Nowadays, social media marketing has become a powerful tool to generate engagement with consumers. But when every brand is using social media to market its product, what makes an account stand out from the others? For a platform as tricky as Twitter, successful brand accounts choose to draw attention from their audience through follower engagement and humor. Yet, while posting entertaining content can be excellent for brands to set tones for their culture and to promote their presence, a lousy play may bring tragic marketing fallout to an organization. Let's take a look at what freshens up an account in a challenging landscape like Twitter.
Wendy's - Bold
Every active Twitter user knows that Wendy's Twitter game is on fire in recent years. Whoever's in charge of their Twitter account has vastly increased their follower-count through bold yet witty responses to followers. In the current climate of users having multiple social media platforms, marketers merely have a few seconds to grab audiences' attention. And Wendy's has managed to build brand loyalty around their playful tweets, making a blast whenever they reply to tags.
Another interesting tactic that Wendy's uses to start off conversations is to call out their critics and competitors by tagging them in sassy responses.
Wendy’s move on Twitter may be somewhat insensitive, but it works wonderfully when consumers are looking for amusing content.
KFC - Trendy
Do you remember KFC's tweet went viral in 2017 when fans noticed the brand only followed Twitter accounts for six men named Herb and 5 Spice Girls to mirror their famous recipe? Since then, KFC has been well on top of their Twitter game by keeping up with current trends on the Internet. When they found out that gamers love fast food, they leaned into that fact and the @KFCGaming account was born. This spin-off Twitter is devoted to producing content targeted directly to gamers. In one of their efforts, the brand even developed an animated dating simulator for the face of their brand, Colonel Sanders.
In addition to @KFCGaming, KFC has created other spinoff Twitter accounts such as @KFCBarstool, @KFCradio to attract diverse and young groups of audiences. And in order to stay relevant, the accounts also show their familiarity with current meme trends.
People go crazy about world cups. As a result, KFC's regional account, @KFC_UKI, invented "The KFC Chicken World Coop" #KFCWC19 by holding polls for KFC products for two weeks straight. A brilliant move like this was able to effectively increase engagement while gathering data and customer feedback on products at the same time.
Funyuns - Eccentric
According to Social Baker’s statistic, Funyuns’s Twitter account experienced rapid growth in early 2019 with nearly 8k new followers within two months. The reason is obvious if you take a look at their account. The content that @Funyuns publishes is unexpected and entertaining, which sets them apart from other brand accounts. For example, on Valentine’s day, they created a post to call out retweet for a limited edition “Flammin’ Hot gift box”. On top of this, @Funyuns has also produced a series of posts dedicated to the merchandise solely for display on social media. As it turns out, Twitter users appreciate this type of content and find it amusing.
A frozen beef sandwich company Steak-umm has been taking a surprisingly philosophical approach to getting eyes to their Twitter account, successfully stirring up discussion in multiple threads. The philosophical posts mostly address issues regarding Millennials' dilemmas in daily life. @Steak-umm received a substantial increase in engagement by capitalizing on the trend toward social media users being young and frequently discussing Millennial culture.
Taco Bell - Relevant
Another fast-food brand, Taco Bell, understands that its consumers want captivating, authentic content. This type of approach has proven to work well for the brand, helping them reach 2M followers. The main reason for their success aside from using humor is their writers’ ability to humanize the brand through their posts.
Old Spice - Humorous
Old Spice - the brand known for its exaggerated style of comedy in commercials - has brought that experience into their social media. On their Twitter account, Old Spice has maintained its lighthearted approach in its interactions with other brands. An example of this was seen when @OldSpice tagged @TacoBell to criticize their fire sauce, accusing them of false advertisement for not containing actual fire in the sauce. These types of unconventional moves have helped them stand out in the saturated landscape of Twitter’s big name brands.
Oreo - Timing
The winning edge to Oreo's Twitter account is in its smart timing. The best example to demonstrate their efficient response would be their Twitter post for the Super Bowl during the blackout in 2013. Within just a few minutes of the blackout happening, @Oreo published an image with a dark background and a single oreo cookie reading "You Can Still Dunk in the Dark.” with the caption “Power out? No problem.” The combination of efficiency and entertainment pushed the post to go viral within one hour. The result of the particular tweet proved to be more effective for sales than its multi-million dollar Super Bowl commercial.
Do you feel like you’re ready to start a Twitter war after you’ve finished reading this article? Although the mentioned brands received plenty of coverage on Twitter, this type of technique will not apply to every business model, especially if the product is relatively serious or the goal is to attract an older group of audiences. Above all, your key to success is to develop a unique brand voice that can attract your target audience to boost engagement.
We found seven brands worth following on Twitter. What are your favorites we missed? Tag them in the comments below and we’ll compile a Part 2 for the series, maybe, if they’re funny enough. And if you want to see how funny we are on Twitter, follow us here.