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There are many different approaches that businesses and individuals can take when it comes to social media marketing. Between trends constantly changing and content creation being a top aspect of community engagement, real-time marketing has emerged as a critical strategy to connect with audiences in the moment. This approach involves leveraging current events, trends, or immediate reactions to create content that resonates with consumers. When including real-time marketing in your strategy, it is important not to act as a journalist. It is not about reporting on the matter or immediately reacting. It is about being proactive in the moment and strategically positioning your brand in the conversation.

For social media strategists, navigating through the process of creating an effective real-time marketing post in a short time can be difficult. However, fully embracing it can yield significant benefits. Real-time marketing is a vital piece to the puzzle for social media strategists in community engagement, but it has its challenges.

Benefits

• Increased Engagement: Tapping into current trends and conversations allows brands to curate relevant content to their audience. This strategy shows that a brand is in tune with its target audience’s interests. Having timely content translates into higher engagement rates, as users are more likely to interact with posts that reflect their interests and emotions.

• Enhanced Brand Visibility and Personality: When a brand enters timely conversations, it increases its visibility and reach. This is because timely posts are more likely to be shared and discussed. By participating in real-time discussions, brands stand out and attract new followers interested in their content. This also allows brands to showcase their personality, values, and voice. You have noticed that some brands tend to be humorous, empathetic, or professional. But by posting and being consistent with their voice, they build a stronger and more reliable brand identity. 

• Improved Customer Relationships: Engaging with your community in real time can foster a sense of connection and loyalty. When brands show efficiency and care about customer feedback, it demonstrates their commitment to having strong and trusting relationships with their consumers. 

Challenges

• Missteps: Reacting and conversing about real-time topics greatly increases the potential for missteps. With a quick turnaround needed, it can cause responses without a clear understanding of the context or without proper checks which can lead to miscommunication or possible negative brand image. Not all topics or real-time events are right for a brand to jump in and join the conversation.
• Resources: Effective real-time marketing requires many resources. The most valuable is a team constantly monitoring social media and trends. Their role is not only to create and post the content accordingly but to stay up to date about current events. This process is easier for larger brands with more hands on deck but can be resource-intensive for smaller brands.
• Maintaining Consistency: Balancing real-time marketing with brand consistency can be challenging. Participating and engaging with current trends is important but you must ensure that the content aligns with your brand’s values. Inconsistencies can confuse the audience and dilute the brand’s identity.

Let’s look at two of the more memorable real-time marketing campaigns: One known for being excellent and the other known for missing the point entirely. 

The Good

Oreo. With one simple word we not only know the product but one of the best real-time marketing campaigns published. During the Superbowl in 2013, the power went out and the stadium went dark. Oreo took advantage of the situation knowing millions of people were watching it happen and tweeted the famous lines “Power out, no problem. You can still dunk in the dark”. The tweet went viral and is still mentioned often. 

 

The Bad

Burger King. This was more recent and quickly became a huge issue for Burger King. They were launching a new opportunity where they would help female BK employees attend culinary school. This is a great thing that should have been highlighted, except they went about it in all the wrong ways. They tweeted “Women belong in the kitchen” on International Women’s Day. It was followed up with tweets explaining their new opportunity, but you can see where the original tweet caused a lot of commotion. 

Utilization

When it comes to social media marketing, we all love to follow the data analytics behind the scenes whether they are helpful or not. Evaluating the effectiveness of real-time marketing is complex. While planned campaigns have predetermined metrics, real-time marketing outcomes are spontaneous and can be harder to measure. Social media strategists must develop different metrics and methods to follow and assess the impact of their real-time marketing effectively. 

Knowing when and how to participate in certain conversations must be discussed before incorporating real-time marketing into your online strategy. Some current events may have to break up your brand’s scheduled postings as it can be insensitive to post about anything else at that time. An obvious recent event that occurred in 2024 was the Presidential Election. While we generally recommend refraining from posting about politics on behalf of your company, there are things you can plan for. 

Real-time marketing is a powerful aspect of social media marketing for strategists. It offers numerous benefits such as increased engagement, enhanced brand visibility, and improved customer relationships. However, it also presents challenges, including the risk of missteps, resource demands, and maintaining brand consistency. By embracing real-time marketing and engaging with their community effectively, social media strategists can build stronger connections with their audience. In the fast-paced world of social media, real-time marketing is not just an option, it is a crucial strategy for success.

 

Joseph Scalzo, SMS was a Social Media Strategist Intern at the National Institute for Social Media. He graduated from California Lutheran University with a Bachelor of Science in Business Marketing. He is attending San Francisco State University where he is a student-athlete playing baseball and working towards getting his second Bachelor in Communication Studies. He has also completed many courses in International Relations.