I'm willing to bet that none of my friends on any social media outlet will win the NY Mega Millions Lottery tonight. I'd go so far as to bet that I would shave my head, if one of them would win.
All week long friends and fans of mine have been posting, pinning, tweeting, blogging, and tagging all kinds of random stuff as part of their Mega Millions winning game plan. Pin boards have been inundated with what they would buy, pictures of where they would go on vacation, and all the needy children in 3rd world countries they would save. I have seen tweets to friends about lucky numbers and Facebook groups of coworkers who have joined forces and plan to split the winnings with each other; it doesn't end here. Every type of media is talking about what the best ways are to spend the money-from television to print and radio-it has been screamed from every rooftop in New York State.
I have a feeling tonight's lotto number broadcast will have just as many people watching the boob-tube as there were watching the Giants dominate in the Super Bowl. I thought about all those people, staring hopefully at the Television screen, palms sweating with their ticket in hand, and then it hit me:
A lot of us in Social Media Marketing world have missed a huge opportunity. We should have been posting ads, tweeting, and attempting to share info to the million or so people in New York State who believe they will be the one to win it all tonight, and we should have done it in full force. Our marketing efforts should have started conversations on what product of yours they would buy, or what color, if they would use your product or not, would they buy one for every one of their friends? Would they buy one for their mom? Their kindergarten teacher? Or perhaps for their dog, just because they would be that filthy rich? I can't speak for all firms and individuals out their using social media as a marketing tool, but none of these efforts came across on any of my feeds, or boards this week.
I think we really missed the boat on this one; people have been dreaming big all week: making lists of what they would invest in to change their lives. Your product should have been the first thing shared, with a suggestion to buy it, or a promo code. In turn I'd like to point out that the NY Lottery should have been pushing their social media outlets as well. This has been the most exciting Lotto event in quite some time; it would have been great for them to grow their fan base digitally, and remind people to purchase their ticket before tonight's drawing.
Now that I've mentioned it, I'm sure the next time a Lotto phenomenon happens everyone will already be wise to this awesome opportunity. Hopefully the consumer won't realize what's going on and we can all get a bunch of fans who are excited to spend their Monopoly money and make a ton of impulse buys. Is that considered taking advantage of people, or is it just another genius marketing opportunity that I vomited into the digital stream? Ugh XB way to give away the farm again....
'Cause we are living in a digital world and I'm a social media girl XB
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Veronica Guzik prides herself on being an Internet marketing guru at fishbat, a digital marketing firm.