Company
Date Published
Author
L. Michelle Smith, M.S. ACC
Word count
1603
Language
English
Hacker News points
None

Summary

Here's a neutral and interesting summary of the text, covering key points: The author recounts their agency team's early struggles to convince large brands to adopt social media as part of their strategic communications plan in 2008. They eventually gained buy-in for a program with an international quick-service restaurant, which aligned with their ad campaign and focused on the "goodness" of the brand itself. The program, called "Random Acts of Goodness," involved the CEO giving away $1,000 to random customers, encouraging followers to participate by sharing content across various platforms. This integrated approach resulted in spikes in sales and traffic to the restaurant locations. The author emphasizes that social media is not just about self-promotion but about creating value for the audience, which requires clarity, simplicity, and translatability in content creation. Building loyalty through personalization, relevancy, and consistency is also crucial. Ultimately, this strategy focuses on relationship-building, which can lead to paying and repeat customers without requiring direct sales messages.