Something about being told what we are not allowed to watch or do is innately exciting to us. The word elicit enlivens something inside us and emboldens us to act. We are human beings with rational thought and although we might not jump off a bridge if someone else did – unless it’s Chad, I’d do anything that guy would do, he is so cool! But being told we can’t watch something, well, that’s just like seeing a sign that says “keep off the grass.” Don’t tell me what to do.

This week UK based supermarket chain Iceland shared an ad that was to be part of their TV Christmas advertising campaign, on their social streams. The UK censorship board had something to say about it, namely, that it was too political and was not approved for TV advertising. So it moved to social media and a very positive viral verdict was handed down by the public! It has quickly amassed 3mil (and counting) views in a matter of days.

Check it out:

Apart from being a great ad in general, it has many of the great elements needed to go viral:

Controversial

Although many may not find it controversial per se – the simple fact is when you are able to use the words “banned in the UK” you are going to generate clicks.

Good

The fact that it is well done cannot be overstated – the animation is excellent and the writing is perfect.

Emotional

It plays on our emotions and is extremely evocative.

Hook

Most people like a whodunit/twist in the tale and this ad is great at slowly revealing its true nature.

Three other great elements of going viral are celebrity, humour and sex, all of which don’t lend itself easily to deforestation!

Here are a few other of our favourite viral ads/campaigns from the past – which elements of going viral can you see in them?

THE FORCE

ALS

THE MAN YOUR MAN COULD SMELL LIKE

DOLLAR SHAVE

BEAUTY SKETCHES

DORITOS / MOUNTAIN DEW

LG

First thing’s first; are YOU interested in what you are going to be blogging about? If you aren’t, chances are your readers won’t be either! So make sure to pick something fun and interesting, that is relevant for you and your target market and of course, reflects the values of your business.

Have a good headline/title! You will need something short and sweet that truly captures the attention of your audience – whether it is being posted on Facebook, shared on LinkedIn, mentioned on Twitter or Instagram, or just being uploaded to your website, it needs to be simple and grab the reader’s attention.

Pair your blog text with some great visual media. Lots of interesting high resolution imagery or graphics will inspire the reader to keep reading. Use these images to break up your text, so it doesn’t appear as just one big overwhelming lump of words, but rather a flowing blog piece that includes both interesting info and some “wow” imagery and media.

Where relevant, include some cool and interesting stats and facts, which back up what your blog piece is saying. Here is an example:

53% of marketers say blogging is their top content marketing priority. (HubSpot)

Most people LOVE statistics, and everyone loves a captivating fact! And if you can, use graphics to demonstrate these. Whether you have put he graphic together in-house, or sourced and credited something from the internet, make it POP!

Here us an example of showing the latency of blog content views:

Be consistent, so that your readers know they can count on you for content. Pick specific times that your blog pieces will be uploaded, e.g. every Monday and Thursday mornings. Make sure to regularly block out bits of time on your schedule to create content for your blog and then time to promote it after you have hit that publish button. Writing and publishing the blog is just half of the picture!

Share the blog piece to all your social platforms, and make sure you do this at the right times – e.g. Thursday nights at 8pm might be the best time to share a blog on your Facebook page, but 4pm might be better for your LinkedIn audience! Mention and tag other pages and people where applicable and add relevant hashtags for maximum reach. Feel free to reshare the blog on each social platform a few times, with different imagery and different headlines.

Happy blogging!

Probably, yes! Whether or not you decide to jump on the bandwagon of the ‘millennial emojis’, you need to think about what type of business you have, and who your target market is. They can definitely make your brand seem more personable, but it is also easy to misuse them, overuse them or use them with the wrong crowd, on the wrong post.

Social media is meant to be fun, and your accounts should be an accurate representation of who you are as a business and the values you hold. It is just another method of communication after all, and nowadays a very important way for a business to connect and communicate with their target market and customers. Emojis have recently become an optional part of that communication (however nowadays, used more often than not), and they add that little bit of spirit, fun and humour. People buy from people, after all, not businesses, so if using emojis makes your brand seem more personable, go for it!

Emojis can definitely make your tone clearer. By their very nature emojis express emotion and tone. I often feel when I am writing an email to a client that they might think my passive voice is too stern, I then either compensate by being overly verbose or overly sycophantic, when a simple smile or thumbs up might do the trick. We lose so much without visual cues or intonation of voice in the written word – but it is still considered, by some, poor form to include an emoji in an email.

Throw some emojis in when you want to make your content a little more relatable, such as when posting a fun photo with a quirky caption. Example: Happy Friday! (insert beer or glass of wine emoji – everyone loves a drink on a Friday night, after all)!

Find a set of emojis which suit your brand the best, and go to town with these! Not on every post though, and only a couple per post – don’t over do it or you might look too casual and silly. As a general rule of thumb, we tend to keep it to 3 or less per post for anything that has target age above 25 – less often depending on the tech savviness of the group you are aiming at. Example; for a travel company, you might use different animals and trees (e.g. fish, sea creatures and palm trees when posting tropical/beach pics), planes, boats and landmark emojis, such as the super cute little island emoji’s or the Statue of Liberty (probably only for pics of New York though…).

You don’t have to add emojis to every post, and typically they are used more on Instagram than they are on Facebook.

BUT, know and understand your demographic. If your brand is trying to communicate with older customers, then emojis might not suit, as they may be uncomfortable with emojis, and may not even know what they mean (or interpret them the wrong way, which can be awkward)!

Anecdotally, my parents use emojis in text now, not often but they are there which is something for two septuagenarians. The usage is often just to convey tone (😊😘😉) rather than to let me know they are at the airport 🛫 or about to get lit🔥.

It’s interesting to note that they will use correct punctuation in text and were never taken in by the acronyms which makes the case for emoji adoption even stronger.

If you are on social media and have a strong presence, chances are you are trying to engage with a young/younger audience, and if they use emojis, you should too!