Brands today walk a fine line between cap­i­tal­iz­ing on head­line-mak­ing, traf­fic-gen­er­at­ing top­ics such as Poke­mon Go, Game of Thrones — or even more seri­ous sub­jects such as the elec­tion or the Black Lives Mat­ter move­ment — and ‘news­jack­ing’ which can nat­u­ral­ly back­fire.

How should brands and mar­keters ensure their con­tent is rel­e­vant and engage­able, and min­i­mize the risk of com­ing across as inau­then­tic?

In this day and age, there’s vir­tu­al­ly always a trendy top­ic for mar­keters to cap­i­tal­ize on. Advan­tages include poten­tial expo­sure and engage­ment. But it’s also easy to come across as inau­then­tic if brands sim­ply ‘news­jack’ – not to men­tion there’s a high prob­a­bil­i­ty of offend­ing con­sumers and even rank­ing among the worst social media faux pas of all time if things go par­tic­u­lar­ly bad.

In oth­er words, beyond sim­ply rel­e­vance, how do brands and mar­keters decide when to chime in and when to remain silent?

We sur­veyed mar­keters for their best real-time tips and their respons­es were twofold:

1. Plan Ahead.

Joe Maceda, Managing Director of the Invention Studio, Mindshare North America

In the real-time world in which we oper­ate, any­thing and every­thing hap­pen­ing in cul­ture can be an oppor­tu­ni­ty for a brand. But it is crit­i­cal for brands to be rig­or­ous in plan­ning how to approach these moments. In fact, know­ing when NOT to play might be more impor­tant than know­ing when to engage.

Our Plan­ning for Agili­ty process iden­ti­fies cul­tur­al moments — both estab­lished tent-pole events and less pre­dictable news top­ics— that align with a brand’s DNA or cam­paign mes­sage. This estab­lish­es the moments and themes that are appro­pri­ate for the brand to inject [itself] into and sets the play­book for when those events hap­pen in cul­ture – it can be any­thing from a dra­mat­ic moment in sport to a new beau­ty trend, to an envi­ron­men­tal issue and beyond. A major ben­e­fit to Plan­ning for Agili­ty is that it enables real-time respons­es across all paid, owned or earned chan­nels, so brands can tru­ly seize these oppor­tu­ni­ties at scale, rather than only via light­weight social activ­i­ty.

Philip Fenton, Regional Director, Switch Communications

The exam­ple every­one still gets excit­ed about is Oreo’s “you can still dunk in the dark” tweet dur­ing the Super Bowl black­out. But what gets lost in the telling is first that the brand had a real­ly sophis­ti­cat­ed news­room set­up that enabled them to spot the oppor­tu­ni­ty and take advan­tage of it and, sec­ond, that Oreo pro­duces a huge amount of con­tent that does not go viral. If you’re pure­ly look­ing to win big with one ultra-suc­cess­ful post, you’re set­ting your­self up to fail.

As for whether brands should attempt real-time mar­ket­ing in the first place, the answer is it depends. Oreo’s tweet worked because it was a fun brand mak­ing a light­heart­ed com­ment about an event that is also fun (at least when the pow­er works). Oreo com­ment­ing on pol­i­tics would be just plain weird. Like­wise, if you’re an accoun­tan­cy firm, it’s very dif­fi­cult to imag­ine how you can lever­age Poke­mon Go in an authen­tic way – chances are it will come off as pret­ty trans­par­ent news­jack­ing.

So know your brand, know your audi­ence and treat real-time mar­ket­ing as anoth­er chan­nel to be nur­tured rather than an oppor­tu­ni­ty to hit the jack­pot and go viral.

Jarrod Bull, Head of Account Management, iCrossing

When I ran social for brands like Dr. Pep­per and L’Oreal, the things we always did were set­ting up ‘guard rails’ — What does the brand stand for? What top­ics do we have an opin­ion on? And, from there, we could react more effec­tive­ly. It stays in the cul­tur­al rel­e­vance of what the brand stands for. You have to think about how will peo­ple feel if we do this or don’t do this? You can’t plan for all [events], but pol­i­tics is some­thing you want to stay away from, the death of celebri­ties, you typ­i­cal­ly want to stay away from… I think there’s a point of where you have to stick to your com­mu­ni­ca­tion strat­e­gy and stand by that.

It’s impor­tant to stay in the cul­tur­al rel­e­vance of what the brand stands for. You have to think about how will peo­ple feel if we do this or don’t do this? You can’t plan for all [events], but gen­er­al­ly, pol­i­tics is some­thing you want to stay away from, and the death of celebri­ties, you typ­i­cal­ly want to steer well clear. I think there’s a point of where you have to stick to your com­mu­ni­ca­tion strat­e­gy and stand by that.

For me, suc­cess is about hav­ing a clear [idea] of what the brand stands for, and then defin­ing behav­iors of what you would and wouldn’t do — then you can react quick­ly. It’s those peo­ple that react in the right way and at the right moment that gain aware­ness. It’s being ready to push that but­ton at that exact moment and, what­ev­er hap­pens, hav­ing a clear def­i­n­i­tion of who you are and what you stand for and hav­ing trust for who­ev­er is acti­vat­ing it.

The most suc­cess­ful cul­tur­al moments over time are when you actu­al­ly think about what’s com­ing out – for exam­ple, there was a lot of good oppor­tu­ni­ty around Star Wars — which is an alto­geth­er dif­fer­ent cul­tur­al moment to a death or an actu­al event. You can plan for those things and think cre­ative­ly about how con­tent can play out.

The oth­er thing about plan­ning is you also have to be ready to react the oth­er way when [con­tent] could be deemed insen­si­tive [in the wake of an event]. You have to think about the reac­tion to those moments and pull back some of your com­mu­ni­ca­tion to let those moments go away because your voice doesn’t belong in that moment.

Deborah Sweeney, CEO, MyCorporation.com

Real-time mar­ket­ing is a great way of bring­ing expo­sure to your brand but most mar­keters believe they can sim­ply attach them­selves to the hottest top­ic for great returns. The rea­son this does not work is because the mar­keters are not tap­ping into the essence of the top­ic and have no strat­e­gy. Sim­ply because the top­ic is attract­ing traf­fic now does not mean you can tack­le it with­out a plan. Three help­ful tips I’ve found to make a quick plan is:

1. Research – The mar­keter must learn and under­stand the essence of what they are try­ing to take advan­tage of. They need to answer the basic ques­tions. What is it? Why is it pop­u­lar? Who is pay­ing atten­tion to it? Who isn’t? With­out these basic ques­tions answered, your brand will look inept no mat­ter what.
2. Strate­gize – When the mar­keter has under­stood the basics, it is time for them to cre­ate a strat­e­gy that best high­lights their brand with­in the con­text of the top­ic. Sim­ply attach­ing the two will at best make the brand some­what vis­i­ble, but at worst it could show your brand is out of touch. The plan must invent a cre­ative con­nec­tion between all par­ties involved to help it break through the dig­i­tal noise suc­cess­ful­ly.
3. Imple­ment – Final­ly, the mar­keter must know where to imple­ment their plan. Sim­ply plac­ing it any­where and every­where might bring vis­i­bil­i­ty but it won’t cause an impact. Spe­cial­iz­ing where peo­ple take notice and buzz about your strat­e­gy is just as impor­tant as under­stand­ing what’s going on. The last thing you want is the great­est mar­ket­ing strat­e­gy you have come up with go com­plete­ly unno­ticed because the forum was wrong.

2. Know Thyself. And Thy Consumers.

Cody Simmonds, Digital Strategist, Struck

The most crit­i­cal thing brands need to con­sid­er before tak­ing part in a trend­ing hash­tag or top­ic is to ful­ly under­stand how its core audi­ence per­ceives and engages with that par­tic­u­lar top­ic. For exam­ple, if Chee­rios’ core con­sumer is young par­ents with chil­dren aged 1–5 years old, Game of Thrones prob­a­bly isn’t the best top­ic to align with (unless those par­ents over-index as GoT watch­ers). Brands should always have a clear under­stand­ing of their tar­get audience’s hob­bies and inter­ests and look for ways to rel­e­vant­ly cater to those affini­ties. Even if a brand’s prod­uct or ser­vice doesn’t align with the top­ic of dis­cus­sion, the brand can find ways to take advan­tage of top­ics or dis­cus­sions that are rel­e­vant to its core audi­ence and cre­ate plat­forms for dis­cus­sion and engage­ment.

One of the biggest (and best) ways brands can dri­ve affin­i­ty and make a major impact with their core con­sumers is to be will­ing to take a side on polit­i­cal and social issues. Accord­ing to eMar­keter and Cone Com­mu­ni­ca­tions, more than 90 per­cent of Mil­len­ni­als will switch to brands that sup­port caus­es and issues that align with their beliefs. They’re also will­ing to pay more for prod­ucts and ser­vices that are social­ly respon­si­ble. As a brand, it’s crit­i­cal to under­stand how your core con­sumers feel about spe­cif­ic issues and to find ways to align your­self with their views by sup­port­ing rel­e­vant caus­es and orga­ni­za­tions.

Kristian Rivera, Digital Marketing Specialist, Fit Small Business

Be gen­uine­ly inter­est­ed in trendy top­ics that you want to write on. If you’re writ­ing just to cap­i­tal­ize on the trend and gain expo­sure, it will come across in your writ­ing. Peo­ple can eas­i­ly sniff this type of behav­ior out. It’s as bad as click-bait­ing to get peo­ple to your site. It will turn peo­ple away because you’re not offer­ing any­thing of val­ue to them.

How­ev­er, if you have a gen­uine inter­est and are pas­sion­ate about the top­ic, it will show and will be appre­ci­at­ed by your read­ers. You want to offer them some­thing unique that they can’t get any­where else. They’re not just com­ing to your site for the top­ic but your take on the top­ic. The worst thing you can do is write gener­ic copy that every­one else has writ­ten to cap­i­tal­ize on the moment. Stand out from the crowd and write from the heart.

What are you thoughts on how brands can ensure their real-time mar­ket­ing efforts are time­ly and rel­e­vant?