If you’ve been on any sort of relevant social platform this week, you’ve probably seen the letters CES floating around the interwebs in some form or another. CES stands for Consumer Electronics Show and it’s a weeklong Las Vegas convention that brings together every company that even has slight ties to the tech world to show off share with others what the future has in store for them and where they believe their own innovations lie. Think everything from a self-driving Audi concept car to a thermal imaging iPhone case that can display heat signatures from live humans, animals, and environmental sources up to 100 feet away. Basically, it’s the coolest of the cool all in one place. So how does this relate to you, my social media aficionado? Keep reading.
CES has transcended its roots from being a strictly tech-based conference to becoming a full-fledged social media powerhouse. With a who’s who list of attendees, brands are capitalizing on their social media klout like never before, and like sixth grade school girls going after the hot boy in gym class – they are clamoring to be the most blogged about, Facebooked and Tweeted companies of the week. With almost two tweets going out per second, it’s essentially one big popularity contest.
Here are the top ways tech has met social this week:
- Brand mentions matter, and they tell a story.
The top most mentioned brand on Twitter for Day 2 of the conference was @YouTube, with a total of 1886 mentions (you will see why everyone hopped on YouTube today further down).
A close second for mentions was the official handle of the conference, @IntlCES, with 1848 mentions. This is largely due to the Social Media Vending Machine that the conference set up in the convention center’s lobby. Conference attendees who tweet using the official CES hashtag, #CES2014, and mention @IntlCES receive a CES-branded t-shirt straight from the vending machine (users can select their size). Those who wear their t-shirts will have the opportunity to win gift cards.
- Promote, promote, promote.
It’s not enough to have an amazing product, you must have a plan for how to promote it and make sure that it’s relevant to what’s being talked about. Televisions, for instance, reigned in day two of the conference telling us that most the conversations happening online are about the future of TV. Tablets and wearable technology weren’t too far behind. Doing a quick social media search for what people are discussing will help you for future blogs, social content and more.
- Social media saves the day.
Ohhhh Samsung. We didn’t peg you as the standout star of CES, but your numbers did the talking. After using Michael Day, the director of The Transformers, to announced their new curved television, a certain onstage flub, recorded on YouTube, contributed to hours of consequent trending online. Everyone everywhere was discussing Michael Bay’s big Samsung epic fail moment. Who benefitted? That’s right, Samsung. Michael Bay then went to his blog to publicly apologize for freezing. If your brand suffers a PR misstep, it is not the end of the world. Luckily we have versatility like never before, so use social media as your friend to make amends sooner rather than later.
- Turn your brand on its head.
No, really. We didn’t think of Canon as being a leader in the social space- but we applaud them for a valid effort. Next time you go to a convention, conference or even a lunch, think of ways to incentivize online conversations.
We could go on for days about all of the ways tech ties directly to social, but this serves as a brief overview that digital content is inserting itself into every facet of our lives, even places we never had anticipated. If you’d like help managing your brand’s presence to make it the best it can be, give Agency Entourage a call at 214-414-3035. We’d love to hear from you!
