As discussed in class, sometimes the easiest way to create a viral, lasting social media campaign is by identifying consumer trends and capitalizing on them. Jell-O, everyone’s childhood friend, has done just that. Through their analysis of trending hashtags on twitter they discovered that “#FML” was one of the most commonly used. The hashtag generally followed either an embarrassing or non-ideal moment so Jell-O decided to try and turn this negative term into a positive one by switching the first word from “F@&$” to “Fun.”

Is this creative enough to actually have an impact? That was surely one of the questions Jell-O’s social media team considered prior to the launch of the campaign. As their consumer base is largely families, one could see how this play on a negative term could potentially offend this key demographic. Unfortunately, the campaign did just that… and much more. A large part of their campaign revolved around replying to random users who used the #FML hashtag. The majority of these users were not following twitter and were confused when Jell-O tried to cheer them up by offering a free Jell-O coupon through a tweeted reply. Jell-O ended up annoying more consumers than they pleased and received much backlash in form of tweets that criticized their social media skills and the quality of their product.

The reason I am posting about this campaign is because, in my opinion, it’s hard to identify a “right way” to create a social media campaign. Some would argue that Jell-O followed all of the right steps: They found a trending topic, developed a creative campaign around it and actively engaged with consumers. This is where I feel they went wrong:

1. Know your demographic!: I’ve spoken about this in past posts and here it is again. Jell-O spent their time talking to people who weren’t necessarily their consumers. This created backlash and shows that the social media team didn’t consider who they actually wanted to target with this campaign.

2. Know your material: Jell-O saw an opportunity and went for it. Unfortunately, they failed to recognize that the term they were trying to flip is vulgar in nature and by trying to make it positive, all they did was anger those who used it in the first place.

3. Testing 1,2,3: We are constantly taught to test our campaigns before implementation. This step was definitely missed while developing this campaign as the campaign was no where near as popular as they had expected.

Creating an effective social media campaign really comes down to knowing your audience and doing the research necessary to properly implement the plan. Although there are definitely steps to take, it is important to understand that each campaign is different and requires a good amount of planning for it to be a success!

Site Referenced: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/24/jello-fun-my-life-twitter_n_3332230.html