The Small Business Guide To Digital Marketing: Part One vol. 2 - Fast Twitch Marketing

 Instagram: Fast Twitch Marketing 

James Hanway of After August Co

When I first logged into Facebook a cruise ship with my grandparents the summer before college I thought it was the hippest and most unique tech experience I'd ever had. Until that moment I had only experienced AIM (AOL Instant Messenger for anyone younger than 30) and the thought of an entire social network only for college kids (which at that moment I still had technically had never been to college) was just the coolest. This was 2005 - a lot has changed since then. Now in 2020 the era of 'fast twitch' marketing is in full swing, and with it has come an entirely new generation of advertising executives. They're called Influencers - and they are a force to be reckoned with. 

Scrolling through the Instagram feed requires more and more finesse to decipher what posts are paid ads and which are run by an influencer - and honestly what the actual difference between the two is. A paid ad typically is created through the platform itself - and is run through the feed to the target audience at the platform's discretion. Paid ads are generally more effective at reach or impressions (as we touched on in Part One of SBGDM) but are not designed for personal interaction. Influencer marketing users individual user accounts to 'boost engagement' by presenting a 'real world advocate' and supporter of the brand - who basically shows how the brand is a part of their 'real' life. I used quotations here because more and more influencers are being used by brands to push their products because of their reach or follower base and not their real world experience. The immediate benefit is that the people which follow the influencers generally don't care about their real world experience and will purchase what they are supporting simply because they are supporting it. Just like in the 'old days' when movie stars and sports legends would be seen in a commercial drinking a branded soft drink or driving a particular car - except now people are famous for being famous and not for a separate more recognizable skill. 

Now that I have digressed sufficiently enough for the evening; lets take a look at what we mean by fast twitch marketing and how to employ it towards making your small business more successful. 

When I say fast twitch marketing, I am comparing modern social media marketing to the grouping of muscle fibers in the human body which 'fatigue faster but are used in powerful bursts of movements'. This is important because without a burst of attention in the opening 24-48 hours of a post's existence, the post will fatigue and fall out of the peak of viewers. To become noticed on the 'Explore' page, a post has to have significant interaction - which then will enable it to be noticed by those users outside the initial reach of the creator. 

As Instagram users scroll through their main feed, it is only the posts which stand out or are particularly relevant which create true engagement. Engagement refers to comments, liking posts, or a click through (clicking through to the brand's website after seeing the post). Engagement is the mark of success on social media. The very best way for a post to expand its reach to the broadest audience possible is to entice users enough to comment and share the post with others. This is where influencers come in. Influencers are not bots, and they are not an algorithm. They are human people who have painstakingly accrued tens of thousands, to millions of followers (that was sarcastic - painstakingly is highly relative) and who generally have a much more captive audience than that of broad reaching advertisements. The human element in social media is the game changer. 

With a potential reach from an influencer a brand can garner support from a much larger target market than they may currently have given geographic limitations or limitations which arise in the vertical market (i.e. retail, law, auto, healthcare etc). The scope of a network of influencers has the potential to share a message with an engaged population that stretches across the globe. So people may laugh at those who call themselves influencers, but the fact remains that their title is not off base. 

So how does a small business take advantage of such a potentially endless stream of social media engagement? The answer is not straightforward. In my experience the only way to garner such support without paying for it outright is by good-ol-fashioned word of mouth. Our highest levels of exposure on Instagram have come from a positive customer experience which translated to our products being very generously shared on social media. We did not know that the customer had almost 100,000 followers. We treated them with respect and did our best to accommodate their needs, and they in turn shared their experience online. This is what we call luck in the business world. The lesson we have learned (besides treat everyone equally not just because its the right thing to do but because you never know how many followers they have on Instagram) is that it may sometimes be a bit tacky to ask for customers to share their experiences on social media, but if you find the right client who you don't think would be offended, don't be afraid to ask for a little harmless social media plug. You truly never know who's watching their Instagram story, and how much business each post might generate!

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