Live in the moment. It’s the kind of advice you’ll find in a self-help book. Whether you consider it a cliché or a universal truth – brands that ignore the admonition can miss out on valuable PR opportunities in today’s Twitter and Facebook world.
When it comes to media consumption, Americans are mobile, social, and very impatient. For example, a recent survey by Wakefield Research for ByteMobile found that nearly a third (30%) of mobile device owners give up in 8 seconds or less when a web page doesn’t load, and 74% of mobile video viewers seek out most of the video they watch, rather than wait for it to come to them. For PR and marketing professionals, this means social media speed matters if you hope to capitalize on the PR value of an event. Two recent examples illustrate this.
The Twittersphere went nuts in real-time when Sen. Marco Rubio reached for a Poland Spring water bottle during the GOP’s State of the Union response. Poland Spring waited to capitalize on it – posting a witty image on Facebook the next day. On the other hand, Oreo tweeted within minutes of the Super Bowl power outage: “You can still dunk in the dark.”
Wakefield’s rapid response capability allows us to provide survey data in 24 hours so PR pros can back up real-time social campaigns with credible statistics. As always, creativity and accuracy matter in PR and marketing campaigns, but so does speed.
Keep your social media teams ready for action. Live in the moment!