If you’re a pop up, you need to mobilise supporters and customers quickly, keep them talking and grow your reputation quickly while you’re open. Social media channels are perfect for that, and it’s no coincidence that the boom in pop ups has happened at the same time as a rapid growth in the number of people using social media services.
Mix it up with social media
All marketing is about creating the right mix of different ingredients to make sure that your message reaches the broadest range of customers or users. Marketing is also about reaching out to the people who may become customers or users in the future.
Social media sites offer a wide range of different tools, and they can create a variety of types of content. The trick is to use them to create a balanced, coherent and clear message. You need to experiment at first, but then concentrate on the sites that best match your business and its aims.
Tweeting on Twitter
Twitter is powerful because it’s really very simple. You can sign up and then create a short profile and a page for all your tweets (short messages). Twitter allows you to post short messages of 140 characters, which other people can read. Other people can follow you to read all your updates, and you can follow them to read their tweets, too.
For a small website, Twitter has generated an amazing number of newspaper headlines. This suggests that Twitter isn’t just a useful tool for reaching customers, but you can also use it to get your story to the media.
Get customers to "like" your pop up on Facebook
Facebook is the biggest of the social networks, with an estimated 900 million users around the world.
The one way content can be taken outside of Facebook is by creating a Like box. You can easily embed this feature into your website, so that all of your online communications join up. Like the widgets Twitter offers, this box can be created simply on the Facebook website without lots of technical skill and then embedded in your website.
Upload pictures to Flickr
Unlike the complexity of Facebook, Flickr does one thing: enable people to upload their photos, sort them into sets and allow other people to view them. You can also upload video, but this function isn’t used as much.
Flickr users can create Groups – for example, around a theme, style or place (such as your pop up). Other users can join a Group and add their photos to it. You can also add comments on other people’s photos and mark pictures as Favourites.
For a pop up, Flickr is useful in two ways:
You can add your own photographs and then embed them in your pop up’s website.
You can create a Group and invite people visiting your pop up to add their photographs.
Work with video on YouTube
YouTube is the venue for video. You don’t need to set up a YouTube account to see other people’s videos, but you do need one to upload content onto the website.
YouTube is a good way to show off your pop up and reach a wider audience – including people around the world who won’t be able to make it to your pop up while it’s open. You can use YouTube to offer extra behind-the-scenes insights and interviews with key partners or even just customers, building on your brand.
You can also use YouTube to create a legacy, meaning your pop up lives on after it’s closed.
Add video with Vimeo
Vimeo is like YouTube’s little brother. It’s a slightly more refined version of the service, with some advantages in terms of the technical quality of videos.
Just like YouTube, Vimeo is a good way to show off your pop up and reach a wider audience – including people who won’t be able to make it to your pop up while it’s open. If you add extra behind-the-scenes insights and interviews, Vimeo’s active community can discuss them. And Vimeo, as with YouTube, means your pop up lives on after it’s closed.
Grow up with LinkedIn
The Facebook for grown-ups is how LinkedIn is often seen. It’s a useful site for making professional connections and for finding ways to connect with other people in business.
With LinkedIn, you can create only one profile, and it must be personal; you don’t create separate pages for personal and business, for example.
LinkedIn policy is that you’re supposed to know those people you contact. However, it’s hard to match that with the goal of building a network of people who share common interests and experiences. Be careful about approaching total strangers as doing so can result in your being removed from the LinkedIn site.
Manage social media for your pop up
Using social media delivers massive benefits, but it’s not free and easy. You have to invest time, and you need to make a commitment to update the sites you use regularly.
The biggest commitment is to managing the various channels you choose to use. You need to see, track and respond to any comments you receive. You can’t use all your time just managing those accounts, so you need to make sure that you have the biggest impact with the smallest investment of time.
And if you’re working with partners, you need to make sure that you all communicate, across all the channels available, to build your pop up’s brand.
Create messages and campaigns
To be really effective, you want other people using social media to pick up your message. You want to spread your message across as many channels as possible, tailoring it to the tone and style they use – as well as the medium.
A campaign that really takes off in this way goes viral, which means that it keeps spreading as lots of users share, repost and pass on the content – and that’s the Holy Grail of social media.
Deal with social media problems
You’ve probably heard about brands getting into trouble when they get social media wrong or they have a problem and social media amplifies it.
If your pop up is good, well-planned and carried out carefully, you’re unlikely to make major mistakes. And if you’ve built good relationships with your fans and followers, they’re unlikely to turn on you if a problem occurs. In fact, you may find that they turn into keen supporters, and calm down a situation without your intervention.
However, if you do run into problems:
Be nice.
Keep all your communication public.
Be honest with people.
Apologise if you’ve made a mistake.