This TikToker went viral by creating an clever hook. Here’s what happened:
👉 She asks her husband for a Prada bag.
👉 The husband replies, ‘if your post gets 50k likes and Prada comments, then I’ll buy it.’
👉 The post blows up getting over 1.4M likes, and Prada comments!
The only problem… it wasn’t the real Prada.
Several Prada employees commented, but I don’t think that counts.
Here’s why I’m sharing this…
The Power of Storytelling Marketing & Social Listening
It would do so much good PR for Prada to hook this lady up.
- Fly her and her boyfriend to New York
- Put her up in the The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company, L.L.C.
- Take her to Prada and let her pick out some items
- Film the entire thing
- Post it on social
- Everyone feels good and becomes fans of Prada
This is storytelling marketing!
Too many marketers repeat that same tired definition that doesn’t mean anything…
There doesn’t need to be heroes, trusty guides, or villains.
Just take people on a journey where they are hooked by the premise, provide an interesting narrative with the promise of a payoff, then stick the landing, delivering an ultimately satisfactory conclusion. Edit it together nicely, layer in some music and sound effects, and hit publish.
Also, this is an example of social listening. Social media is not all about posting and ghosting, it’s about finding moments or opportunities to strike while the iron is hot.
This happens to businesses all the time and all too often they fumble the bag.
Prada Group – the bag’s in your court! 👜
How Coach Fumbled the Bag
A customer talked about her negative experience with their customer support.
Her bag had a broken strap, so she brought it in for repair.
They charged her $108, then after several weeks, they sent the bag back without doing a thing. It was in the exact same state, and wasn’t even cleaned.
After an infuriating run around and hassle, she was denied a refund.
Now, here’s the lesson:
👉 Over 1,000,000 people have heard this story
👉 Over 133,000 people have liked the post
👉 Tens of thousands of people have commented on how they will never buy a bag from Coach again
And all it cost Coach for this terrible customer experience… $108.
Customer service is such an important job, and many companies overlook this. They hire junior people, pay them pennies, micromanage their breaktimes, enforce nonsensical policies, treat them like children. (I’ve worked many customer service jobs and they are all like this).
Start with hiring the right people (not everyone is suited for this role) – this includes management – train them well, review and amend bad policy, empower them to make exceptions to rules (or have an escalation process for edge cases), cherish those people, pay them well, treat them right… they are integral to the success of your business.
In the age of social media, businesses simply cannot afford to have any bad customer experience. Make it right. Do the right thing by the customer. Play the long game.
How Fruit Rollups Fumbled the Bag
Fruit Roll Ups went viral as people figured out they can put ice cream inside a Fruit Roll Up, freeze them, and have their minds blown with deliciousness.
The only problem…
Fruit Roll Up had no idea that this trend was even happening.🤦
Someone had commented on their latest Instagram post while this trend was blowing up and their response implied they were not even aware of it.
What lessons can we, as marketers and business owners, learn from this?
1. Analyze
If you have a sudden spike in sales, figure out why as soon as you can. If you’re blowing up on TikTok, and not on TikTok, get on TikTok! I assume they are sitting around an office somewhere, high-fiving over their Instagram post.
2. Contribute
Get in on the conversation to add more fuel to the trend – use hashtags, repost, comment, like, share, etc. But also, have your posts reflect more of what people want. The tribe has spoken, lean into it!
3. Make the Most of It
Capitalize on the opportunity with a new product, new flavour, new challenge, new packaging, new collab… Come on Fruit Roll Up, you’ve been given a soft ball right down the middle!
4. Re-evaluate Your Content
Understand what makes sharable content. No offense Fruit Roll Up, but your posts are lame. Instead of posting some lame stock image or graphic, think – ‘What could we post that people would actually engage with?’
5. Search Your Brand
If you type in Fruit Roll Up in Google, but don’t press enter, you will see that a large majority of the auto-correct is about this trend. Lesson here is, Google your own brand and see what people are saying about it. There may be some insight there.
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