Get ready for Union Jacks and quips about bad weather: the London Olympics are coming!
As seen with Euro 2012, high-profile international events represent a great opportunity for affiliates to expand the reach of brands. With 93% of Gen Y going online every day and 81% visiting Facebook on a daily basis, it’s safe to say people under the age of 30 are following events online with social media.
Here are some medal-winning tips to leverage these events with social media:
Train for a Marathon
Like athletes vying for gold, you can’t just show up and expect success. A comprehensive social media strategy needs to be implemented and maintained, in advance. To do so, research your target demographic. What are they looking for? What social media platform do they use most (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn)? Once you know this, define measurable goals and test what works on each platform.
Much like starting an affiliate program, building an authoritative social media presence, particularly in the run-up to high-profile events, requires a long-term investment of time and resources. Patience is required.
Look like a Champ
A comprehensive social media strategy is useless if your Facebook or Twitter profile is a mess. Take a close look at each individual platform’s best practices and ensure that you’re putting your best foot forward, with informative, typo-free text, high quality images and relevant links. Nothing undermines credibility and professionalism like carelessness.
Snuggle up to the In-Crowd
Like high school, the cool kids matter. Who are the influencers in your niche? Engaging with them (e.g. leaving comments on articles and blogs and interacting on Facebook and Twitter) can help with future content promotion. This can involve a lot of pre-event legwork, but it is an important step: establishing links with the “in-crowd” can help get your content out there and give you an air of authority and credibility.
Don’t Quit Your Day Job
Your website has to jive with your social media efforts (you can’t go gung ho on the Olympics if your site has no mention of it). You don’t, however, need a major overhaul. Tweaking your site’s layout to include relevant materials, like colour schemes, images and banners, can be enough to cement the association with an event.
Following these guidelines will help lay the groundwork for a medal-winning social media strategy. To own the podium, check out Leverage Events with Social Media Part 2.
What do you think? Post your comments below.
- Leverage Events with Social Media (Part 2)
- Managing Social Media More Strategically – Part 1
- Managing Social Media More Strategically – Part 2
- Blending Social Media and SEO is a Must for Affiliates
- Be the Belle of the Ball: How to Increase Your Social Media Relationships
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These Olympics will be the first social media Olympics. The London games will be the most tweeted, liked and tagged in history!
Agreed. I think these Olympics are going to set a precedent for the way events are shared on social media.