My new column is out in The Drum:
Euro 2020’s two biggest lessons for marketers and media planners
While he was watching Euro 2020 and hoping that England would bring it home, columnist Samuel Scott reflected on what the marketing industry can learn from the tournament. In this piece, he looks at the true difference between TV and social media, and how we should actually approach generational behavior.
Before the pandemic, a friend owned a chain of yoga studios here in Israel. She once asked what to do on social media to become an influencer in that space. My advice to her? “Get on TV instead.” Euro 2020 gave us a similar lesson.
Once I worked for a firm that did social media ‘growth hacks’ for Israeli high-tech startups. We compiled a lengthy list of the social media users in relevant spaces. Every day, I would follow 100 of them from client accounts with the expectation that a number would follow back. Some would.
We would unfollow almost everyone we followed after a week. That way, the client’s number of ‘followers’ would continue to grow while that of the ‘followed’ would not. Yes, I was doing was what Americans call ‘small potatoes’ – basically something unimportant.
If someone wants to gain an actual large following, there is a better way. With apologies to the Talmud, I’ll paraphrase Judaism’s Golden Rule to summarize the goal of most marcom: “Make something famous. The rest is commentary. Now, go study.”