Don’t Let FOMO Shape Your Marketing Efforts

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Digital marketing has opened the door to many new avenues for both small and large businesses.

With these new avenues, an abundance of new social networks, media outlets and platforms marketing professionals are faced with a dangerous trend:

The Fear Of Missing Out (FOMO)

Whether it’s relatively uncharted territory like Vine or Snapchat, or a major trend that is capturing the attention of millions of eyes brands feel like they need to rush in and join the action.

Take the word cup for example:

Let me just pause for a moment of patriotism and say this is awesome. 13% of the American population is absolutely incredible! Mark Cuban said it perfectly:

The message of @ussoccer is that the USA wants reasons to come together & celebrate being American.

This insane rush of traffic and social media activity had brands and marketers flocking to social media to join in with the fun. This, in itself, isn’t a problem. But, just because something is trending, doesn’t mean you don’t have to be creative. It doesn’t mean that you don’t need to stay true to your brand.

In the US’s final matchup of the 2014 World Cup the USMNT was paired up with Belgium and brands, to say the least, didn’t hold back on their waffle-based messages.

A Few World Cup Waffle Tweets:

The tweet that started it all. Simple, to the point and well… they’re WAFFLE House. Your promotions don’t have to be, and shouldn’t be all about sales and products but it’s nice when you can remain genuine and subtly include your core offering.

Seriously, Coors Light? For an American made beer that is generally spot on with patriotism this looks like an easy way to hop on the train (thank you for the background “Belgian” image though, I wasn’t quite sure what you were referring to).

DiGiorno is so hit or miss with these. I think this is a really lazy attempt at throwing their hat into the mix and really exemplifies the FOMO mentality.

Brands Must Remain Consistent

These trends are hard to pass up and in some cases, if you just want to jump in on the action, that’s ok! Just remember, you can’t let these moments shape your marketing efforts. You have to stay true to your message as a brand. These are fun, quick plays that get a couple eyes as they move on through the flood of content around the event.

If you see a genuine, fun way to generate content that aligns with an event do so and get back to work on what really drives your brand!.

Not Every Network Is Right For you

Every Wednesday at 2pm CT I join in a Twitter chat with one of my favorite communities, #SproutChat created by Sprout Social who happens to be on our list of favorite marketing tools as well! Last week the discussion was focused around network fatigue. An excellent question posed last week was: Do brands have a place on every channel? I think Katie Yochem gave the most simple, to the point answer:

There it is again, the Fear Of Missing Out! Just because somebody tells you that a network exists or because you read an article about what great success a brand is having on a given network it doesn’t mean it’s right for you! You need to pick your poison, find where your audience is and join them.

If you find yourself struggling to develop a content strategy for a new network it may not be right for you (and that’s ok!). This isn’t call to arms against joining new networks, I just wish that more people took the time to really consider WHY they’re joining a new network. If you haven’t identified a clear value and goal-set as your reason for being there guest what…

You’re falling victim to FOMO

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