This post was contributed by a community member. The views expressed here are the author's own.

Health & Fitness

What @irene Can Teach Us about Marketing, PR, and Social Media

Blogger Robin Ferrier talks about taking chances in your marketing, PR, and social media outreach, using the @irene Twitter account as an example.

For those of you not "in the know," one of the fun aspects of Twitter has been the ability to create parody accounts.

There was @BronxZoosCobra when the Bronx Zoo temporarily lost one of their snakes. (A sample of its wit: "Enjoying a cupcake @magnoliabakery. This is going straight to my hips. Oh, wait. I don't have hips. Yesss! #snakeonthetown." And more recently: "The earthquake today did no damage to the Reptile House. It remains entirely intact. Unfortunately.")

Further back there was @the_swine_flu... and if you want to hear more about the genius of this Twitter account, watch this video, titled "everything I need to know about social media i learned from being @the_swine_flu." (This video is absolutely hilarious and a must-watch for anyone ready to hit the social media scene. However, WARNING: This video may not be safe for work. There's some cursing.)

Find out what's happening in Gaithersburgwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Most recently, the Twitter fun came from @irene. @irene is actually Irene Tien, a staffer at the digital agency HUGE, who signed up for Twitter early and got a Twitter handle that was just her first name. When the hurricane was looming, random people started tweeting messages to her. Instead of letting it go, her colleagues convinced her to let them take over her Twitter account and become the voice of the hurricane. The result was amazing... for a few reasons:

  1. They took a tone that was both funny/entertaining and serious. So no one saw them as being disrespectful about the potentially HUGE (no pun intended) consequences of what was expected to be a massive storm.
  2. They made their tweets a combination of fun comments and helpful information and updates, including linking up with FEMA to get information out in a timely manner.
  3. They jumped on the opportunity. When @irene started receiving tweets, they knew they had two choices: ignore it, or take advantage of it right away before momentum disappeared. The firm didn't force them go through some ridiculous, bureaucratic approval process to do this. Instead, the senior team at HUGE trusted its staff to undertake this and to do so in a respectful way that would reflect well on the company. And the gamble paid off.

 

Find out what's happening in Gaithersburgwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

How? Well, during the course of the weekend, @irene went from 630 followers to about 11,500 followers. Many will stop following now that the hurricane is past. Others will keep following but never need HUGE's services. But some? Some will choose to hire HUGE because they'll see that this is a company that gets things done.

The lessons from this "case study" are, I think, simple:

  1. Be bold in your marketing, PR, and social media activities, but do so respectively.
  2. Take chances. If you take the right ones and do so smartly, it will pay off in the end.
  3. Trust your staff. You hired them for a reason. If you don't trust them to do their jobs, do them well, be creative, and make the right decisions for the company, then you shouldn't have hired them in the first place.
  4. The time is now. In some situations, weighing the pros and cons makes sense and you need to take a more measured approach. But sometimes, you just have to leap in and take advantage of an opportunity.

 

For more about what HUGE did with @irene on Twitter, read Irene Tien's artice on Ad Age Digital.

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here

The views expressed in this post are the author's own. Want to post on Patch?