Remington BeggMarch is a huge time for sports fan across the nation as college basketball teams compete for a chance to the considered the best in the nation, people everywhere fill out their brackets, and crowds hope for a big upset. It’s March Madness! While this time of the year is fun to be a part of, there’s also a way to use this hype for your brand’s benefit:
Have Fun on Instagram
Whenever there’s a major sporting event, brands will be nearby, piggybacking off the popularity of the events and trying to get in front of as many people as possible. Oreo did this last year, posting Instagram photos of people playing basketball with an oreo cookie covering the actual ball. Oreo wasn’t the most active brand during March Madness, but it made each post count. Together, their two Instagram posts about dunking got 31,000 likes. KFC was successful with this as well, joking on Instagram about using a losing bracket as a napkin instead. These types of playful post are easy for you to emulate, just make sure you make it brand appropriate and don’t copy them exactly.
Tweet about Trending NCAA Topics
Too often, newsjacking is difficult because you’re scrambling to create and post content for an event that suddenly happened. This is a fantastic opportunity to newsjack, since it’s something you know will be happening and you can plan ahead for. Write related content ahead of time, with enough time to properly edit, then get ready to share it when you see hashtags emerging. The official tournament hashtag is #MarchMadness, but there’s always more organic hashtags that emerge during the tournament as well.
Create Contests
Creating contests and games can be an effective way to teach prospects and customers the benefits of your products while they have fun competing for prizes. This can either be promoted in your place of business if your brick-and-mortar store gets a lot of foot traffic, or on your social media platforms like Facebook.
Encorporate Videos
Every year, YouTube searches during the tournament skyrocket. Whether it’s trying to find highlights of a game they missed or rewatch a particularly crazy play, viewers are trying crucial keywords into the search bar over and over again. Use this to promote your brand in any way that suits your company’s image. If you’re brand is quirky, you can film your staff members trying to play basketball. Even if you’re a more serious company, you can still make a fan video of your staff supporting your favorite team.
Show Your Team Colors
When the Royals played in the World Series in 2015, many of the business in downtown Kansas City showed their support by changing their logos to incorporate the baseball team and even using blue backlight on their exterior signs. If your area has a team in the tournament this can be a fun way to get involved and be associated with all the hype. Even just having your graphic designer making you a logo that has a basketball creatively placed in it would be quick and clever.
Above all else, March Madness is about sports and fun and that’s what you need to convey with your efforts to be involved in it. This will allow potential customers to find you and existing customers to be delighted by you. Not coincidentally, these are major pieces of following the inbound methodology. To find out more about inbound marketing, read of free eBook The Beginner’s Guide to Inbound Marketing today.
