Using Social Media to Enchant Your Customers

…Even if It Means Steering Them to the Competition

That’s the premise @MattSingley from #Caesar’s shared with attendees at a recent social media conference I attended a while back. He was speaking about his team’s social media strategy for the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in their main marketplace– Las Vegas.

Matt started out by noting that Facebook unsubscribes peak within the first hour after you make a post. This makes it imperative that when you post to your social media channels you make sure you have something relevant and interesting to say that engages your audience. You need to stand out from your competition by finding your own niche.

Matt’s team’s differentiator was their depth of knowledge about what was happening in Vegas year ’round. And this turned itself into a powerful way to connect with potential customers during CES.

Matt’s social media team was on the lookout for folks talking about Caesar’s and their properties, but they also had a task force looking for folks talking about CES. As you might expect, folks used social media channels to get recommendations for places to eat, where the best parties were, and where they could meet up with other CES attendees to unwind.

The team took a concierge approach to interacting with those folks. They gave info on places that could be a good fit and cool happenings around town—including those happening at their competitors’ properties. The idea is that by being seen as in the know of what’s cool and happening around Vegas, it builds their brand’s prestige and the idea that Caesar’s has its finger on the pulse of Vegas.

The amount of interaction and buzz generated about Caesar’s during this concentrated effort (Note: Matt had a larger than normal staff manning the social media channels around the clock for CES to capitalize on the opportunity) has led Matt to try the same approach for other large-scale events that affect cities within their markets.

I came away from this presentation with a few key takeaways:

1. To engage your customers on social media, you need to know where they are and what they are talking about.
2. Next, find a way to add actual value — not just self-promotion– to those conversations, to build those relationships.
3. Don’t be afraid to try something a little bit out of your comfort zone.