Have you ever noticed how often you stop to watch an ad on a giant billboard or your Instagram reels? Rarely, right? Unless the ad truly captivates your emotions and senses. Today, viewers have a short attention span and crave new and exciting content. Guerrilla marketing is a bold, loud, unconventional approach that leverages creativity and thrives on thinking outside the box. This strategy aims for maximum impact with minimal effort, generating buzz around the product or service and letting word of mouth work its wonder.
Understanding Guerilla Marketing and the Impact of Social Media
The competitive world demands a striking content and strategic approach when it comes to marketing. Guerilla marketing is developing strategies that can exploit the viral nature of online platforms, creating buzz through unexpected and trending topics with low-cost campaigns. There are many types of guerilla marketing tactics, but this article will focus on viral or buzz marketing through social media. Businesses can harness social media engagements such as comments, shares, and likes from active instagram users or already established followers to optimize their marketing strategy.
Thinking Outside the Box: Viral Marketing
1. Create Viral Challenges
The most potent guerrilla marketing tactics on social media are creating and promoting viral challenges. These challenges encourage user participation and can quickly spread across platforms, generating organic reach and engagement.
Example: The Ice Bucket Challenge for ALS awareness is a prime example of a viral challenge that took social media by storm.
How to implement:
- Develop a simple, fun, and shareable challenge related to your brand or cause
- Create a unique hashtag for the challenge
- Kick off the challenge with influencers or brand ambassadors
- Encourage participants to nominate others
2. Leverage Trends
Leverage ongoing trends and incorporate your brand publicity or promotion cleverly and relevantly.
Example: Oreo’s famous “You can still dunk in the dark” tweet curated during the 2013 Super Bowl blackout.
How to implement:
- Monitor trending topics and hashtags
- Quickly create content that ties your brand to the trend in a witty or meaningful way
- Ensure your content adds value
- Be mindful of sensitive topics and avoid controversy
3. Utilize Different Platforms
Don’t get stuck on a single platform. Promote your content with cross-promotion and leverage every social media platform.
How to implement:
- Identify platforms where your competitors are absent
- Adapt your content strategy to fit the platform’s style and audience
- Experiment with different content formats (e.g., short-form videos, memes, or stories)
- Cross-promote your presence on these new platforms through your established channels
4. Harmless Controversies
Controversies are short-lived but have high impacts that catch the attention of onlookers. Generate a buzz by creating a harmless, fake controversy or debate around your brand. This tactic can spark discussions and increase brand visibility.
How to implement:
- Choose a lighthearted, brand-relevant topic that can spark debate
- Present both sides of the argument in your content
- Encourage followers to weigh in and share their opinions
- Reveal the playful nature of the controversy once it gains traction
5. Leverage UGC
Encourage your audience to create content that features your product or brand, then showcase this content on your social media channels.
How to implement:
- Create a branded hashtag for UGC submissions
- Offer incentives for the best submissions (e.g., feature on your page, prizes)
- Regularly share and credit UGC across your social media platforms
- Incorporate UGC into your marketing campaigns and product pages
6. Partner with Influencers
Instead of pursuing high-profile influencers, focus on partnering with micro-influencers with highly engaged niche audiences.
How to implement:
- Identify micro-influencers in your industry or target market
- Develop authentic relationships with these influencers
- Create collaborative content or offer exclusive promotions
- Track and measure the impact of these partnerships
7. Implement Guerrilla Techniques
Do something out of the blue, make changes that are controversial and entertaining, like:
- Allow an influencer, employee, or customer to take over your social media accounts daily, providing a fresh perspective and content.
- Create distinctive packaging or unboxing experiences that prompt customers to share their excitement on social media.
- Create digital or real-world scavenger hunts that engage your audience and encourage exploration of your brand or products.
- Create unexpected, attention-grabbing events in public spaces or online platforms to generate buzz and social media sharing.
8. Create Interactive Content
Create compelling and interactive content that motivates user engagement and compels your audience to share it.
Example: Netflix’s Bandersnatch, an interactive film where viewers make choices that affect the storyline.
How to implement:
- Create polls, quizzes, or choose-your-own-adventure-style stories
- Use platform-specific features like Instagram’s polling stickers or Twitter’s polls
- Tie the interactive content to your brand or products in a subtle way
- Share results or insights gained from the interactive content
9. Time- Limited Offers
Use the urgency nature of stories on platforms like Instagram, Facebook, and Snapchat to create a sense of urgency and exclusivity.
How to implement:
- Create time-sensitive offers or behind-the-scenes content
- Use interactive features like polls or questions to boost engagement
- Tease upcoming products or events through a series of stories
- Save and repurpose the best ephemeral content as highlights
Revolutionizing Marketing
Employing guerrilla marketing strategies on social media helps brands cut through the noise and engage with their target consumers in more profound and impactful manners. Through passion, uniqueness, and the ability to calculate risk, brands can reach a huge audience that has the potential to be engaged through the creation of quality content.
To sum up, guerrilla marketing on social media is all about knowing your audience and brand, adhering to your brand’s values, and being open to innovation. Some strategies may prove effective for a brand but may not apply to others; therefore, it is advisable to experiment with different strategies and adjust accordingly.
Conclusion
Successful guerrilla marketing campaigns often tap into emotions, encourage participation, and provide value to the audience beyond just promoting a product or service. Keep updated with new features and trends, and don’t hesitate to be the first to test new platforms or technologies. When creativity, authenticity, and even some courage is added to the mix, your brand can leverage guerrilla marketing to cut through the noise of social media.
