Listen, Engage, Promote: Good Social Media Strategy Can Create Massive PR Wins

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So last week I briefly touched on the idea of social media monitoring as an opportunity to drive brand marketing and PR wins. There are primarily two genres of this:

1. Brand monitoring

2. Competitor monitoring

Brand monitoring is the easy one. This is where you get your user engagements, both praises and complaints. Community management (which, in our industry, largely ends up being social media customer service) falls into this bucket.

This is a really important channel. Like we’ve discussed in the past, an excellent customer experience is a growth hack.

Every interaction you have with your customer should end on a positive note. It’s just that simple. It pays to keep an ear open to what your customers are talking about on social media.

With that said, competitor monitoring can be an even better source of that sweet sweet marketing alpha.

Let me give you a real-world example I recently stumbled on while doom-scrolling TikTok.

In the music world, there are a few big equipment retailers with big online businesses. Today we’re going to be focussing on two brands – Guitar Center and Sweetwater.

Over the years, customer service outreach and follow-up has become a pretty big driver of business in this category. Both companies offer it. But Sweetwater takes it to a whole new level. Every customer is assigned a rep. No matter if you bought a $10,000 guitar or a $20 pack of string, you will be reached out to.

It’s become a bit of a meme in that community.

Anyway, in April, musician Bryce Doubravsky posted a TikTok video of a lackluster voicemail left by Guitar Center rep, checking in on his equipment needs. It goes semi-viral in the MusicianTok community.

This is where it starts getting good.

Someone in the comments to that video makes a quip about Sweetwater, and their team jumps into action.

About a week later, Bryce posts another video, this time of a voicemail left by an up-beat and friendly Sweetwater rep, calling out the video about “a certain competitor.” The rep says he wants to help him upgrade audio recording equipment. He continues by saying how their company focuses on “build relationships, not just leav[ing] you 3-minute long voicemails...”

Mic drop.

As you can imagine, this saga continues to go viral.

About two weeks later, Bryce posts another video, unboxing a big care package from Sweetwater. There’s branded swag, a funny note, and the trademark bag of candy they always include in their shipments.

Then there’s another video, this time with a recording of a call with his new Sweetwater rep.

Finally, a couple weeks ago, Bryce posts a recording of a new voicemail, this time from the Sweetwater marketing department asking to get on a call. They end up inviting him to the company’s music gear conference, Gearfest, as an influencer.

And now he’s documenting inviting his brother along for the VIP experience, the travel, and more.

So now we’re at the stage where he’s an influencer for the company, and they’re flying him out to headquarters to represent the brand. The videos have brought in about 3 MILLION views, and tens of thousands of engagements, virtually for free.

And this all happened because a member of the social media team was paying attention. They caught an example of someone pointing out a weakness in the competition, which also just happens to be one of the things their brand is most known for.

What a massive brand / PR win, and just a well-earned W from the social media team.

So what lessons can we as marketers learn from this?

1. Be an expert at your company’s value propositions

2. Monitoring your competitor’s social media mentions for L’s

3. Be nimble enough to act quickly to capitalise on moments like this

4. Turn your brand advocates into your own influencers

Something to think about.

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