Whenever there is a collective human experience (an earthquake in New York, for example), social media pops off. It’s one of the only times where social media is actually enjoyable and you realize how funny humans are.
While most of those tweets come from personal accounts, it’s always fun when brands get involved. Since the dawn of time (2015) when brand accounts having personality became a trend, we’ve seen everyone from Wendy’s to Ulta jump in on the action.
However, have you ever thought about what it takes for a tweet or Instagram post unrelated to a company’s core mission to come to fruition? Speaking from experience, it takes a lot of blood, sweat and tears. It is a chore, and a job within itself to come up with a creative idea that toes the line just enough to be funny coming from a brand but is acceptable enough to The Powers That Be (and your legal team) to be safe.
Nowadays with social media moving at the speed of light, it’s even harder to jump on trends when you have red tape to cross but there’s always a work around which could be a different post for another day.
When it comes to big events or ‘social holiday’s like International Best Friend’s Day, brands can plan in advance, especially when it directly relates to their product or service. That takes a ton of the pressure off everyone involved.
That’s probably exactly what happened yesterday with the Eclipse…
The NASA Moon Twitter account (I can’t believe the moon has a Twitter account) showed a screenshot of them ‘blocking’ NASA’s Sun Twitter account. It is the chef’s kiss of brand account moments, and probably didn’t take much convincing since the Eclipse is what NASA accounts were made for.
It made me giddy for everyone involved in putting this together because it is such a perfect example of what a good viral social media moment is made of; relevancy in both time and area of expertise and also being hilarious.
They planned for the moment and executed it beautifully, and it was a hit.
*PS: If you subscribe to my Substack, you probably noticed a difference in the name and vibe of the newsletter. I’m pivoting to GILTY PLEASURES to get out of a pop culture corner and be able discuss almost anything under the umbrella of a ‘guilty pleasure’.
Gilty Pleasures is a play on words since ‘gilt’ can mean golden, or luxurious and I don’t actually believe in guilty pleasures. If something brings you joy, it’s not guilty (unless it’s illegal or immoral). You can expect posts about the beauty industry, social media, pop culture, or life in general. I want this to space to be different than my blog, Royally Pink, which is more review focused.
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