Marie Alonso
Your social media could be faster – way faster. If you are enjoying the comic book superhero tsunami hitting TV and theaters, you know the freshman CW mega-hit The Flash broke records in its massively successful first season. More viewers than any other CW show to date and more viewers in its premiere episode than any other CW show – 6.8 million.
In fairness, The Flash was launched brilliantly by the three-season and counting CW hit ARROW, and let’s not forget the durability and ratings reliability of ‘The Boys’ at CW’s longtime audience favorite and platform building Supernatural. Still, The Flash is a hero show above many hero shows and movies gaining audience energy, devotion and dollars today.
Why? The Flash is a show with a formula – one that you can apply to your social media campaigns to uncover new content publishing and client engagement powers for your own branding and marketing missions. The formula behind the CW smash hit is essentially one that relies on four key components – cool powers, leading-edge technology, awesome friends … and vision.
While you may not have a cool costume (don’t we all want one) or the ability to reach time-smashing speed and run up the side of skyscrapers in a matter of seconds, you do have the ability to be a voice for your industry, a leader in your market – and a heroic social media influencer with cool tricks, technologies and clever branding all your own!
4 Reasons Your Social Media Needs THE FLASH Formula
Recognize Your Powers: In The Flash, the young, unassuming, somewhat awkward but always adorable Barry Allen, son of Henry and the late Nora Allen, is a forensic scientist. He’s also, by way of a S.T.A.R. Labs particle accelerator explosion, The Flash. As Barry recognizes his new abilities, he begins to embrace, develop and expand his awesome levels of phenomenal, beyond human speed. When it comes to your social media commitment and creativity – be like Barry. Be inquisitive. Be optimistic. Embrace change. Ask questions. Seek mentors – just not evil ones. Explore what others in your market or industry are doing to be social media super heroes and emulate, expand and accelerate what works best. By recognizing what social media can do for your personal, business and event branding, marketing, lead generation and thought leadership, you are setting the stage to flash forward to new opportunities with Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, Pinterest and more! Recognize the potential in embracing social media and all it will allow you to do.
Optimize Your Tech: The Flash runs fast. We get that – and it’s cool. However, he needs superhero threads to do it in style! With a little brilliance from his friends at S.T.A.R. Labs, The Flash goes from being a kid that can run fast and burn through sneakers to a slick speedster who can streak around Central City while slickly concealing his identity and easily communicating with his S.T.A.R. Labs team – not to mention the array of life-preserving tools built into the suit to protect The Flash from those nasty, wayward metahumans. When it comes to your social media campaigns – optimize social technology to power your marketing and branding performance. Research the latest social publishing tools and, if your social marketing goals are a bit bigger, explore how Customer Relationship Management (CRM) solutions can power you to power your social media as not only a tool for marketing, but also as a tool built for sales pipelines, email marketing campaigns and lead generation strategies.
Recognize Your Friends: The Flash is a comic book show with heart – friends, family, mentors. It is a show just as much devoted to relationship dynamics as it is to how fast Barry can run while The Flash. Your social media performance – across all key social platforms most appropriate for your marketing, branding, lead generation and general market outreach – relies on friends, brand loyalists and key industry contacts. Share your social publishing with your friends, including industry colleagues, loyal customers and industry bloggers, journalists and Twitter gods. Follow. Share. Retweet. Be a supportive, timely and leading voice across your social media platforms – and welcome and support the voices of others who share your interests, expertise, abilities and goals. What would CW’s version of The Flash be without his friendships with S.T.A.R Labs Dr. Caitlin Snow and Cisco Ramon – not to mention the parade of DC Comics legends including ARROW, Firestorm, ATOM and more populating the CW’s growing DC world? The Flash recognizes he is better – stronger, faster – with a little help from his friends. Take this approach to your social media performance – leverage existing and new relationships, create opportunities to cross-promote content drives and unique marketing campaigns and create strategies to design and share popular content.
Embrace Your Greater Vision: What is a hero? What motivates a hero? While heroes – in comic books and real life – are made up of many different experiences, goals and attributes, there is usually a commonality that streaks across all levels of heroism. Vision. A vision of what is right. A vision of what is justice. A vision of change – for the better. For The Flash, the drive to protect his family and friends – as well as his home of Central City – is paramount. The Flash – while young in the CW’s interpretation – demonstrates a growing maturity for his role in his city…and the world. He wants to be more – to do more. The Flash is ready to take on new challenges and opportunities. Your social media is too! Create a vision for your social media – one that fits your immediate goals today, and one that reflects where your maturing social media platforms will be tomorrow. Do you want to build brand loyalists? Do you want to leverage your social media to drive visitors to your website and power organize SEO content campaigns. Do you want your social content to be relevant – even inspirational? Wherever you want your social media to go, your vision and goals will help you get there. While you may not speed there as fast as The Flash – you will get there – one creative tweet, timely post and brilliant share at a time.
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