Office on NBC won all GIF-ing from here on out. Your brand may attempt to gain Twitter followers in some way, but it will never reach the soaring heights of this perfectly on-message GIF: GIFs on @Twitter? That’s huge!
Instagram is a social media platform best used with a good #Hashtag. With the right type of content, and a little bit of interaction with your followers, you’ll be able to build trust with your social media audience, possibly go viral, and best of all – have some fun! Read on for five excellent examples from companies so far in 2014.
#IAmPorter
Net-a-Porter decided to promote their print magazine launch by making their news fans the stars. The magazine launched an iOS app titled “I Am Porter.” The app would turn them into a cover models for the magazine using their own selfies which they would then tag #IAmPorter.
The success of this campaign is at the very basics of Instagram marketing: you take your fans and make them the stars. In this case, you make the cover models for a hot new magazine! Who wouldn’t want in on that?
#JukeDNA
Nissan Europe looked to launch their popular new hatchback, the Juke, through a hashtag called #JukeDNA. Fans of the car were able to take a picture of themselves and use that hashtag on Instagram to have Nissan Europe tweet back a custom photo of themselves with the new Juke.
As the above photo clearly shows, they didn’t take themselves too seriously and allowed their fans to just have fun with it. That was the true strength of this campaign, users had a laugh for a minute, got some notoriety from being mentioned by a major brand, and Nissan received a ton of free online content and exposure.
Burberry
Burberry used the power of the celebrity to launch their next fragrance. And when you have money like Burberry has money, you get the original supermodel Kate Moss, and currently trending Cara Delevingne, to smush their cheeks together.
Why was this so successful? It was a candid, behind the scenes and intimate moment with two women who are not often seen in this light. Kate Moss doesn’t even have her own Instagram account, so fans of hers who go on Instagram are starved for content of hers.
#GetCovered
Following the complete #fail of the initial campaign to get people using the new healthcare.gov website, something had to be done to get people signing up. This was especially true of young people who would likely skip out on insurance. Enter the #GetCovered campaign. This took off on Twitter at first, but it took a piece of paper and a little star power to get it going on Instagram.
When Kerry Washington sent out this video of herself using the #GetCovered hashtag, not only did she get 16,000 likes, but she also got people talking about health coverage outside of the usual joke about the poor website.
#MyCalvins
Calvin Klein has long been known for their ultra thin, highly airbrushed models. On Instagram, they’ve decided to keep it real and have hired on a number actors, musicians, and yes, models to take unaltered pictures of themselves in their underwear, and encouraged every day people to submit photos too.
I can’t quite figure out why this campaign inspired so many photographs, likes, shares, and media coverage…was it…do you think…maybe it had something to do with all the hot, half naked men and women in their underwear?
Why Did These Instagram Campaigns Succeed?
Four out of five of these campaigns (remember, Kerry Washington was not a regular Instagram user who decided to get involved) clearly show the power of user generated content. The other one of the five? Well, it shows the power of two beautiful supermodels smushing their cheeks together.
Outside of the supermodels, it’s possible for you, the average business owner, to find a way to generate exciting user content for your next Instagram campaign. Truly engaging with your fans is the key. With some luck, you may go viral and create a true sensation. With any amount of luck, you’ll gain new fans as your followers help spread your brand message.
I work with a wide variety of clients in a social media and content creation context. I have one idea that I like to use for all of them, and no, I don’t recycle my idea over and over – I recycle theirs! This concept is commonly called content repurposing or content adaptation. I prefer content adaptation.
I use this strategy at its best with clients who are just starting out, and want to get going on a wide variety of social media platforms. If they come to me and want content for Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google+ and YouTube…well, we had better get creative with our few ideas!
Content Adaptation: What is it?
The concept of content adaptation, or content repurposing, is to take one great idea and maximize it by sharing it across multiple social media channels. This cuts down on the number of ideas that you have to come up with for each social channel and, one hopes and prays, lessens the number of creative briefs you need to have!
This strategy works very well for small to medium businesses that don’t have a huge marketing budget like AT&T or Verizon – it allows them to make the most of what they have at a reasonable price.
How does content adaptation work?
Say you have a great photo that you took and posted to Instagram that received a bunch of activity. The easiest thing in the world for you to do in a content adaptation context is to post that to Facebook and give it a little bit of a description so it has the lasting context that Facebook provides.
Okay, that was an all too easy example of content adaptation. Something a little bit more complex would involve taking a great blog post, that received many comments, and turning it into a script for a YouTube video.
Even better, you can refer to the blog post with a link (”Thank you,” said your SEO rank!), expand on topics brought up in the comments and generally create an even better piece of content – and you didn’t even have to come up with a new idea.
The great thing about this is that you are being told by your fans what they want to see. This is the best aspect of social media: your marketing decisions are made for you, all you have to do is adapt the content for another social platform.
To give you some ideas of how you can adapt your content from one social media platform to another:
Turn a popular podcast into a whiteboard presentation that helps visually explain concepts.
Turn a slide presentation into a YouTube video.
A popular tweet on Twitter is begging to become a blog post which further explains the key concepts. For a totally ‘meta’ moment: Tweet that blog post about the tweet back out again.
Instagram and Pinterest can work back and forth with ease.
A popular blog post can become a podcast for daily commuters to listen to.
Twitter and Instagram are becoming more interchangeable as Twitter tries to increase Retweets with more visual.
This is just a small sample of what you can do with content repurposing. You still have to come up with ideas, but you will no longer need to think about a new idea for each social media platform. This will allow you to create better content as each platform feeds off another and lets you know what your fans enjoy and respond to.
What Else Will Content Adaptation Do For You?
1. Increases Your Web Presence
Using this strategy has helped my clients rapidly increase their web presence. Remember, the web is no longer what can be found in a search engine – it is what can be found in every search engine.
Facebook has its own search engine for Pages. Twitter has hashtags that are search engines for conversations. YouTube itself is the world’s second-largest search engine. When someone searches for you, or a topic you cover, on Twitter and they don’t find you because you’re only focused on traditional web SEO, you’re missing out on an easy conversion.
2. Reach Out To Your Fans In Different Social Media Platforms
Not every single one of your potential fans and leads will be on YouTube. Some will only be on Twitter during their commute. And we know Facebook is a monster of social media marketing, but their organic search algorithm is making it harder for marketers to be found – you can’t put all your eggs in this one basket.
Diversity is becoming more and more essential all the time – content adaptation makes this easier.
3. Build On Topics And Offer New Perspectives
YouTube is great for when you have visual content, but doesn’t do so well when you have something to say RIGHT NOW – that’s for Twitter.
Each social media platform will have its own set of acceptable content length and level of engagement. Taking the same content or idea from one to the other will allow you to not only present it differently but also to look at it differently as you are given differing lengths allowable for your content.
How Content Adaptation Is Helping Me And My Clients
As I have outlined, this is allowing me the chance to quickly build content without all of the endless Skype calls and emails as we try to figure out new ideas. We know what the fans enjoy and we push it out there quicker. If your new company wants to start blitzing social media across multiple platforms, content adaptation is your best option!
