In today’s age twitter and Instagram are such powerful platform as it is insight into real time, real consumer thoughts and trends. What people talk about on these platforms can give marketers an opportunity to create a campaign focused towards what people are interested in right now. Although real time trends are constantly changing digital marketing gives us the ability to create ad’s quick and cheap compared to traditional marketing has changed the way companies market as a whole.

Here is a video of Instagram co-founder talking about the power of social media and its ability to connect people.

http://time.com/4114288/paris-instagram/

An example of when a company took the power of knowing what people are talking about right now is the Apple Inc. Pride campaign. When the supreme court ruled that same sex marriage had been legalized in all 50 states the hashtag #LoveWins became a national trend for people to express their thoughts about it via the internet. Apple Inc. created an ad based on this hashtag to show their support. Their “Pride” video released in July showed thousands of Apple employees and their families marching in the San Francisco Pride Parade. The video was only released on YouTube and has received over a million views.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xdjAX5A-6qE

Another amazing thing that these social media sites allow companies to do is to start their own trends, to get consumers talking about their product in real time and in a real context. Some that come to mind are

1. Coke: #Shareacoke
   When Coca Cola cans started writing on the side “Share a Coke with Mom” they saw the opportunity to get the consumers involved. Soon people were starting to tweet their own stories of their “Share a Coke” experience. This initiative gave Coke a lot of earned media on these social networking sites. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5l0cCyElfgg
2. Red Bull: #PutaCanonit
   This campaign encouraged consumers of RedBull to photograph their can looking like it is on top of something. Such a simple idea and with very little expense to RedBull they defiantly figured out how to use these real time social media sites to create buzz about their product. RedBull rewarded their customers for creativity featuring them on their website! View image on Twitter
3. Nike: #Betterforit
   With a strong feminism movement these days Nike created their #Betterforit campaign to encourage women to start encouraging each other to be active and proud in their athleticism. They released videos on YouTube and encouraged women to tweet at each other to motivate them! https://www.instagram.com/p/BEts7vOPFEF/?tagged=betterforit

Tori Landschulz: Marketing major at the University of Wisconsin-Madison business school, looking to innovate with creative passionate people, find me on LinkedIn!