Twitter Is The Best Platform For Marketing Businesses

Did You Go to Aldi’s Birthday Party?

On Friday night, everyone was partying over on Twitter to celebrate Aldi’s 30th birthday! And when I say everyone, I mean everyone.

This weekend, all the big brands were getting in on the birthday fun with some cheeky business banter. What ensued resulted in some of the best entertainment we’ve witnessed since March! And we saw Tiger King!

It’s only one great example of how Twitter is probably the best social media site for marketing brands. Interacting with other brands is a fun and easy way to advertise yourself.

But there's also another side to marketing on Twitter, that the American fast-food chain, Wendy's, has nailed. 

They've humanised their brand by using Twitter the way their audience does. Very clever marketing that gets people talking abou them.

#Aldi30thBirthdayParty

Aldi’s 30th birthday was almost exclusively celebrated on Twitter.

The platform simplifies B2B and B2C interaction and allows for a unique type of marketing which is seldom seen elsewhere. The celebration was entertaining and comedic. Something that is difficult to get right, but Twitter seems to make easy.

The week of the party, Aldi began to tweet about their birthday. A lot.

Whilst advertising the party, they asked if anybody cared. Tweeting polls that asked people to choose between Aldi’s birthday and their dinner.

This worked for two reasons:

1. Aldi started the fun early! Encouraging fans to join in with the banter that would eventually ensue
2. Aldi created sympathy. It’s unlikely that the other big names would be able to keep up with every competitor’s tweet, so when they see Aldi tweeting #NoOneCares, they feel guilty not to join in with the fun

Aldi fans delivered. Every poll tweeted landed against the big birthday, which is where the banter that we saw on Friday first began.

Sympathy also worked well for Aldi as lots of brands joined in. Sometimes it took a little extra persuading – with Aldi asking Iceland “Why so frosty…?”. But other brands, such as Co-Op, were begging to be invited! The virtual party was clearly not one to be missed!

Eventually, anyone who is anyone was "there" and if you weren’t involved then you weren’t big enough to be. Consequently, lots of brands reached out to Aldi rather than the other way around. This was a major win for Aldi who took over their competitors’ timelines!

Of course, they also supplied free advertising in return but if the brand was really clever, they would take matters into their own hands. Like Boost Juice did. They invited themselves to the party whilst advertising their own birthday offer:  

 But what made this campaign really stand out from the crowd was the entertainment value.

Unlike last week’s blog, it’s impossible to write this one pun-free!

Aldi’s campaign won so many fans by making jokes based on the brands’ identities. You can find some of my favourites, here:

 
















To be successful in business, you need a solid and fun brand identity, as this is what inspires users to interact with you.

Twitter forces creativity upon marketers thanks to their character limit. It prevents businesses from writing long, rambling posts that bore customers and instead forces them to write catchy messages that will stand out from the crowd.

Lots of brands jump on this idea by using the platform in a casual manner as any Twitter user would.

Wendy’s

Twitter helps brands shed the restrictions of corporate and behave like a human being, not as a business. 

Over in America, Wendy’s has perfected their Twitter presence and people have been following their account for years just to witness their witty and sassy replies.

According to Better Marketing, the tone of Wendy’s tweets has been toned down over the years, but that doesn’t mean that they’re not still fun.

Nowadays, Wendy’s focus their tweets on pop culture – showing they’re modern, fun and down with the kids! Whilst this may seem patronising or fake, the marketing tactic is very popular and has people constantly interacting with the brand just to get a reply from them.

Plus, Wendy’s has finally managed to find the right balance between sass and pop culture!

American brands love really love this type of marketing as can be seen with Burger King’s photoshoot:

Everybody loves a bit of friendly rivalry and, as with Aldi’s campaign, these tweets offer advertising to both brands. All publicity is good publicity, am I right?

Wendy’s have really nailed the social media buzz. The numbers speak for themselves.

They even have a Twitch account where they stream gameplay…! But that’s for another blog…

The campaigns are successful because people like to see brands having fun! It shows that they don’t take themselves too seriously. Something that is important for fast food chains to appeal to their demographic.

Takeaway

So, what’s the takeaway?

Both the brands that we’ve looked at have made themselves seem more human to encourage more B2B and B2C interaction. While other brands focus on copywriting and best marketing practice, these brands show the importance of knowing your demographic. The importance of learning how they talk/interact/use platforms.

Marketing techniques can only do so much. You have to keep up with trends in order to survive and thrive.

For example, everyone loves the human touches, but they appreciate them now more than ever! In a time when the only way to connect with others is online – people are desperate for every ounce of human interaction they can get!

Twitter is an amazing platform to practice humanising your brand.

The casual style, character limit and other features (such as gifs, polls and emojis) allows you to connect in a new and exciting way.

They also make it super easy to respond to customers, which is why so many use the platform to get in touch with brands. This is valuable to businesses too because the bad reviews are hidden under the “Tweets & replies” tab on each profile. No star ratings for the world to see!

To summarise, use Twitter more! 

Although... another great platform, that you definitely don't want to sleep on, is TikTok! All the cool brands are over there, too!

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